Hey Baby, What’s Your Keyword?

Photo by Taki Steve

If you are a blogger, or internet marketer, or business owner with a website, you should know the answer to this question. Your keyword is what brings visitors to your site, what drives your traffic, what makes you money. In short, it’s the most important piece of every post or article on your website.

How do you know what your keyword is?

A keyword is simply the word or phrase the your potential client or reader types into Google when he or she is looking for the information you have. If you were looking for you, what would you search for? That’s your keyword.

There is a lot more that can be said about choosing keywords, like how to conduct keyword research, and what constitutes a good keyword versus a not so good keyword, but for now, all you really need to know is that your keyword is what your potential customers are searching on.

What do you do with a keyword?

Once you’ve figured out what your keyword is–and a keyword is not likely to be just a single word, it’s generally a phrase, like “car dealerships in Cheboygan” or “dentists in Boise.” Anyway, once you’ve figured that out, you need to do something with it. You knowing your site is about a dentist in Boise is not enough for Google to know it. You have to tell Google what your site is about, and one of the ways to do that is by the use of keywords.

Whether you write your own posts and articles or hire a content creator to do it for you, the first thing you need to do is figure out what keyword you are targeting with that article. Once you know your keyword, you need to use it. Use it in your title, use it in your headings, use it near the beginning of your article, and use it near the end. That’s it. Don’t overuse it. The Google gods do not look kindly on those they deem to be “keyword stuffers.”

You don’t have to limit your article to only a single keyword, of course. You might have two or even three related keywords for a single article. I wouldn’t target any more than three, though, or you’ll risk confusing your writer, your reader, and Google. If you think your article warrants more than three keywords, you can probably split it up into multiple articles.

Keywords are the key

Keywords are the key (get it?) to getting indexed in the right place on the search engines, and the key to getting found by your potential customers. Choose carefully and use them well, and you will be rewarded with more traffic. Keep your keywords in mind in everything you do on your site. Optimize every post, every page, every article for your keywords. Make it a habit. You’ll be glad you did.