What is a Keyword ?
A keyword is a word or words that describe or define a product or service or idea. This is how people find you via the search engines.
Keyword
A single keyword is not a good choice to find your website as not many people search for a single word in the search engines.
Lets take an example.
Card : About 642,000,000 results
Define it a little more.
Credit Card : About 179,000,000 results
Notice how by adding just one extra word the search becomes narrower.
Lets refine it a little further.
Visa Credit Card : About 49,300,000 results
And a little further.
Citibank Visa Credit Card : About 1,510,000 results
As you add a little more information to your keyword search you start to “drill down” making it a little easier for someone to find your site.
By adding various descriptive words to our initial keyword choice we have drilled down from 642 million to 1.5 million pages containing those words.
We have used a broad match which is what MOST people do when searching. These words can be in any order or distribution. One, any or all of those search terms we have typed in appear on web pages so you can see it is not truly accurate. Google et al regard the fact that they are on the page as relevant to your search and thus are a broad match. To be really accurate we should use the exact match or phrase match when searching.
But remember most if not all will never search for the exact match. They won’t put the inverted commas or square brackets around their search terms, so we are really competing with the pages and pages of broad match terms.
.
.
QUICK TIP
Broad, Exact and Phrase match are mainly used in the context of paid search but have found their way into the mainstream of internet marketing in terms of keywords.
BROAD MATCH
Broad match describes a keyword or keyword phrase with little limitation on matching search queries. They match any queries where the keyword, or similar terms are used. Broad match keywords don’t have to be in the order you typed in the search box and can match plurals and synonyms to your keywords, as well as key phrases with other words.
EXACT MATCH SEARCH
This is done by putting [squared brackets] around our chosen phrase and the search results will display the pages that show our longtail keyword in the exact form we typed it.
Example:
Citibank Visa Credit Card : About 1,510,000 results
[Citibank Visa Credit Card] : About 3,530 results
.
PHRASE MATCH SEARCH
This is done by putting “inverted commas” around our chosen phrase and our keywords will be in exact order but there may be leading or trailing words attached to them.
Example:
New York Citibank Visa Credit Card
Citibank Visa Credit Card Stolen
What are Longtail Keywords ?
This is a phrase or phrases containing your keyword and used to describe what someone is looking for. They are typically two to five words. Think about what you type into a search engine. Very rarely will it ever be just one word. This is targeted traffic. These are people who are looking for what you are offering.
You will make pages on your site for EACH of your keyword or longtail phrases that define and target your niche. This gives you extra opportunities to pull in the traffic.
Further discussion of the longtail here.
Why Are Keywords Important ?
They are the very essence of your website. They help define your niche and help people to find you on the worldwide web.
Comments
Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
