Choose the right target keywords for your website content

Are target keywords important for SEO?

When optimising your content, if you include the words and phrases that your target users are searching for, your content will have a far better chance of ranking higher in the SERPs for those particular terms - those target keywords. This means that you're in great shape to increase traffic back to your website.

Target keywords inform the search engines what your content is about, what you can offer users and also the quality or value of your content. This means that the search engines actually determine the nature of web traffic that you'll attract to on your website.

In essence, SEO is pretty much impossible without the effective use of target keywords. If there were no keywords or keyphrases on any websites on the Internet, how would you expect search engines to deliver accurate results? This seems obvious really, but writing optimised content with targeted keywords is very often overlooked, which has a huge negative impact on your SEO.

Things to consider with target keywords and SEO

• How to identify target keywords

  Whether you're a national, multi-location business or a local furniture shop, the chances are you're an expert in your field. This means that you're already in a good position to identify your target keywords and keyphrases. In the case of the local furniture shop, phrases like 'Where can I buy furniture near me?' or 'Furniture shop Chesterfield' are likely to be what your target audience are searching for - so you should use these phrases to pull in traffic to the relevant product pages.

  In addition to your own expertise, have a look at what your competitors are doing. There are plenty of 'keyword research tools' available, or if that's not your bag, spend some time researching your competitors online, and have a look at what they're posting on the Social Networks (their 'Social Signals'). There's a strong chance you'll get some keyword inspiration and can go ahead and create some engaging and optimised content to further improve your position in the SERPs.

• Backend and frontend keyword optimisation

  Backend keyword optimisation

  In the main, this relates to the keywords that your users don't see on your actual web pages, but they do appear in the SERPs. Things like meta titles and descriptions that show on the SERPs and also the title on a web browser for a specific page. By including target keywords in your meta titles and descriptions, your effectively improving your chances of appearing for those target terms in the SERPs. For a simple explanation of how effective 'titles' and 'descriptions' can be, refer to the 'Library Analogy' on our Optimised Content page. In addition to the actual page meta data, also make use of relevant 'alt' text on images and be sure to name your links with relevant 'anchor text'. For more info on 'alt' tags and 'anchor' text, refer to our SEO and Accessibility page.

  Frontend keyword optimisation

  In addition to your well structured headings and page titles, well researched and carefully selected target keywords should be distributed throughout your page content, ensuring their placement is relevant and adds value to the surrounding content at all times. To highlight their importance, they should appear early within the relevant content sections and you can also make them 'bold'.

  When adding keywords to your page content, try really hard to make sure they read naturally in the context that they are added - the better your content reads, the better your chances are to improve your SEO.

• Things to avoid with keywords

  It's very bad practice and can actually harm your SEO if you add too many keywords in such a way that the content reads badly or is irrelevant. This is called 'Keyword Stuffing' and is a 'black hat technique' that's still used by many webmasters who are clearly not up to speed with the latest SEO strategies. The search engines will actively penalise keyword stuffing, which can cause a drop in your rankings in the SERPs.

  Another thing to avoid is mental turmoil, you have to be realistic. Consider the local furniture shop referred to above - it's unlikely they're going to outrank companies like Ikea for target keywords like 'Office furniture', so be sure to manage your own expectations. Not to say you can't be smart here - aim for more localised keyphrases, or add value to your offering. A keyphrase like 'Local office furniture and desk accessories' could work, accompanied by some additional content about your local delivery and furniture accessories.

  Don't just focus on your 'main' target keywords. Be sure to include other keywords and keyphrases that will compliment your primary target phrases. This can actually be a very smart strategy. For example, if you optimise your content to include keywords for lesser important items, like 'Furniture polish Chesterfield', you may well attract some traffic for someone searching for 'Furniture polish' who will see that you also sell 'Office furniture' at amazing prices. There's a chance here that the 'Furniture polish' search was actually for the users old table they were cleaning up before getting ready to sell, who is now considering a new table from you, not just a tin of polish. A sprat to catch a Mackerel indeed.