Across the scope of digital marketing, the right words hold power, and keywords are the building blocks of an effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy. Understanding how to find, choose, and use the right keywords is the difference between a website languishing in the depths of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), or standing out at the top of the first page of results.

Whether you’re a small business owner looking for the answers to ranking higher on Google, or a seasoned marketeer who needs a refresh on the art of keyword deployment, this comprehensive guide will explain how to unlock the power of keywords. In this guide Understand How to Find, Choose, and Use the Right Keywords, we will cover:

• What are keywords?
• Can keywords be a sentence?
• The impact of long-tail keywords on SEO
• Why are keywords important in SEO?
• How can you find keywords?
• How do you choose which keywords for SEO?
• How to analyse competitor’s keywords
• How do you track keywords?

What are keywords?

Keywords are the words and phrases that people put into search engines and are at the core of all SEO research and planning. When the content of a website is finely tuned to match the searches people make through keywords, that website will appear in the search results.

Keywords can be one, two, or more words including a whole sentence. As people have different ways of using search engines, some may search for something a bit vague, and some may be very exacting in their search criteria.

Three different examples of a search using keywords could be as follows:

“Cafés Northampton”

“Dog-friendly cafés Northampton

“Cafés in Northampton that serve gluten free food”

It’s important for cafés in Northampton to have a website that includes all the keywords they want people find them for, including “café”, “Northampton”, “dog-friendly” and “gluten free food” for example.

Can keywords be a sentence?

A search query that is a sentence is also known as a long-tailed keyword and are just as likely to be used for searching as two- or three-word queries. In fact, as search behaviour evolves, more people are using natural language and speech for online queries, especially for voice activated devices like a Google Home.

This has given rise to the use of keyword phrases that are longer and more conversational, often posed as full questions or natural language sentences.

Here’s how to optimise for sentence-like keywords:

Include Question Keywords: Anticipate and answer questions directly related to your product or service within your content.

Create Conversational Content: Write in a conversational tone that reflects how people speak and ask questions in real life.

Optimise for Voice Search: Given the increasing prevalence of voice-controlled devices, ensure that your content is voice-search friendly, including natural-sounding sentence keywords.

By adapting your keyword strategy to accommodate the rise of natural language search, you position your business at the forefront of this digital transformation, enhancing user experience, and driving organic traffic.

The impact of long-tail keywords on SEO

There are several benefits to optimising your website with long-tail keywords because in general, they are less competitive than shorter, more generic keywords.

Improved Conversion Rates: Long-tail keywords tend to attract users with high purchase intent, often leading to better conversion rates.

Low Competition: Long-tail keywords are easier to rank for than broad keywords and offer a less competitive way to increase people visiting a website.

Increased Relevance: Long-tail keywords allow for more specific content, ensuring a higher level of relevance for users and search engines.

By leveraging long-tail keywords you can reach a more qualified audience who is closer to the point of purchase which is part of a great SEO strategy.

Why are keywords important in SEO?

So, keywords lie at the core of SEO, but why is this? When finely tuned into your website content, keywords act as signposts for search engine crawlers, signalling the relevance of your content to a user’s query. Effective keyword usage helps search engines, and consequently, your audience, to understand what your content is about.

Keywords matter in SEO for three critical reasons:

1. User Intent and Relevance: Targeted keywords ensure that the content you offer aligns with what users are looking for. This increases engagement and the likelihood of conversion because the users have found what they are looking for.
2. Visibility and Ranking: With the right keywords, you improve your chances of ranking higher on SERPs, making your web pages more easily discoverable by your target audience.
3. Competitive Edge: Understanding and leveraging the keywords that your competitors overlook can give you a strategic advantage in the digital marketplace.

In an example of someone searching for a café in Northampton that serves gluten free food, a café that doesn’t mention “gluten free food” is likely to be ranked much lower than a website that does.

How can you find keywords?

Keyword research involves employing a mix of ingenuity and data analysis to determine the best keywords for your business. It’s a multi-faceted process that can be approached in various ways, including using keyword research tools and looking at how your target audience describes your products and services. Some research methods are free, and some require access to paid software. We’ll explore both avenues as they both have their merits.

Free ways to find keywords for your business

What Your Customers Say: Listen to the phrases your customers use in feedback, evaluations, support requests, and in general conversations with you.

Social Media Listening: Observe the language used by your followers, competitors, and those discussing your industry on social platforms or other websites.

Your Personal Search Techniques: Want to know what people search for when looking for your service or product? Conduct a search of your own, how are you searching? Chances are you’re not the only one using those terms.

Free trials and tools: There are keyword research platforms like Ahrefs and Semrush that may have a limited free trial, or you can use software like Google’s Keyword Planner and Ask The Public which are free.

Paid methods for keyword research

Keyword Research Tools: Use paid versions of Ahrefs and Semrush to find high-volume keywords related to your niche quickly. These types of platforms also have competitor analysis so you can investigate the keywords your competitors use successfully and identify gaps and opportunities in your keyword targeting.

Instruct A Marketing Agency: Marketing agencies are a cost-effective way to access keyword research as they pay for the right software and can do the research for clients. Part of their service could include them writing the keyword optimised content as well.

You can use some or all these methods to find hundreds of keywords that are suitable to use for a website, but how do you choose the right keyword for your strategy?

How do you choose which keywords for SEO?

A critical part of the keyword research process is selection. It’s not just about choosing the most popular or competitive keywords — it’s about finding the optimal balance between relevance, search volume, and the likelihood of ranking.

Understand the search intent

Search engine and website visitors usually fall into one of four categories; looking for information, searching for a particular website or page, researching something in particular, or aiming to take a definitive action like a purchase. When you’re looking through your keywords list, try to categorise the keywords into those categories:

• Informational
• Navigational
• Commercial
• Transactional

Assess the keyword difficulty

Keyword research tools rank keywords in different ways but one of them is keyword difficulty (how difficult it is to rank highly for them). Identify how competitive your selected keywords are as that will help you decide which ones to prioritise, and which ones not to waste time on.

Keyword organisation

Further organising your keywords into themes or topics will help narrow down the list as you will want to focus on keywords that fall under the topics and goals you have in your overall marketing strategy.

Check your competition

To further focus on which keywords will be most helpful, it’s useful to analyse your competitors keywords and see which ones they rank highly for. We’ll go into more detail on competitors in the next section.

Be strategic with placement

Plan where and how often you will use the keywords in your website content, not stuffing each page with the keywords but ensuring a natural and engaging user experience. If you think a keyword isn’t going to fit right, remove it from your list.

Keep narrowing down

Adding good quality, keyword optimised content to your website takes time so once narrowed down, even to five keywords, you still need to choose which one to start with. Choose the one you are ranking highest for and improve that. Then work down your list.

By carefully selecting and planning the use of your keywords, you will have an effective and rewarding foundation for the next phase of SEO.

How to analyse competitor’s keywords

Competitive keyword analysis is a strategic SEO practice that can offer powerful insights into industry trends and areas of untapped potential. By studying the keywords that are driving the most traffic to your competitors’ websites, you can understand where you stand and identify opportunities to outmanoeuvre them.

To conduct a comprehensive competitive keyword analysis, you will want to identify your top competitors if you don’t know them already, analyse their keywords, and find the gaps they are missing so you can exploit them.

When analysing competitors using keyword research tools, the competitors are purely going to be based on the keyword knowledge. So, if you are a wedding cake shop in Northampton, putting your URL into a keyword research platform will most likely show you the biggest competitors through keywords, it won’t necessarily highlight your local competitors. For this reason, it can be helpful to put your competitors’ websites into the tool as well so you can see their keywords and identify gaps in their content.

We’re not saying to discount what the tools say are your competitors but think about your marketing strategy and if targeting local people is part of that plan, it will be advantageous to target the local businesses you compete with.

Using specific locations in your keyword research will be helpful to identify your competitors too. Users are likely to look locally for wedding related purchases for example, so you want to target keywords with locations in such as “wedding cakes Northampton”, instead of the more generic (and much harder to rank for) “wedding cakes”.

With this in mind, as part of your keyword research, aim to check out 5 competitors to start with, see what their keywords are, and what they are missing in comparison to you. If your wedding cake making competitor is not ranking (or very low ranking) for any locations, that is a great opportunity for you to work on locations as your keyword. Once you’ve got Northampton done, your strategy might be to target other areas in Northamptonshire like Wellingborough, Rushden, and Daventry.

When it comes to competitors:

1. Identify your top competitors,
2. Analyse their keywords,
3. Exploit their keyword gaps.

What if they don’t have any gaps? If you want to outrank your competitors on similar keywords, analyse their content and find ways to do the same but better. You can find out more about creating website content for SEO in our article Simple SEO Strategies for Small Businesses.

For information on how to improve your SEO at a local level, and improve how you use your Google Business Profile, check out our articles Getting seen locally on Google and The Importance of using Google My Business.

By staying abreast of your competitors’ keywords and their SEO tactics, you’ll be equipped to refine and fortify your own keyword targeting.

How do you track keywords?

Keyword monitoring and tracking are critical for maintaining an effective SEO strategy. It allows you to adapt to changes in search trends, understand user behaviour, measure the performance of your keywords over time, and keep an eye on your competitors SERP ranking.

Here’s how to effectively track your keywords:

Set Up a Tracking System: Use keyword tracking tools to monitor the performance and ranking of your chosen keywords.

Review and Adjust: Regularly review your keyword data and adjust your SEO strategy to reflect changes in the performance and competition of your chosen keywords.

Look at the Bigger Picture: Consider keyword performance in the context of wider SEO and marketing trends to gain a holistic view of user engagement.

By incorporating keyword tracking into your SEO routine, you ensure that your digital marketing efforts remain agile and responsive to changes.

Understand How to Find, Choose, and Use the Right Keywords Webinar

In this webinar, Dave explains how keywords work, how to use Ahrefs to choose the right keywords, and how to use them in your website.
Using examples from the webinar audience, and showing real time examples using Ahrefs keyword tools, this is a must watch for anyone who wants to see keyword research and keyword strategy in use.

 

Create an Unbeatable Keyword Strategy

Understanding, finding, choosing, and using the right keywords is an ongoing process that evolves with your business and the digital landscape.

By implementing the tools and techniques outlined in this guide, you can develop a robust keyword strategy that resonates with your audience, boosts your search rankings, and delivers measurable results.

As a specialist SEO digital marketing agency, we have access to a range of keyword tools and conducting keyword research is part of our client offering. If you would like more information about our services or want us to conduct a brief bit of keyword research to get you started, you can book an appointment online, we’d love to help you.

 

Top questions about finding, choosing, and using keywords

What is a long-tail keyword?

A long-tail keyword is a more specific, often longer search phrase with lower competition but high conversion potential.

 

Are keywords important?

Yes, keywords help your content show up in relevant searches and attract the right audience.

 

How to find keywords?

Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, or Ahrefs, and check search trends and your audience’s queries.

 

How to choose keywords for SEO?

Pick keywords based on search volume, relevance to your content, and how competitive they are in your niche.

 

Can you search for keywords on a website?

Yes, you can use browser extensions or SEO tools to analyse a website’s keyword usage.

 

How to find out what keywords competitors are using?

Use SEO tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz to analyse your competitors’ sites and see their top-ranking keywords.