Keywords are the first and most important element in the search engine optimization process, as all other steps, from content writing to internal and external search engine optimization, are built on them.
Therefore, choosing keywords must be correct and precise, as they are your compass as a website owner or SEO specialist. Any mistake—even a small one—will have negative repercussions for your site.
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This is what we present to you today in this article, where we discuss:
- What are keywords and their importance?
- Types of keywords and the advantages and disadvantages of each type.
- How to search for appropriate keywords (keyword research).
- The most important keyword research criteria.
- How to use keywords and include them in your website and pages.
- The most important keyword research tools.
In addition to many other important points... Now, let's get started.
What are keywords?
Simply put, keywords are the words or phrases that a visitor enters into search engines to generate useful results.
In this sense, they have several names you may encounter online, such as search queries and key phrases.
Keywords don't have to be just one or two words; a phrase like "how to post on social media" can also be called a keyword (we'll discuss the types of keywords in detail shortly).
These keywords are the link used by search engines to connect searchers to content that meets their search intent (we'll also discuss them in detail).
Therefore, as a website owner, online store owner, content creator, or SEO specialist, you must pay attention to them to achieve your marketing goals.
The Importance of Keywords
Here, we're specifically talking from the perspective of website owners or content creators:
Keywords are the means by which you can reach your target audience and achieve your various marketing goals.
Finding the right keywords is similar in importance to market research in traditional marketing. It helps you:
- Attract a large number of visitors from your target audience.
- Target customer intent that matches your marketing goals, such as purchasing, sharing, and interaction.
- Satisfy your customers and meet their needs.
- Outperform your competitors and address their weaknesses.
Keywords also control your website's ranking on Google (and other search engines), as they provide insights into your niche and the visitors you target.
This is what we will discuss in detail in our article, where we will show you how to accurately choose the right keywords that suit your website and your goals.
Types of Keywords
There are several classifications of keywords, but the most important one we will discuss is their classification by length:
1. Short Tail Keywords
Single-word keywords are also called head keywords.
They usually consist of a single word, and despite having a high search volume (meaning many people are searching for them), they are not popular for SEO.
This is because they are highly complex and their search intent is unclear. For example:
A word like "cars" doesn't indicate whether the searcher is looking for "information about cars," "websites and places to buy cars," "car prices," or even "car games."
These are definitely keywords you don't want to target. If you own a car sales website, for example, you don't need to target this high-complexity keyword.
Instead, you'd go for other keywords like: "buy a car on installments," "best price for a car...," "buy a car in Cairo," "buy a used car," and so on.
2. Medium Tail Keywords
This type of keyword usually consists of two or three words and is called body keywords in the SEO world.
They are often a much better choice than short-tail keywords, as they have a clearer search structure, average search volume, and are much lower in difficulty.
3. Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are keywords that consist of more than three words. They are the top choice for search engine specialists.
This is because they are more clearly defined in terms of search intent, and they often have very little or no difficulty.
However, their downside is that their audience is somewhat limited; their search volume is usually only in the hundreds or even less.
However, never make the common beginner's mistake of ignoring them. For example, if a page targeting a keyword like this only brings your site 100 visits per month,
Publishing 50 pages targeting articles like this will bring your site 5,000 visits per month from your valuable target audience.
(We'll discuss other keyword categories later in this article.)
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process of finding words or phrases that searchers use in search engines.
Therefore, its most important goal is simply to find the right keywords for you, which are:
- Relevant to your business.
- Relevant to the visitor's search intent.
- Have a high search volume and a high conversion rate.
- Have a ranking difficulty that matches your site's authority.
This is extremely important. For example, you can target a keyword that no one is searching for, or a highly competitive keyword that you don't get any traffic from.
This is much more common than you might expect. A study by Ahrefs found that more than 90% of online content doesn't generate any traffic from Google's search engine.
Therefore, you must choose your target keywords carefully to generate the critical traffic your business needs to survive.
This process also provides you with some important answers to:
- What is your target audience searching for?
- How many people are searching for the keywords that are important to you?
- In what form does your target audience want the content?
- What are the competing content options for appearing at the top of the results page rankings?
So after all this, how can you conduct keyword research and find the right keywords?
Steps to Find the Right Keywords for Your Website's Domain
Not everyone agrees on a single method for keyword research; everyone has their own style and approach.
While this may seem intimidating at first, it gives you the freedom to experiment as you see fit, as the most important thing in this process is the outcome.
Don't worry, though, we won't leave you alone. We'll present our strategy, which we use at M3lomte:
Step One: Determine Your Niche and Seed Keywords
The first thing you need to do is understand your niche and identify the main keywords for your business, which are the general main topics.
For example, to make it easier, let's imagine we want these keywords for a website that sells various digital marketing courses. Our list of seed keywords might include:
Digital marketing, social media, search engine optimization, paid advertising, content writing, etc.
But will we target these keywords? Well, it's not necessary, but it's important anyway, as they will help us in the next steps.
Before we move on to the next step, we need to focus on defining our goal here:
Keyword research is meaningless if you don't have in mind the goal you want to achieve behind the research, such as sales, so keep this in mind throughout the process.
Step Two: Find Keywords That Relevant to You
After you've identified your primary keywords, grab a pen and paper, or better yet, open a Word document on your computer, and start writing down all the relevant keywords you come across.
During this period, you're free to write down all the keywords you come across, as long as they're relevant.
(Of course, your field shouldn't be about e-marketing, and you shouldn't write down keywords like "Chinese sweet and sour recipe," for example.)
You can use these methods to find the most relevant keywords:
1. Using Google and other search engines: By simply typing the keyword into the search bar, you'll find many search results that you can use as keywords.
2. Take advantage of related searches on Google: You can search for your main keywords and use the related search box below, which will provide you with important related keywords.
3. Use YouTube: You can also use YouTube to get ideas for related keywords or even content ideas, especially with the clip segmentation feature, which will provide you with many ideas related to the main keyword.
4. Use Wikipedia for suggestions: Wikipedia is like a treasure trove for SEO specialists. Where else can you find such comprehensive, long-form content prepared by specialists? You can leverage its content pages to gather keywords and various content ideas.
5. Search for keywords on Quora: Quora is one of the most unique sources of keywords, as it comes exclusively from interested users and visitors, each of whom poses a question that interests them. Therefore, it is a very important source of keywords and content ideas, which I recommend you take advantage of.
6. Research Keywords on Reddit: Reddit is very similar to Quora in that it's a discussion platform, and we also recommend using it, especially in the technical and financial fields.
7. Use Various Keyword Tools: You can also use tools that offer this service, such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner, and others.
We will discuss the most important free and paid keyword tools later in this article.
8. Know the Keywords Your Competitors Are Targeting: Don't forget that your competitors have already conducted this keyword research themselves, so you can benefit from it and save yourself a lot of time and effort.
After you've gathered all the relevant keywords that you find useful for your website or business, the third step is to analyze them.
Step Three: Analyze the Keywords You've Discovered
Keyword analysis is the core step of keyword research, where you apply a number of factors to determine whether or not to use keywords.
The keywords you obtained in the previous step are subject to a number of filters, such as:
- Search Demand.
- Traffic Potential.
- Importance to your marketing goals.
- Suitability to the visitor's search intent.
- Ranking Difficulty.
Let's discuss the most important of these filters or criteria:
First: Keyword Research or Search Volume:
Many online keyword tools provide you with data on the monthly search volume of keywords.
This information is extremely important because it gives you an insight into the extent of people's interest in the keyword, and it is an indicator—though not entirely accurate—of the amount of traffic you can generate from that keyword.
But there are a few things you should know about search volume:
a) Search volume is an annual average. This means that tools fetch the annual search volume, say 12,000, and then divide it by 12 to give you an estimated monthly search volume of 1,000 searches.
b) Search volume expresses the number of searches, not the number of searches. A search volume of 1,000, for example, doesn't mean that 1,000 people search for the keyword per month; rather, perhaps 500 of them search for that keyword several times per month.
c) Search volume doesn't mean the number of visitors who will come to your website. For example, even if you rank first for a keyword with a search volume of 1,000, you won't get all 1,000 visitors. You'll only get a portion of them, perhaps no more than 40% at best.
Here comes the factor we discussed earlier: keyword traffic potential.
You shouldn't rely solely on search volume, but also on the Traffic Potential metric provided by some keyword tools, such as Ahrefs.
This is also a factor to consider, along with the other factors we'll discuss later.
Second: Keyword Value
You should determine the value of your keywords yourself, based on your understanding of your business and its goals. No one else can help you with this.
This is the point that distinguishes an experienced SEO specialist from a novice, as they give value and substance to their registered numbers and keywords.
Note: Analyzing your competitors and seeing the keywords they target can be very helpful in this step, whether they are your direct competitors in the market or competitors related to your niche.
Before I move on, there's one important thing I want to mention:
If you're conducting keyword research for online sales, don't forget to consider the cost per click (CPC).
The Cost Per Click (CPC) will give you an idea of how other businesses and stores are using the keyword and its commercial importance.
For example, if the CPC for two keywords that are highly relevant to you is $1 and $5, then the second keyword, the $5 keyword, will be more commercially important for you to attract sales.
Third: Search Intent
To compete for any keyword, you need to know what type of content people expect when they search on Google. In other words, what is the purpose behind their search?
Here comes the search intent aspect, which adds the most important dimension to the keyword research process: the visitor's perspective and response.
To simplify, you can divide keywords based on search intent into four types:
The first type: Transactional keywords
These keywords are the most important in e-commerce, as they target visitors who have a strong intent to purchase and are looking for a place where they can buy.
These keywords are usually something like:
- Buy black Ray-Ban sunglasses.
- Buy a MacBook Pro on installments.
- Best price for an iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Commercial keywords are those that a visitor types in the pre-purchase stage, with the goal of learning more about a product or service and making a decision about whether or not to purchase.
These keywords are similar to:
- The best mid-range mobile phone.
- Ahrefs or SEMRush.
- The best restaurant in Heliopolis.
To understand the difference between these two types of keywords and how to better use them to generate profits and sales for your business.
The Third Type: Informational Keywords
This type of keyword is what we usually target here at Al-Rabihun, and which visitors search for for educational purposes.
Some of the keywords for this type of keyword are:
- How to learn SEO.
- What is ChatGPT.
- How to invest in the stock market.
The Fourth Type: Navigational Keywords
The last type of keyword is navigational keywords, which we never recommend targeting.
Since the visitor who types them has a specific goal in mind, it won't help if they encounter them or appear in search results. They can be like:
- Facebook login.
- Wikipedia.
- M3lomte Freelance Course.
Fourth: Ranking Difficulty
The last thing you should consider when choosing the right keywords is the difficulty of ranking for these keywords in search results, or what is known as ranking difficulty.
Ranking for a keyword like "digital marketing" is not the same as ranking for "digital marketing courses in Egypt."
When a keyword is essential and highly searched for, everyone online targets it, making it extremely difficult to appear in search results.
So, as a website owner or SEO specialist, you must carefully choose the keywords you target, especially if your website is still new.
In general, you should initially focus on long-tail keywords because competition for them is much lower.
Step Four: Select keywords that match the search intent after subjecting them to appropriate criteria.
After completing the previous three steps, it's time to compile everything you've learned and come up with your own list of keywords.
You can then create content about them and target them in a way that benefits your website or brand, which you believe are most important to you.
Of course, this will be a very happy moment for you, but on the other hand, it will be the beginning of another journey to create your SEO content.
Step Five: Keyword Optimization
After researching, analyzing, and selecting, you have a set of keywords for which you want your content to appear in search engine results.
But you may be wondering where to put these keywords in your content? You can include keywords in your content in more than one way:
- Use them in the main page title.
- Include them in the link and page description.
- Use them in subheadings.
- Use them in the introduction and image descriptions.
- Distribute them evenly throughout your content.
The Most Important Keyword Tools
Now that we've learned the importance of choosing the right keywords for your content, and that they're the biggest factor in the visibility of your blog or business, making them a fundamental pillar of its success,
Now comes the most popular question in the world of content creators: Where do we get keywords from and how do we know how appropriate they are for your blog or business?
This is what keyword websites and tools available online provide. These websites offer many helpful features to help writers, bloggers, and marketers develop strategies. You can learn more about these tools in the following lines.
First: The Best Paid Keyword Tools
Many people prefer to use paid tools to achieve their marketing goals, believing that paid products offer greater value and better service compared to free tools.
While their perspective may be correct in some respects, we will review a group of the most important paid or partially paid keyword tools as follows.
1. SEMrush
This tool differs from most free tools. It doesn't offer a list of keyword suggestions, but rather 10 to 15 keywords that your competitors rely on.
It also shows the cost-per-click (CPC) you'll receive when clicking on ads included in your article based on the targeted country. It also analyzes the strength of competition for the suggested keywords, along with long-tail keyword suggestions that provide solutions and answers to customers' questions about the article's topic.
2. KWFinder
This tool provides strong suggestions for suitable keywords with low competition, making it easier for bloggers to rank well in Google search results.
It also provides accurate statistical results based on competitor analysis and targeting. The tool also has a simple, easy-to-use interface.
3. Long Tail Pro
Many marketers and bloggers resort to targeting long-tail keywords, which is the main feature of this tool. It suggests detailed and precise long-tail keywords to target your audience, making it one of the most important tools suitable for specialized websites.
4. SpyFu
One of the best and most important keyword tools, it provides the most accurate strategic competitor analysis statistics. It also suggests suitable keywords that competitors have overlooked and underutilized, giving you an edge over competitors by exploiting these wasted keywords.
Second: The Best Free Keyword Tools
Some people believe they cannot find suitable keywords or analyze the keywords used by competitors unless they use paid tools.
Some may struggle to afford these paid tools, but there's no need to despair. There are many good tools that offer this service completely free of charge. Some even offer both a free and a paid version.
The following are some of the most important free tools that offer keyword research and analysis services:
1. Keyword Generator
This tool suggests 150 keyword suggestions that you can target when you enter the topic you want to write about.
For example, if you own a sports blog and type in the word "sports equipment," the tool will suggest 150 search terms that you can use for your article.
Not only that, but it also provides you with a competitive difficulty rating for each of these suggestions. You can also specify the country you want to target to get the most accurate results.
2. MerchantWords
This is an ideal tool for e-commerce store owners, as it bases its keyword suggestions on millions of searches conducted on Amazon.
It also provides a monthly search analysis for these keywords and provides the user with marketing suggestions based on this data.
3. Google Trends
One of the most important free tools launched by Google, it is one of the most popular free keyword tools in the world. This tool aims to show the popularity of the keywords you want to target during each month of the year.
If you own a tech blog and want to write about Apple's releases, for example, by using this tool, you'll discover that the majority of searches for these keywords occur in October of each year, the release date for the company's new phone. Therefore, this tool is one of the most important factors in developing a content strategy and planning for the year.
4. TagCrowd
Unfortunately, this tool isn't gaining much popularity despite its great features. It provides the ability to determine the search strength and competition for your desired keyword. It also provides an analysis of the keywords used by competitors. Furthermore, this tool is easy to use and suitable even for beginners.
5. Keyword Sheeter
This tool offers approximately 1,000 suggestions for suitable keyword phrases, simply by typing the initial word you want to write about.
For example, if you type "cars" in the tool's search box, the tool will suggest approximately 1,000 keywords you can use to write about this topic.
It also shows you which suggestions might be positive and which might not be as important, but it doesn't allow you to analyze competitors or how popular your keywords are in searches.
6. Google Keyword Planner
This is the most popular keyword tool. This tool provides the best statistical results for the targeted keyword, as it comes from Google itself.
It accurately shows the search volume for this keyword, the difficulty of competing with it, and its use by competitors. It also shows the cost of advertising and a lot of important information. Google is constantly developing this tool to provide the most accurate and useful statistics for users.
Note: The tool is free but intended for advertisers on the Google platform. It provides limited data if you have an advertising account that has been inactive for a certain period.
7. Ubersuggest
This tool allows you to perform a complete scan of your blog or website, in addition to suggesting the best keywords to target based on the keywords you're interested in.
This site also shows the countries that generate the most traffic to your website, along with the search volume for each of the suggested keywords.
The Easiest Ways to Find Keywords
The methods for finding suitable semantic phrases are not limited to keyword tools. Some traditional methods and methods that rely entirely on human resources are also popular for finding search keywords.
Most of these methods rely on the idea that every question a blogger might have is a keyword project they can use for their content.
If a blogger finds it difficult to use keyword tools, they can simply go to the Google search box and see the many free suggestions provided by this major search engine.
All the content creator has to do is click on the search box and type in any keyword relevant to their niche, and Google will automatically start offering short- or medium-term keywords.
The content creator can also follow effective brainstorming strategies to find the best keywords. They can do this alone or with the help of friends or others interested in the same niche.
Content creators can also benefit from Google Ads completely free of charge. Of course, this doesn't mean placing an ad on Google!
However, you can, for example, type in any keyword relevant to your blog's niche and then notice the paid ads that appear at the top of the results page. These certainly target powerful keywords that you can leverage or generate ideas from.
Keywords are also easily extracted from popular content across various social media platforms. It's no secret these days that popular content on these platforms is what most people are looking for.
Most readers and customers are looking for trends and trending content, so it's smart to take advantage of this free resource, which allows you to engage with your audience more.
How to Distribute Keywords in Your Article
Properly distributing keywords within an article increases its chances of appearing in Google search results. In principle, the main keyword of the article should be mentioned several times evenly throughout the article, so that it's not crowded in one place, with most parts of the article devoid of it. Care should also be taken not to overdo it, as this can lead to negative results.
It's preferable to include the article's semantic keyword in the title, introduction, conclusion, and some of the main and subheadings. These are the core of the article and are recognized by search engines. The more carefully these headings are chosen, the greater the chances of the article appearing in a prominent search result.
These keywords are also placed outside the body of the article. They should be placed in the featured image and in the article's meta description. Additionally, the article's main keyword must be mentioned in its link.
Tips for Choosing the Right Keywords
All bloggers and content marketers strive to find the best keywords that fit their strategic goals, which will undoubtedly positively impact their business.
This goal can be easily achieved if the blogger takes into account a few things:
1. Audience: A professional blogger puts themselves in the customer's shoes. If they switch from the blog owner, blogger, or business owner's position to the audience, what would they prefer to find in this content? Or what would attract this customer to the article they want to write?
To successfully implement this strategy, the blogger must clearly define their ideal customer's personality to allow them to think from their perspective.
2. Competitors: A smart blogger or blogger monitors their competitors' content and learns their targeted keywords. This helps the blogger refresh their ideas and derive the most effective points in their targeted content.
It is preferable for each blogger to identify their most important competitors and write a detailed list of the most important competitors interested in the same field.
3. Keyword Type: Long-tail keywords are less searched for, yet they are the most likely to attract actual traffic to a website or blog. However, care must be taken to choose the appropriate phrase that accurately answers audience questions.
4. Results: A blogger's role doesn't stop at selecting semantic keywords. They must continually monitor the results of those keywords and continually develop them. A number of phrases and words that are suitable for targeting and that competitors are targeting are constantly emerging. This requires constant review and content development based on them.
5. Keyword Tools: There are many traditional and human methods for selecting appropriate keyword phrases, but they shouldn't be limited to these methods. Electronic tools should be used to select those phrases.
Most Frequently Asked Questions About Keywords
1. What are keywords?
Keywords are the words that people enter into search engines when they perform various searches.
They are the essential component of any search engine optimization strategy undertaken by any website or SEO specialist, as they serve as the link between you and your visitors.
This is why SEO specialists use a process called keyword research to find the right keywords.
2. What is the importance of keywords?
Keywords help you reach your target customer and are therefore responsible for achieving your marketing goals, such as traffic or sales.
They also give Google, Bing, or other search engines insight into your site, its specialty, and what it offers visitors.
3. What are the types of keywords?
There are three main types of keywords, based on their length:
1. Short-tail keywords: These consist of one word.
2. Medium-tail keywords: These consist of two or three words.
3. Long-tail keywords: These consist of more than three words.
4. How do I find the right keywords?
You can find the right keywords for your site through keyword research.
By doing this, you can find keywords that match your target customer's intent, the nature of your marketing goals, and your website's authority among competing websites.
5. What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is a set of practical steps undertaken by an SEO specialist to find the right keywords for the website.
An SEO specialist must consider several factors to find the right keywords, such as:
- The relevance of the keyword to the website's niche.
- The keyword's potential to achieve the website's marketing goals.
- The keyword's position in the customer journey and its relevance to the intended action.
- Search volume and difficulty ranking for that keyword.
6. What are the steps of keyword research?
There are four main steps to the keyword research process:
Step 1: Determine your niche and seed keywords.
Step 2: Find relevant keywords.
Step 3: Analyze the keywords you've identified.
Step 4: Choosing the right keywords.
7. What are the types of keywords based on search intent?
There are four types of keywords based on their search intent:
1. Transactional keywords.
2. Commercial keywords.
3. Informational keywords.
4. Navigational keywords.
8. How do you determine the search intent behind a keyword?
You can determine the search intent of keywords through several methods, the most important and easiest of which is using the Google search engine.
By viewing the top ten results on Google and determining their search intent, you can accurately determine the keyword intent.
9. What are the criteria for choosing the right and appropriate keywords?
There are a number of criteria that SEO specialists consider when researching keywords, such as:
1. Keyword search volume or search volume.
2. Keyword value.
3. Search intent.
4. Keyword ranking difficulty.
10. How to find keywords?
You can find keywords by:
1. Searching on Google and various search engines.
2. Utilizing related searches on Google.
3. Searching on YouTube and utilizing the content found there.
4. Using Wikipedia to get ideas and keywords.
5. Using questions on Quora.
6. Utilizing threads and questions on Reddit.
7. Use various keyword tools.
8. Know the keywords your competitors are targeting.
Conclusion
Keywords are the core component of any SEO strategy for any website.
Hence, their extreme importance stems from the need to conduct thorough keyword research to obtain the best results.
This is what I have presented to you in this important article, in which I have provided you with all the information and steps you may need, in addition to a wide range of effective tools. I hope you have benefited and enjoyed it.
If you have any questions or inquiries about keywords and keyword research, please ask me in the comments below, and I will respond as soon as possible.