How Do I Choose the Best Keywords for My Business Content?
Don’t underestimate the keywords you choose to use when you’re creating content for your business website or blog. Choosing the best keywords will mean your website gets pushed to higher spots within searches on Google and other search engines. But if you choose the wrong keywords, it could mean your website gets buried within the pages upon pages of results that Google yields.
And here’s the thing: There are really no right or wrong keywords, so to speak. There are keywords that are effective and keywords that will get you the results that you want. But even if a keyword seems like the perfect choice, it could end up working against you for one reason or another.
Here are a few tips on how you can choose the best keywords for any content you’re creating for your business.
First, What Are Keywords?
When you go to look something up in a search engine, you’re going to type in a few words or phrases of what you want to find online. For somebody who is creating content in the form of blog posts for their website, they’re going to think of those searchable words as keywords—words they want to use in their blog post so that the search engine includes them in the results. In other words, keywords are a method for optimizing your site for search engines, a practice that’s known as search engine optimization (or SEO for short).
SEO keywords can be tricky because if a word seems obvious, that means a lot of people are using it. Even if that word reflects your business, there are so many other businesses out there that are using it. That’s not to say you can’t use those words; it’s just that they might not help you that much.
Think about it this way: If you’re a real estate agent, your blog will definitely say “real estate” pretty frequently. But every other real estate agent is going to have those same words on their website. You won’t stand out. That’s why it’s important to choose the right keywords.
Long Keywords vs. Short Keywords
One of the best ways you can ensure there’s less competition around those keywords is to focus on what are known as long keywords or long-tail keywords. These are actually phrases rather than singular words. They are likely going to be used at a far lower frequency compared with just one word or two words.
Long keywords tend to be more specific, too. Because they’re specific, they will be a better fit for your business. Remember the situation we described with the real estate agent? Maybe you could include the name of your local area, such as “real estate agent Annapolis” or “real estate agent Washington D.C..” Get even more specific by focusing on phrases like “real estate agent first-time homebuyer” or “real estate agent luxury property.”
Just remember that you’re going to be creating content around these keywords. While you can insert small words into these phrases, search engines will not recognize these phrases if you break them up too much. So if you have a sentence in your blog that talks about a good “real estate agent for luxury property,” then the search engine will show your page to anyone searching “real estate agent luxury property.” But you can’t talk about a “real estate agent who specializes in representing luxury property,” because the phrase is broken up too much—it won’t show up in search results.
While you’re considering which words or phrases you’re going to use, be sure to think about how you can use those best keywords in context.
Use Keyword Tools
There are apps and platforms that will tell you exactly what people out there are searching for online—not only which words and phrases but how frequently. Getting access to a keyword tool like this will help you brainstorm content ideas and decide which keywords you want to incorporate into each blog post.
Keywords Everywhere is always a good choice because it’s very inexpensive and user-friendly. If you don’t mind paying a little bit extra, there are keyword tools like Mangools and Ahrefs. Then, of course, there’s the keyword planner run by Google Ads.
If you use more than one of these keyword tools (that’s always an option), you might notice a little bit of variation between the analytics they give you regarding certain keywords. Don’t worry, that’s completely normal. Instead of focusing on the exact numbers, focus on the overall patterns of whether keywords are popularly searched or not.
Keywords vs. Content Quality
Even though you’re using keywords to drive traffic to your site, don’t lose sight of the fact that quality still matters. Even if you’re using the same keywords as other businesses out there, you can still boost your standing in search engines by making sure your content is engaging, well-written, and something that people will want to read. If you can add something valuable that other business pages aren’t using, such as anecdotes or research, be sure to do so.