Keywords: why you need them and how to use them

You would be surprised at how many business owners
fail to see the correlation  between keywords searched  in search engines online and how it can improve traffic to their business/website. Keywords are the driving force behind search engine results and how your audience, customers, or future employer will find you.

Here is an example of how keywords can link a future employee and a company. A young man, who we will call "Jon", submitted his résumé for a position with a large company.The company was underwhelmed with his résumé and Jon was informed that they would be passing on his résumé and continuing their search. Jon was of course disheartened by the news. He decided to go back to his résumé and LinkedIn profile to see which words he could change in an effort to help him stand out more in his respective field. Jon began searching for “keywords” commonly used in his field and then proceeded to edit his résumé and profile to include the new keywords. Imagine his surprise when a few days after the revision he received an offer for the same position in the same company who previously turned him down. His experience had not changed; the only change was the revision of keywords to his profile. It turns out; the company did a search on LinkedIn using words describing the skills and abilities needed for the position. The search engine brought up Jon’s newly revised profile as a fit for the “keywords” entered in the search.

Keywords do more than link future employee with employer. They help a business find their perspective client/consumer.  It is one of the easiest ways to obtain information on your perspective client. Keywords will help you predict shifts in markets, consumer motivation for buying and consumer niches found in every market.

If you are someone who is unsure of how keywords actually work, then this article is here to serve as an entry guide.

How keywords happen

In the picture above you will see a mock search engine site similar to Google, Bing, or Yahoo. The bold words in the link and link discription are the keywords. Both consumers and company websites use keywords for similar purposes; to find and to be found. For example, a search on Google's website for let's say, "iphone 3D cases" will yield 43,400,000 different results of company link descriptions. The results were directly triggered by the words inputted into the search engine and the descriptive words (keywords) the search engine found on a company’s website. 

How link rankings are determined 

Let’s go back up to the picture of the mock search engine. You will notice the link "Search Engine" is listed first while the link "Imagine files optimization for Search Engines & Site Visitors" is listed just below it. Even though both have the same keyword one is listed above another. This list order is a ranking system determined by "backlinks",links that lead back to your website, such as putting links on twitter or facebook. The number of backlinks is an indication of the popularity or importance of that website. Some search engines will give more credit to websites that have a greater number of quality backlinks, and consider those websites more relevant than others in their results pages. There are many tips and tricks out there to help you get higher positioning but that is another article for another time.

Best strategy for using keywords

There are numerous theories on the best strategies for using keywords. Some companies are inclined to choose keywords that generate the most results, while others prefer long tail marketing keywords; keywords that are less popular or describe something very specific.  As an example,If an individual types in “shoes” into a search engine they would get an endless results of links for all sorts of variety of shoes. If that individual were to type in "1992 dream team sneakers" they would generate much fewer results because they were looking very specific item. The theory behind long tail marketing is that people looking for very specific items are more likely to purchase that item, hire that service,or read that article .,Using keywords that yield fewer results could make it easier to standout from the top brands or companies that have a hold on the top rankings on some keywords. General consensus from analysts is to choose keywords that really capture what you are trying to showcase. I could go on and on about strategy implementation but once again it's another article for another time

Keyword helpers

So now that you know what a keyword is, let's focus on finding out the best keywords to suit your business, profile, or website. There are a lot of free and paid service sites that can help assist you to find which keywords generate the most searches,which ones get the least, and even  keywords your competitors use.Here are a list of sites:

Wordtracker

Google Tools

Google.com/insight/search/
Seobook.com
Raven tools
Market Samurai

Adding keyword description code to your site

Now that we know what keywords are and you've done your homework on which terms work best for you, let's add them to your website.Keyword descriptions can be added to your website through really simple HTML coding.When you edit your website in HTML 

find the following code by pressing CTRL+F and entering


 <b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

Now copy the following code and paste it after the code above


 

<meta content='your website description' name='description'/>

<meta content='your website keywords' name='keywords'/>

<meta content='admin name' name='author'/>   

The codes listed above are what are known as meta description tags or meta tags for short. These tags are a brief and concise summary of your page's content.  Now begin to edit these codes: input the description that best describes your website where it reads 'your website description' and the keywords that you would associate with your site in 'your website keywords'.If you are writing an article remember that your keyword terms that the labels, tags, and categories also are considered keywords along with the content and title. Avoid using abbreviations and nicknames as they don't capture the keyword. Google will use the first 20 to 25 words in your meta description in it's search engine so put some thought into that as well.

That wraps up this crash course introduction on keywords. I will be posting more articles in the future dealing with keyword strategy. Feel free to add some more information that others may find useful below

-Sergio Esteban Bustamante (S.E.B.)