Overview

With more businesses transitioning to digital marketing, the competition among websites to be the top priority of client searches is increasing by the day. Digital marketing experts have come up with smart ideas & techniques to stay the most popular & relevant of all their counterparts. One such technique that the world of digital marketing today is focussing on is – ‘Keywords’. Usage of popular keywords coupled with the right content is what drives the internet traffic to certain websites, thus making them more popular, increasing the number of customers & eventually the sales. Read on to know about the importance of keywords & how these keywords are gathered & used to attract internet traffic.

What are keywords?

Keywords are nothing but the words or phrases that internet users type in the search box of search engines to look for websites or pages that contain the information they are looking for.

The right keywords are chosen in the following way: -

• The first task that goes into selecting a keyword is- doing research on popular keywords. You can find popular keywords relevant to your business by using online tools like ‘Google Keyword Research Tool’ & ‘Wordtracker’.

• These tools will ask you to submit a word or a phrase (you can type the one relevant to your business) along with the category it falls in (optional). The tool then gives you critical information like the number of people who have searched for the specified keyword & the amount of competition it has garnered from websites. The most popular keywords found in this research are finalized.

• Articles or blogs are then written surrounding these keywords so as to use them. A technique called SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is used to properly blend these keywords with the article. Keywords, when used in an article, shouldn’t look unnatural.

Keywords are included in the following parts of an article or post

• Page title

• The first paragraph that contains the overview of the article

• Page Headings

• Anywhere in the middle of the content

• Keywords can also be included in the navigation link of the site & image tags.

• Importance of keywords also comes with many limitations. It is recommended that you use your keywords only once in each of these tags. Overdoing with the usage of keywords will be considered as ‘Keyword Stuffing’ by search engines & this will weaken the traffic to your website which is regarded as ‘the over-optimization penalty’. The penalty is also given by search engines if your articles are poorly written & only for manipulative purposes.

• Keep a check on your keyword density. Do not use the keyword more than 2 to 3 times in every 500 words.

• When a keyword is used in the content, make sure not to use it with the same sentence everywhere. For example, you are using the keyword ‘Handicrafts in India’ in your content, use it at multiple places with variation in sentences. Like- “Handicrafts in India are skilfully made”, “The handicraft industry of India has seen a sudden surge in demand”, “Manufacturing of Indian handicrafts significantly contributes to the livelihood of thousands of local artisans”.

• Finally, to know the impact your website has made, you can use ‘Google Search Console’. This will help you in knowing the ranking of your website on a search engine which automatically reflects your page’s popularity.

If you are using your keywords in links, & the links have expired or are from spammy websites, it can affect your ranking. Google keeps a close watch on the tactics of websites using powerful AI algorithms.

There are some websites that prevent users from using the back button to make them stay on the page, some websites use false links to direct users to irrelevant pages & sometimes users are left with no other option but to click on an advertisement to move forward. Never deviate from ethics to make your business popular. It puts a black mark on the trust people have in your business.

So how does Google detect these spams? To do so, Google uses the concept of ‘Bounce Rate’. It is obvious that people don’t stay on fake pages for long. If the bounce rate of your pages is more than 50% or less than 30 seconds, then your site gets penalized.

NOTE: It must be kept in mind that your web site's popularity lies in the hands of users as much as it does with the search engines. The quality of your content equally matters. Even if the usage of keywords in your content is restricted to a few places, you can still have a reasonably good ranking in the search engine list if your article has interesting & well-researched content.

The importance of keywords in 2019 cannot be replaced by anything, as in today's times, for your websites to rank, content is the major determining factor.

Kolkata School of Digital Marketing which is the best digital marketing training Institute in Kolkata specializes in providing the best digital marketing course in Kolkata. We teach you how to form your SEO strategy with an emphasis on keywords, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing and many more. Reach out to us now for admissions.