What Are Keywords? How to Use Them for SEO

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Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into search engines to find what they’re looking for. For example, if you were looking to buy a new jacket, you might type something like “mens leather jacket” into Google. Even though that phrase consists of more than one word, it’s still a keyword. Of course, nobody outside of the SEO industry tends to use this terminology. Most people would call them Google searches or queries. Just know that keywords are synonymous with both of these things. In this guide, you’ll learn: Why keywords are important How to show up in Google for keywords How to find keywords How to choose keywords How to optimize for keywords What long-tail keywords are

How to appear in Google for keywords

Keywords are important because your website can show up when people type them into search engines. Showing up at the top of Google for a relevant keyword might send lots of traffic your way, but how do you do that? There are two ways. PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Pay-per-click (PPC)

PPC is where you pay Google to show your web page in the results for specific keywords. For example, if you sell email marketing software, you could bid on that term and appear at the top of Google’s search results when people search for it. This is known as PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising. Google has a platform where you can choose keywords to bid on. Google then displays your ad in the search results. Every time someone clicks that ad and lands on your website, Google charges you money. You can tell paid results apart from organic (non-paid) results because they’re marked as ads.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the process of optimizing your web pages to rank in Google’s organic results. And Google’s job is to rank the best, most relevant results for every search query. If Google deems your page the “best” result for the right terms, you’ll get a consistent stream of ‘free’ visits to your website. For example, the Ahrefs blog gets an estimated 383,000 organic visits from Google every month.

How to find keywords

Most people have some idea of the keywords they want to rank for in Google. But it’s impossible to know everything people search for. That’s why it pays to do some research to find more keyword ideas. There are many ways to do this, but the easiest method is to use a keyword research tool. Most of these tools work in the same way. You enter a few broad keywords related to your industry called seed keywords, and the tool kicks back some related keyword ideas. For example, say that you sell headphones online. Your seed keywords might be “headphones,” “earbuds,” “earphones,” and “beats.”