Keyword research has long been a pillar of SEO. But with Hummingbird, RankBrain and other advancements in search technology, is keyword research still relevant? The answer to this is “yes, it still plays a major role in SEO.” Keywords are still very much a part of on-page optimization and content creation and also help us to understand what users are searching for and optimize for those searches. A reliable provider of content writing services helps to conduct effective keyword research and provide you with insights into current marketing trends. This will in turn enable you center your content on relevant topics and keywords your audience is in search of.
As part of an SEO strategy, website owners or marketers use keywords to guide content production and optimize their web pages. There is a better chance of appearing in search results if you align your content production and optimization with the terms, topics, products, and services your target audience is looking for.
One reason keyword optimization is crucial is that properly using keywords helps search engines understand what a webpage is about. This can increase the likelihood that a search engine will find a webpage that is relevant to a specific query.
6 Reasons Why Keywords Are Still Important
The following are some of the reasons why keywords are still important:
- Helps to gather valuable information about content searchers: Keywords are useful hints that point directly to the content that the searcher is looking for. They are directional in nature. The closer the user’s query matches with the relevant content, the better it is.
- Find target audience: Keywords can help identify the target audience. Performing competitive analysis looking at keyword visibility for current or prospective clients versus the competitive set helps to uncover any content gaps in the current SEO strategy. It also helps to find out missed opportunities worth revisiting. For example, consider a mountain bike store that wants to rank for the term “kids mountain bikes” and they hire an SEO firm to assist them with competitor visibility analysis.
This study demonstrates that their competitors are ranking for “teen mountain bikes,” a product that the client sells but does not mention in their page names, headings, or body text. As a result, they don’t appear in the search results for the term. This shows that keywords help to identify the previously missed opportunity and adjust the content and strategy to match.
- Get prospects from different zones: Consider visibility when conducting prospect research to learn about key phrase rankings in various locations and zones. Customers looking for digital marketing services, for example, will not see your
website even though their location is close to yours. This is because your website may not have all of the necessary digital marketing information and themes. To avoid a situation like this, you must cover all of the key topics in your sector. Audiences look for a variety of information within a single topic. This shows that keywords might assist you in attracting potential clients from various areas.
- Helps to drive traffic: Theoretically, the more traffic a product page receives, the more conversions a site owner might expect. This is investing in intensive keyword research and content creation that targets certain keywords, which is vital in any modern digital marketing campaign. Essentially, proper keywords help to generate visitors to your website, especially if your research and optimizations have driven you to the top of Google’s search results pages.
This type of visibility is valuable, as the top Google search result alone receives 28.5 percent of clicks, potentially increasing sales of products connected with high-volume terms. As a result, it is crucial to keep in mind that ranking first for a low-volume term isn’t nearly as valuable because not many people are looking for this keyword.
- Find ranking opportunities: Keywords help uncover ranking opportunities, just as they help communicate user intent. The perfect keywords can help generate genuine traffic to your website if you have done proper research at an early stage itself. Keyword research can sometimes highlight additional opportunities beyond organic search rankings. For example, a fashion business discovers a strong search volume for the term “green holiday sweater” when investigating the keyword “holiday sweater.”
This information could be useful to the design team, particularly if their existing product line does not offer green sweaters. To put it another way, keyword research is never fully completed. Trends vary over time, as does search intent, and even the names of objects change. The goal is to remain on top of these shifts and look for ways to identify and address your target audience’s wants.
- Communicate better with user intent: Keywords help to define the topic and intent of your content by being written as words or phrases and dividing into different types of longtail keywords, both locally and globally. As a result, if you reduced everything on your web pages (pictures, video, prose, etc.) to basic words and phrases, you’d end up with a set of primary keywords that comprise those page elements. A page might, for example, have obvious keywords like “abdominal plastic surgery.”
| Read blog: How Search Intent Can Be Used To Boost SEO Rankings |
As consumers search for this keyword, they will find the page in search results, and finally click on the website to learn more, the graphics and video features will supplement that information. In such circumstances, keywords serve as a connecting link between what people are looking for and the information that meets their needs. Google and other search engines use advanced query expansion technologies that have gotten smarter over time. Any conversation can demonstrate that there are different ways to ask for the same thing, just as there are multiple replies to the same question. It is up to search engines and advertisers to make sure their material closely resembles the intent of those requests.
The success of an SEO campaign is entirely dependent on keyword selection. So, invest in content writing services that will help you to select the keywords cautiously. It may take some time to target the exact ones, but with time, you will see big benefits.
