The keyword is the Translation into Spanish of the English word “keyword”, which in programming is defined as a term responsible for promoting the exchange of information between web pages and users on the Internet.If you got this far in this article, I’m sure you want to understand what those such keywords are, right?
When we start studying what is SEO (search engine optimization) one of the most talked-about points is about keywords, their choice of them, and the real importance of those terms that dictate optimizations.
Without further ado, you’ll now learn – once and for all – what that means. Let’s go!
What are keywords?
Keywords are the main instrument of research. They are terms composed of one or more words. They are how a user writes his doubts in the search engines to get answers and solve his problems.
As much as the term itself is self-explanatory, it costs nothing to explain in detail what they are and what they mean. In the end, that was the doubt that brought you here!
Keywords are the main search instruments.
Think that all searches originate from a word used to present this problem to the search engine. Keywords can be defined as the terms used by users to get answers and solve their problems.
If you are a marketing professional, keywords are the terms we use to give an address when creating our pages, blog posts, and sites.
That is, when defining a keyword for a certain page, you will be passing the message to Google, for example, that your content is about the subject of that specific term.
If all goes well and you make the right choice, your content will be displayed exactly to the person who searched for that keyword.
In practice, here’s how it works:
Keywords are used by users (as you can see the word in the Google search box) and are also used by sites that want to be entered that have the “answers” of that search.
Why are keywords so important to your business?
It is no coincidence that they are keywords. These are the ones that, when they fit perfectly, open the doors to your content towards the world of the internet. The truth is that a company that wants to survive the digital transformation can not stop looking at them in detail.
For your business, it means the difference between being found, read, shared, and liked or simply not being entered due to ignorance or complete ignorance.
And that’s exactly why keywords are tools that help (and a lot!) content marketing.
When it comes to developing your investment plan, one of the main objectives of your company is to increase leads, customers, and, consequently, your sales.
On the internet, your content will face greater competition than in your area of action, no matter how crowded it may be.
In Internet search engines, the borders are smaller and the results in each research, millions and millions of possibilities are at the fingertips of the public.
That means it’s not enough to pick a handful of keywords and splash them in the middle of posts.
Thinking needs to be more strategic and careful about them to make your business stand out. So, start by asking yourself why the keywords need to be used.
The answer should come quickly and obviously in your mind: “because I need to help my audience find myself on the internet.”
Only the answer can’t stop there.
You have a conversion funnel with defined stages, which means that there are different types of audiences with different types of questions.
Whoever started the purchase process, still wants to know about the basic items referring to the universe in which your product or service is inserted.
Whoever is in the middle of the funnel, is probably researching several brands to decide what the benefits of one over the other are.
And who is at the bottom, you are almost deciding on the purchase and need the assurance that you are making the right decision when choosing your company to close the deal.
And each of those groups has a more specific group of keywords that they choose to type into search mechanisms.
Therefore, your company needs to recognize them to make the best use of them when producing each material.
Do you know why?
For these, they will be the first contact between the brand and the public and will probably decide if that visitor will close the window and go ahead in the search results or if they will continue on your site.
Each keyword should be considered as a question that needs to be clarified objectively, without half words.
And the role of your company’s content is to focus on offering them, so that they love your ability to answer questions and, from them, go on to build a relationship of trust with your company.
That is: unlock the locks from the keywords, inform and transform visitors into potential customers.
What do negative keywords mean?
Negative keywords are those that inform Google – in an AdWords campaign or ad group – what search terms you don’t want to attract your business with.
For example: selling sporting goods produced only in Brazil.
Then, you can include among your negative keywords, the term “imported”, so that your ads are not displayed from searches that contain that word.
You may wonder what the reason for this is. Certainly, it helps you invest with more quality, that is, you increase the opportunity for return.
How? From the moment you know that your target audience won’t find what they want when entering your ad, you stop paying for clicks on your ad that will hardly result in the generation of a lead, or even in the closing of a sale.
That means, in practice, bringing in more customers interested in your product or service, rather than curious visitors who will click(it’s worth remembering that clicking on the ad generates a charge from Google), spending a few seconds scanning the content of the page, not finding what you’re looking for, and returning to the results page.
How to find keywords?
Let’s be a little malicious: Google won’t matter if you have some unnecessary paid clicks on your page. In the end, a good portion of their income from them comes from that.
So, it is necessary to think about how you will use the tools that Google itself offers in your favor.
If you’ve already searched, you’ll know that AdWords has a real arsenal in its favor to get the most value from every click. There are specific tools, Keyword Planner (we will talk about it later), which can be of great value when it comes to finding negative keywords.
To explain how it works, I will try to exemplify it simply and directly.
If you have a company that sells umbrellas, put that word in the Keyword Ideas tab and click on the search.
In the list of results, you will see several search terms related to the word with some basic information. In that list, you will mark all the ideas that you do not talk about in your universe.
For example, it could be “umbrella designs,” “umbrellas, new spelling,” and “custom umbrellas.”
From the moment you recognize the search elements that do not speak about your branch of action, be ready! The answer has already been given.
You will be able to create your list of negative keywords by including exactly those selected terms – in the example: “design”, “spelling” and “custom”.
Another way to make an optimal selection of negative keywords (and also to find positive ones for your repertoire!) is to put yourself in the user’s place and use your keyword list.
Returning to the example of the umbrella as your product.
Look for that term and other related terms, which would be used in the production of content on your page, such as “imported umbrellas” or “umbrellas”.
You will probably see, in the first pages, links to things that have nothing to do with that business, being able to even the name of a book, the lyrics of a song, etc.
In this way, you will be able to stay more and more at the end of the universe of words that should be in your content, helping your customers to reach you with greater ease and without wasting time entering links that little – or nothing – have to do with what they want and need.
How to define the keywords for your content?
Once you have a list of “seed” keywords, which we talked about in the previous point, it’s time to include more data in your analysis.
To define the keywords that will bring maximum results for your company, you need to consider a few other factors. See below some of them:
I am certain that when you are going to produce content for the blog you created, you have in mind that the material should answer the doubts and questions of who is reading the content, right?
For your content to be considered useful and valuable for those who are looking for that specific keyword, you should always think about yourself.
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Definition of the objective of the strategy
This is a piece of very important information for the moment of discovering the definition of the best keywords for your business.
The objective that is defined for your strategy, should be taken as a guide for all the attitudes that are taken to achieve it.
That is, if your company has the objective of increasing the number of sales of your products, for example, it is possible to direct the search for keywords for the terms that drive purchases.
It must be invested, then, in terms that contain “buy”, “review”, “the advantages” of the product, and other similar ones. Thus, it is possible to lead the public to purchase through the texts produced for the blog.
Competitor research
This is another very interesting way to make the definition of the keywords that should be used for your business.
If you have large competitors who also invest in a content marketing strategy, it will certainly be interesting to analyze how they are treating issues related to products and services in front of the public.
Another interesting tip is to search for big players in the market, even if they are not direct competition.
Probably, these companies will have interesting approaches how to deal with the production of content, either with innovative language or producing complete pieces, which solve all the doubts of the public.
Competitor research can be efficient both in uncovering what is not being done to attack you as an opportunity, as well as a way to identify the strengths of the competition, gathering efforts to overcome those points.
In case you have a tool like SEMrush that allows that analysis in a much clearer and simpler way, an optimal way to identify what your competition is doing, is to monitor the organic results in the search engine, as well as be attentive to their social networks and newsletter.
How to search for keywords for Topic Clusters?
The dream of most companies is to reach the first page of the results with the main keyword of their market.
For example, an advertising agency would surely like to be at the top of the search engine with the keyword “advertising”. But the term “advertising” is too generic and highly contested, so without a satellite strategy, it can be almost impossible to achieve it.
What are Topic Clusters?
The strategy of Topic Clusters or satellite content is based on creating content related to the main topic and linking them to it through the use of link building, thus strengthening its authority before Google.
To create this content, it is necessary to find what topics are relevant and how they are searched for by the public.
In the case of our example, we could use keywords such as “abusive advertising”, “harmful advertising”, “advertising planning”, “how an advertising agency works”, etc.
They will be the Topic Clusters or satellite content, which will revolve around the pillar content (“advertising”).
The contents will tell Google that the company is an expert in the subject, and not that it only has complete content about it. In the end, this will yield relevance and good positions.
What tools are used to find keywords?
You can use tools like SEMrush to search for your main keyword and, from it, find related terms with high search volume.
Another way to identify them is by analyzing your competitors’ content and looking at what topics they’re addressing, so you can create even more comprehensive content.
To do this, make sure you know well who are the references of your niche and other similar sectors.
Remember that you should not necessarily look at your direct competitors, from your own country, you can also accompany blogs and sites from other countries, which can yield you even newer topics that have not yet reached the market of your region.
There are dozens of tools aimed at the objective of finding relevant keywords, but the main ones you will find on a day-to-day basis are:
Google Trends
In Google Trends you can check the performance history of words in a given time, in addition to real-time search trends constantly being updated.
Google Keyword Planner
Google’s “keyword planner” is ideal for creating optimized campaigns in Google AdWords.
This tool allows you to make diagnoses of your strategy, identify what is working or not, to correct or maintain. Data can be exported in spreadsheets, making analysis easier.
SEMRush
It offers a report of trends and, consequently, gives advice on which paths to follow for the success of your content.
It is worth analyzing your site, as well as the pages of your competition and who you consider a reference in quality and results. The free version of SEMRush gives an overview, but the paid version is ideal for full planning.
Ubersuggest
Excellent for searching for more specific keywords (long tails). Ubersuggest is currently the most efficient free tool.
Simply insert the intended term in the search area, and select the language and area(web, images, news, shopping, video, etc.).
You can click on the term suggestions and get other related words.
Their suggestions appear in alphabetical order, which makes searching much easier. In addition, you can search by language and download a spreadsheet with its results.
Keywordtool.io
The tool allows you to choose from countless languages, a bunch of countries, and various search engines, such as Google, Youtube, Amazon, and others.
In addition, Keywordtool.io analyzes Google’s autocomplete resource and gives you more ideas, offering options for keyword variations, especially keywords of the “long tails” type.
KWFinder
This comprehensive tool also allows you to choose from several languages and places.
In addition, KWFinder offers you a list of keywords with detailed information, such as search volume, cost per click, the level of competition in advertising, the difficulty of SEO positioning, the main competitors, and even the number of shares on social networks.
Keyword Revealer
Keyword Revealer allows you to generate filters by the search engine, monthly searches, potential earnings, and the number of words and helps to study the competition, the number of backlinks, social actions, and URLs, among others.
However, it requires payment to perform more than one search.
Keyword Eye
Keyword Eye is that it is an extremely visual and playful platform. When you search for a site term or domain, the tool displays the keywords in a cloud.
In this cloud, suggestions appear in different colors and sizes, which serve to differentiate search volumes and competitiveness by keywords.
Moz Keyword Explorer
Keyword Explorer is one of Moz’s tool extensions for SEO. It is not much different from other options mentioned here, especially SEMrush.
Its functions are very similar, such as suggesting related terms, competitor data, search volume, and difficulty score for organic surveys for keywords.
To find new keywords, you can also analyze your competitors “manually.” That is, observe what types of content they are publishing and what generates more organic traffic.
Accompanying your competitors allows you to have new ideas and inspirations of content that, perhaps, you have never thought of until now, or even discover more in-depth topics that you can also address in your blog in your way.
What are the types of keywords?
Keywords are responsible for responding to the needs of users and positioning, at the same time, in search engines. The keyword system has become increasingly complex and meta tags are no longer used as in the past.
So that you choose the most suitable for your strategy, let’s start talking about the types of keywords you have available and what their differences are. Initially, there are 3 types:
Head tails
The keywords known as head-tail keywords are those that only contain one, or a maximum of two words in their composition.
They are also generic keyword calls since they are used by most websites on the Internet, which makes them more disputed and, consequently, makes it more difficult to position yourself in search engines when using them.
An example of this type of keyword would be when we perform an Internet search for: “Slippers”.
Middle tails
Middle tails keywords, or medium composition, are strings of popular words. That is, while short tails are those words of fairly frequent use, middle tails are identified as short strings of frequently used words.
In general, middle tails can be composed of two, three, or even four words. This makes them more specific than short tails since their Internet searches are performed in smaller quantities. Therefore, they are more susceptible to achieving the first results of search engines.
Continuing with the previous example, a middle-tail keyword would be: “Sneakers to buy”.
Longtails
Now, long-tail keywords are responsible for filtering, even more, the results using strings formed by several words in sequence.
Within a content marketing strategy, long tails are the most suitable to achieve good positioning. Their level of search is lower since they are much more specific terms, but it is precisely this that makes them less competitive.
Longtails are usually more efficient because they are used by those users who are looking for immediate and precise answers to their needs.
How to define keywords in your strategy?
Here are some actions you can take to ensure that your keywords will meet the marketing goal you set for your strategy:
Put yourself in the place of your audience
As we said earlier, it’s important to think about people to define the keywords relevant to the business. If you haven’t done the work of identifying yourself yet, find out how it’s done here.
It’s important to identify what your audience’s most searched terms would be from the moment they start looking for information on the subject.
Think about how your audience, not as the connoisseur and specialist you are about your product or service. Reflect: How would you search for the product or service on the internet?
There are several possible variations of the search for a certain issue and that search about the public is efficient precisely to bring the results that would most coincide with the position of this audience.
A good tip to identify those opportunities is to try to talk to some people who fit into your audience, whether they are customers or potential customers, and ask these questions to discover.
Consider the sales funnel stage
Keep in mind that your reader will look for different ways as well, depending on the stage they are in the funnel. Practically, it is necessary to remember that: if you are looking for alternatives to solve a problem, you should focus on the problem, even as a keyword.
The good content practices for this stage are those of definition of concepts and tips to perform some action, for example.
However, if he is starting to find your solution interesting, you should talk to him about the reasons for him to choose your own.
A good list of reasons to choose a plausible solution to a problem, or even the advantages of such a solution for whoever acquires it.
If you are evaluating and intend to act, talk about your differentials. The texts of success stories of your customers or comparisons between the solutions on the market, for example, are the most suitable for this stage of the funnel.
What role do keywords play in SEO?
The use of keywords is something recurrent, and highly efficient, when we talk about optimization so that your site is well-positioned in the search.
As an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) technique, keywords must be used strategically, thought, and defined within the effective planning of your digital marketing strategies.
Meta descriptions
When we talk about site optimization, we need to remember and give due importance to meta descriptions. Do you know what they are?
Well, the meta description is nothing more than the description that appears in Google (do you know that summary that appears below the title that is in blue? It is exactly that!)
This should be done directly, but still stimulating for the people who visit the pages. Including the keyword of the content in the meta description is essential!
URL
In addition to always thinking about the user experience and creating friendly URLs, another important point for content optimization is the page’s address.
Try to shorten your URL to the maximum and create an address that is simple and self-explanatory. The best way to use the URL is to include the keyword in that area.
In this context, we show you the best URL shorteners on the Internet.
SEO Title
It is not only the title of your blog that must have the previously defined keyword.
Unlike the title of the page, the SEO title is the one that will be displayed when your content appears in the search results in Internet search engines. at this point, it is also essential that the keyword is present.
Learn more about how to create SEO titles.
Title tag
Keywords also need to be used in the internal titles of your articles. Depending on the format of your blog, the title tag will possibly be the same as the H1.
Regardless of whether it is or not, the H1 of your blog follows the rule that says that the keyword should always be present.
Unlike an SEO title which aims to get someone off the search page to enter your content, the Title tag is the title that aims to ensure that a reader stays on your page and continues reading your article.
In this case, the user can be anywhere, as long as it is present.
Learn more about SEO by downloading the most complete guide on the internet on the subject for free!
Read More about Title Tag
How to explore keywords in content?
Focus on keywords to optimize your blog content, but the priority should be, to solve the problem and meet the expectations of your people.
Use keywords in your blog posts, in your titles, throughout articles, and, whenever possible, in intertitles, as well as in the description of images.
Don’t forget to maintain naturalness throughout the text. It is useless to write a text focused on the keyword getting tired by repetition. Readers don’t like that and will stop reading your content.
If you write for Google and not for people, you probably won’t have the best results.
The production of relevant content is done based on people, their ailments, and problems; not thinking about search engine robots.
Remember that if you make content that adds value, answers questions, and solves problems, you will automatically be well in the reader’s priorities, and, believe it, Google also considers all that when ordering the results of the searches.
Strategically evaluate the use of keywords
Search engines are evolving at an incredible speed.
Every six months or so, we are witnessing changes in the algorithm, mainly from Google, which is always changing the way marketers create and develop our content and sites.
The update that was given in 2016 as it strengthened the semantic analysis of searches and the addition of RankBrain. The first innovation ensured that the search engine managed to interpret the user’s intention, through the term that was used.
As for RankBrain, it is an artificial intelligence that became part of Google’s algorithm and that is what is completely changing how searches and results are being displayed.
How to find keywords for paid ads?
As well as a keyword search for an organic marketing strategy, it is very important to take into account all the factors listed above for choosing the most important terms for paid ads.
Another factor that begins to have some importance when it comes to paid ads, is the value of each keyword.
This price varies according to the search volume of such a term, in addition to the interest of people and companies in advertising using that specific keyword.
When you set up your Google AdWords account, you can choose which type of campaign payment will be made: the campaign payment per click (CPC, or cost per click), print (CPM, or cost per thousand impressions), or conversation (CPA, or cost per acquisition).
The value presented for each keyword represents the maximum price that can be paid for that ad.
If the ad was clicked so many times, causing the total value to reach the stipulated budget for the day, the ad will no longer be displayed until the next day, when the budget is restored.
But how does that influence the choice of keywords?
For a down payment ad strategy, it is important to look for terms that have low competition and low estimated values so that the ad can be shown several times to the people who did the corresponding searches, regardless of the stipulated budget.
On the other hand, if we were dealing with a deeper Google AdWords strategy, it is important to make ad groups with various variations of different keywords, so that it covers the person’s searches, being able to use a larger budget to succeed.
How to use keywords on social networks?
In addition to being good ways to disseminate published content, social networks play a very important role when defining keywords.
A good tip is to find your audience in the most important social networks for your business and look for how they communicate to clarify their doubts about the issues.
In addition to defining important questions about the language that should be chosen, it is possible to find possible doubts that they have about your business, which can end up becoming opportunities for your blog.
But, there is a concept that is becoming increasingly popular on the internet, mainly in social networks that use of hashtags.
Once the content published on social networks, such as attachments, images, and captions, is not indexed by Google robots, the only way to do this indexing is through hashtags.
These are considered hyperlinks that bring together all the posts with such a hashtag in a single search.
In addition to that, hashtags are widely used by young audiences and by those considered “heavy users” of social networks.
Therefore, by using hashtags that are relevant to your business, it is possible to index the content, at the same time that it approaches the audience and creates a certain type of closer relationship.
But it is important to be careful with some actions when the issue is the use of hashtags.
It is important to know that they must match the content that is being published.
If you simply use hashtags that have a high volume of searches on social networks, without these being related to your publication, the public can interpret that you are just looking for more views for your publications, without you caring about the concerns and doubts of the person. That can end up taking you away from your audience.
In addition, it is important to choose words and expressions that are valuable to those searching for such content. Create and strengthen institutional hashtags, which talk about the customs and values of the company.
That way, you may create a community around the use of the hashtag, encouraging the use of it by the public and creating a relationship with the people who decided to embrace your cause.
And so, now that you’ve learned a little more about defining and using keywords, are you ready to use these techniques in your online marketing strategy?
Then we invite you to download our free keyword dossier so you don’t miss any information on the topic Enjoy it!
