Most People Want to Know: What Is a Keyword?

To start at the very beginning, a keyword (or keyword phrase, since a keyword can consist of one to five words) reflects the subject of a website page or blog post. The keyword sums up the content so that search engines can identify what’s on that page. It’s a shortcut, but it helps people find your page and visit it, already knowing that you are have what they expect to find.

Keywords are an important part of SEO or search engine optimization. SEO is the art and science of making a website or blog more visible to potential visitors. Using keywords correctly, therefore, helps bring traffic — and the right traffic — to your website or blog. Let us explain, since the writers and editors at Ray Access deal with keywords every day.

1. Finding the Right Word

For any bloggers, but especially for business bloggers, finding the right keyword is the difference, as Mark Twain famously wrote, “between lightning and a lightning bug.” In other words, are you trying to attract meteorologists or entomologists? The keywords you use in your blog can attract the right audience or simply increase your bounce rate.

The bounce rate from your website or blog is the percentage of your visitors who leave quickly after landing on your site. Search engines interpret your bounce rate as people who went to your site expecting one thing and found another. In other words, they didn’t find what they were looking for and quickly left. Minimizing your bounce rate means you’re attracting your intended audience.

2. Choosing the Right Keyword Density

The playing field has shifted as search engines refine what they try to deliver to their customers. In days gone by, it was acceptable (and advantageous) to cram a keyword phrase as many times as possible into a website or blog. Those days are over. If you attempt to keyword-stuff an article with a particular phrase, the search engines will reject it and penalize your website or blog.

The optimum keyword density — that is, the percentage of the keyword to the rest of the words on the website or in the blog — is now a more comfortable one percent. That means for a 1,000-word blog post, the chosen keyword or keyword phrase should appear about 10 times.

3. Placing the Keyword Correctly

Putting the keywords you’ve selected in the right places on (and behind) your page or post maximizes the effect they have on a search engine. Keywords used correctly help your page rank high for the chosen keyword or keyword phrase. Ideally, insert your chosen keywords:

• In the title of the web page or blog post
• In the first sentence or paragraph
• In a subheading
• In several other places in the text (depending on the length of the page or post)
• In the last sentence or paragraph

The keyword should also be part of the meta-title and meta-description. These do not appear on the website page or in the blog post, but they do show up when a search engine shows your website page or blog post in its search results. It’s the title and short description that appears when your site or blog shows up on a search engine results page. You can use the meta-title and meta-description to further entice people to click on and visit your page, as long as you’re honest and ethical about what’s really on the page.

Using keywords on website pages and on blog posts is a subject that runs deep and wide. The introductory tips listed here will immediately help your website or blog rank higher. Just keep in mind that choosing the right keywords is a difficult task to master. Seek help if you need it. It can make all the difference to your website or blog ranking.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.