What Are Keywords?
Keywords are the central part of the SEO process. In fact, the whole SEO process begins with the Keywords.
In SEO, we are essentially trying to rank and increase the visibility of the web pages for some given queries or keywords.
Keywords are phrases that users type in a search engine to look up for information/services/products/directions online.
For example, if I am looking for some information on coffee beans then most probably I would type “coffee beans”. Here “coffee beans” is a keyword. In general, keywords are whatever you type in any search engine like Google to find information online.
We classify keywords as per their length and as per their intention or intent.
Keyword Types Based On Their Length.
- Short Tail Keywords:
As the name suggests, these are short phrases. Some examples would be:
- President of America
- Chocolate Recipes
- What is SEO?
As you can infer, a user is looking for some short and quick information.
- Long Tail Keywords:
These are long-form keywords. Some examples:
- How to Make Coffee
- How To Make Pizza at Home?
- Why Did The World War Start?
- Cheap Car Rentals in Dubai
In SEO, we generally go after long-tail keywords as they are relatively easy to rank.
Keyword Types Based on Intent:
Here intent means what is the user thinking when she/he makes a particular query. On the basis of that, we have the following keyword types.
- Informational
These keywords generally seek information. Here are a few examples to clarify:
- How to Make Coffee.
- How To Do SEO
- Who is The President Of America
- When Did The World War Start.
These keywords are used to get some kind of information. In SEO, we generally target these keywords when we are writing informational blogs.
2. Transactional
These keywords seek to make a purchase. A User using these keywords is trying to make a purchase or considering making a purchase. Here are a few examples:
- Laptop Under 300$
- Best Mobile Phones 2021
- Smartphones Under 299$
3. Navigational
These keywords are used to seek directions to some location. Some examples are:
- Restaurant near me.
- Directions to nearest Hospital
4. Commercial
These are keywords with very high buying intent. A user using these keywords is ready to buy something. Some examples would include:
- Buy Iphone 13 Pro
- Book a Cab
- Best SEO Package.
Why Knowing Your Keyword Type is Important?
As an SEO, you will be targeting keywords on appropriate web pages. For example, if you have a commercial or transactional keyword then you would not want to target that on a blog since the blog for the most part is informational only.
Rather you would prefer to target commercial or transactional keywords on a product or service page.
Selecting which keyword to target on which page is called keyword mapping.
You must map keywords to appropriate web pages based on the intent.
Your website might contain product pages, service pages, or some blog posts, so it is important to map keywords accurately based on their intent. Otherwise, your SEO efforts won’t yield great results.
To understand, let’s imagine a situation.
Suppose we want to target the keyword “How to Buy the Best iPhone?”. As you realise that this is an informational keyword, you would not target this on the product page of the iPhone.
Instead, you would write a blog post on this topic explaining how we can buy the best iPhone. In this way, you are not only adding value to the user by giving him the information but you are also attracting him towards the purchase.
Before you start targeting keywords, do keep their intent under consideration so that you can create pages or content which your users are actually looking for.
To further understand the importance of keyword types, you need to understand a typical user’s journey towards the purchase. We call that journey a marketing funnel which looks something like the below:
The first stage is the awareness stage. In this stage, a user researches the product or service he wants to purchase. If we want to buy the phone, the first thing we would probably search is “top 10 phones 2021” and that means we are in the awareness stage. We have not yet decided on the product.
The second stage is interest where we get interested in a few products after we are done with the research part. Maybe we ended up selecting the iPhone 13 Pro.
The third stage is the desired stage where we are looking for further validation on the product that we have selected to buy. Maybe we will ask friends or read reviews about the product.
The final stage is the action where we buy the product. As you might have realised that informational keywords map to the awareness stage, transactional map to interest and desire and commercial keywords map to the action!
By carefully selecting keywords for each stage and creating relevant content you can potentially take a user from the awareness stage to the action stage! This is the power of Keywords and SEO. Not only will you mapping your keywords for each buyer’s stage, you will also be mapping your web pages targeted for a specific user in a particular buyer stage. This sets up your website for traffic as well as revenue.
Now that you know the fundamentals of keywords, it is time to actually start learning how to research keywords and what tools can we use to find good keywords for our business and website.
Search Engine Code Team is comprised of SEO experts and strategists having more than 20 years of combined experience. We keep testing and delivering knowledge of SEO for the community of SEO.
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