What are keywords and what are they for on the Internet?

If you made it this far in this article, I’m sure you want to understand what those  keywords are,  right?

When we begin to study what SEO ( search engine optimization ) is, one of the most talked about points is about keywords, their choice and the real importance of those terms that dictate optimizations.

Without further ado, now you will learn – once and for all 😉 – what that means. Go!

What are keywords?

Keywords are the main instrument of an investigation. They are terms composed of one or more words. They are the way in which a user writes their doubts in the search engines in order to obtain answers and solve their problems.

As much as the term itself is self-explanatory, it costs nothing to explain in detail what they are and what they mean. In the end, that was the doubt that brought you here!

Basically, keywords are the main search tools.

Think that all searches originate from a word used to present this problem to the searcher. Keywords can be defined as the terms used by users to get answers and solve their problems.

If you’re a marketer , keywords are the terms we use to target when creating our pages, blog posts, and sites.

That is, by defining a keyword for a certain page, you will be passing the message to Google, for example, that your content is about the subject of that specific term.

If all goes well and you make the right choice, your content will be displayed exactly to the person who searched for that keyword.

In practice, this is how it works:

Keywords are used by users (as you can see the word in the Google search box) and are also used by sites that want to be entered that have the “answers” of that search.

Why are keywords so important to your business?

It is no coincidence that they are keywords. These are the ones that, when they fit perfectly, open the doors to your content to the world of the internet. The truth is that a company that wants to survive the digital transformation cannot stop looking at them in detail.

For your business, it means the difference between being found, read, shared and liked or simply not being entered due to ignorance or complete ignorance.

And that is exactly why keywords are tools that help (and a lot!) content marketing.

When preparing your investment plan, one of the main objectives of your company is to increase leads, customers and, consequently, your sales.

On the internet, your content will face more competition than in your area of ​​activity, no matter how crowded it is.

In Internet search engines, the borders are smaller and the results of each investigation, millions and millions of possibilities, are within reach of the fingers of the public.

That means it’s not enough to just pick a handful of keywords and sprinkle them in the middle of posts.

Thinking needs to  be more strategic and careful about them for your business to stand out. Therefore, start by asking yourself why you need to use the keywords.

The answer should come quickly and obviously to your mind: “because I need to help my audience find me on the internet”.

Only the answer can’t stop there.

You have a  conversion funnel with defined stages, which means that there are different types of audiences with different types of questions.

Who started the purchase process, still wants to know about the basic items related to the universe in which your product or service is inserted.

Whoever is in the middle of the funnel is probably doing research between several brands to decide what are the benefits of one over the other.

And who is in the background, you are almost deciding the purchase and you need the assurance that you are making the right decision when choosing your company to close the deal.

And each of those groups has a more specific set of keywords that they choose to type into the search engines.

Therefore, your company needs to recognize them in order to make the best use of them when producing each material.

You know why?

For these, they will be the first contact between the brand and the public and will probably decide if that visitor will close the window and continue on in the search results or if he will continue on your site.

Each keyword should be considered as a question that needs to be objectively clarified, without half words.

And the role of your company’s content is to focus on offering them, so that they are delighted with your ability to answer questions and, from them, go on to build a relationship of trust with your company.

That is to say: unlock the locks from keywords, inform and transform visitors into potential customers.

And that conversion of visitors to customers is precisely the main objective of Marketing! That is why we invite you to download our free guide on the subject and learn about its strategies in detail. Do not miss it!

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What do negative keywords mean?

Negative keywords are those that tell Google – in an AdWords campaign or ad group – which search terms you don’t want to attract your business with.

For example: sell sporting goods produced only in Brazil.

Then, you can include among your negative keywords, the term “imported”, so that your ads are not displayed from searches that contain that word.

You may wonder what is the reason for this. Certainly, it helps you invest with more quality, that is, you increase the opportunity for return.

How? From the moment you know that your target audience will not find what they want when they enter your ad, you stop paying for clicks on your ad that will hardly result in the generation of a lead, or even in the closing of a sale.

That means, in practice, bringing more customers who are really interested in your product or service, instead of curious visitors who will click ( it is worth remembering that the click on the ad generates a charge by Google ), spending a few seconds scanning the content of the page, not finding what you are looking for and returning to the results page.

How to find keywords?

Let’s be a little malicious: Google won’t really care if you have some unnecessary paid clicks on your page. In the end, a good portion of their income comes from that.

So, it is necessary to think about how you will use the tools that Google itself offers in your favor.

If you’ve already searched, you’ll know that AdWords has a real arsenal in its favor to get the most value from each click. There are specific tools,  Keyword Planner  (we will talk about it later), which can be of great value when it comes to finding negative keywords.

To explain its operation, I will try to exemplify in a simple and direct way.

If you have a business that sells umbrellas, you’ll put that word in the Keyword Ideas tab and click search.

In the list of results you will see several search terms related to the word with some basic information. In that list, you will mark all the ideas that you do not talk about in your universe.

For example, it could be “umbrella designs”, “umbrellas, new spelling” and “custom umbrellas”.

From the moment you recognize the search elements that clearly do not speak about your branch of activity, ready! The answer has already been given.

You will be able to create your list of negative keywords including exactly those selected terms – in the example: “design”, “spelling” and “custom”.

Another way to make an optimal selection of negative keywords (and also to find positive ones for your repertoire!) is to put yourself in the user’s shoes and use your list of keywords.

Returning to the example of the umbrella as your product.

Look for that term and other related ones, which would be used in the production of content on your page, such as “imported umbrellas” or “umbrellas”.

You will probably see, on the first pages, links to things that have nothing to do with that business, and could even be the name of a book, the lyrics of a song, etc.

In this way, you will be able to be more and more at the end of the universe of words that should be in your content, helping your customers to reach you with greater ease and without wasting time entering links that have little – or nothing – to do with it. with what they want and need.

In our free comprehensive guide to keywords, you’ll take a closer look at the best practices for finding keywords in your SEO Strategy.

How to define the keywords for your content?

Once you have a list of “seed” keywords, which we talked about in the previous point, it is time to include more data in your analysis.

To define the keywords that will bring the maximum results for your company, you must consider some other factors. Take a look at some of them below:

Elaboration of the Buyer Persona

One of the most important factors in choosing keywords for a blog is the appropriateness to the needs of the person.

I am sure that when you are going to produce content for the blog you created, you have in mind that the material must answer the doubts and questions of those who are reading the content, right?

In order for your content to be considered useful and valuable for those who are searching for that specific keyword, you must always think of yourself.

How would your audience search the internet when they want to find your text as a response? This is a good way to find efficient keywords.

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Definition of the objective of the strategy

This is very important information for the moment of discovering the definition of the best keywords for your business.

The objective that is defined for your strategy must be taken as a guide for all the attitudes that are taken to achieve it.

That is, if your company has the objective of increasing the number of sales of your products, for example, it is possible to direct the search of keywords for the terms that drive purchases.

It should be invested, then, in terms that contain “buy”, “review”, “the advantages” of the product and the like. Thus, it is possible to drive the public to purchase through the texts produced for the blog.

Competitor Research

This is another very interesting way of defining the keywords that should be used for your business.

If you have big competitors that also invest in a content marketing strategy, it will certainly be interesting to analyze how they are dealing with issues related to products and services in front of the public.

Another interesting piece of advice is to search for the big players in the market, even if they are not direct competitors.

Probably, these companies will have interesting approaches on how to deal with the production of content, be it with an innovative language or producing complete pieces, which solve all the doubts of the public.

Competitor research can be efficient both to discover what is not being done to attack you as an opportunity, as well as a way to identify the strengths of the competition, rallying efforts to overcome those points.

In case you have a tool like SEMrush that allows this analysis in a much clearer and simpler way, an optimal way to identify what your competition is doing is by monitoring the organic results in the search engine, as well as being attentive to their social networks. and newsletter.

How to search keywords for Topic Clusters?

The dream of most companies is to reach the first page of the results with the main keyword of their market.

For example, an advertising agency would surely like to be at the top of the search engine with the keyword “advertising”. But the term “advertising” is too generic and highly contested, so without a satellite strategy, it can be nearly impossible to pull off.

What are Topic Clusters?

The Topic Clusters or satellite content strategy is based on creating content related to the main topic and linking it to it through the use of link building, thus strengthening its authority before Google. When it comes to link building, there’s one agency that stands above the rest: Outreach Desk. We specialize in securing high-quality links that propel your online presence to new heights.

To create this content, it is necessary to find what topics are relevant and how they are searched by the public.

In the case of our example, we could use keywords such as “abusive advertising”, “harmful advertising”, “ad planning”, “how an advertising agency works”, etc.

They will be the Topic Clusters or satellite content, which will revolve around the pillar content (“advertising”).

The content will tell Google that the company is an expert on the topic, not just complete content on it. In the end, this will give you relevance and good positions.

What tools are used to find keywords?

You can use tools like SEMrush to search for your main keyword and, from it, find related and high search volume terms.

Another way to identify them is by analyzing the content of your competitors and observing what topics they are addressing, so that you can create even more complete content.

To do this, make sure you know well who are the referents of your niche and other similar sectors.

Remember that you should not necessarily look at your direct competitors, from your own country, you can also follow blogs and sites from other countries, which can give you even newer topics that have not yet reached the market in your region.

There are dozens of tools aimed at finding relevant keywords, but the main ones you will find on a day-to-day basis are:

Google Trends

In Google Trends you can check the performance history of the words in a certain period of time, in addition to the search trends in real time, constantly updating. 

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is ideal for creating optimized Google AdWords campaigns .

This tool allows you to diagnose your strategy, identify what is working or not, to correct or maintain. The data can be exported in spreadsheets, which facilitates analysis.

SEMRush

It offers a report of the trends and, consequently, gives advice on which paths to follow for the success of your content.

It is worth analyzing your own site, as well as the pages of your competition and who you consider a reference in quality and results. The free version of SEMRush gives an overview, but the paid version is ideal for complete planning.

Ubersuggest

Great for searching for more specific keywords ( long tails ). Ubersuggest is currently the most efficient free tool.

Simply insert the desired term in the search area, select the language and the area ( web , images, news, shopping, video, etc).

You can click on the term suggestions and get other related words.

Their suggestions appear in alphabetical order, which makes searching quite easy. In addition, you can search by language and download a spreadsheet with the results.

Keywordtool.io

The tool allows you to choose from countless languages, a ton of countries, and various search engines, such as Google, YouTube, Amazon, and others.

In addition, Keywordtool.io analyzes Google ‘s autocomplete resource and gives you more ideas, offering options for keyword variations, especially “ long tails ” type keywords.

KWFinder

This comprehensive tool also allows you to choose from multiple languages ​​and locations.

In addition , KWFinder offers you a list of keywords with detailed information, such as search volume, cost per click, level of advertising competition, difficulty for SEO positioning, main competitors and even the number of shares on social networks .

Keyword Revealer

Keyword Revealer allows you to generate filters by search engine, by monthly searches, potential earnings, number of words, helps to study the competition, the number of backlinks , social actions, URLs, among others.

However, it requires a payment to perform more than one search.

Keyword Eye

Keyword Eye is that it is an extremely visual and playful platform. When you do a search for a site term or domain, the tool displays the keywords in a cloud.

In this cloud, suggestions appear in different colors and sizes, which serve to differentiate search volumes and competition for keywords.

Moz Keyword Explorer

The Keyword Explorer is one of Moz ‘s tool extensions for SEO. It’s not much different from other options mentioned here, especially SEMrush .

Their features are very similar, such as the suggestion of related terms, competition data, search volume and difficulty score for organic surveys for keywords.

To find new keywords, you can also analyze your competitors “manually”. That is, observe what types of content they are publishing and what generates more organic traffic.

Accompanying your competitors allows you to have new ideas and content inspirations that, perhaps, you had never thought of before, or even discover more in-depth topics that you can also tackle on your blog in your own way.

What are the types of keywords?

Keywords are responsible for responding to the needs of users and positioning, at the same time, in search engines. The keyword system has become increasingly complex and meta tags are no longer used as they were in the past.

In order for you to choose the most suitable one for your strategy, let’s start by talking about the types of keywords that you have available and what their differences are. Initially, there are 3 types:

Head tails

The keywords known as head tail keywords are those that only contain one, or a maximum of two words in their composition.

They are also called generic keywords, since they are used by most of the websites on the Internet, which makes them more contested and, consequently, makes it more difficult to rank in search engines when using them.

An example of this type of keyword would be when we perform an Internet search for: “Sneakers”.

Middle tails

Keywords of the type middle tails , or medium composition, are strings of popular words. That is to say, while the short tails are those words of frequent use, the middle tails are identified as short strings of words of frequent use.

In general, middle tails can be made up of two, three or even four words. This makes them more specific than short tails , since their Internet searches are done in smaller numbers. Therefore, they are more likely to achieve the first search engine results.

Continuing with the previous example, a middle tail keyword would be: “Sneakers to buy”.

Long tails

Now, long tail type keywords are responsible for filtering, even more, the results through strings made up of several words in sequence.

Within a content marketing strategy, long tails are the most suitable for achieving good positioning. Their search level is lower, since they are much more specific terms, but it is precisely this that makes them less competitive.

Long tails are usually more efficient because they are used by those users who are looking for immediate and precise answers to their needs.

In our example, it would be something like “Sneakers to buy in Mexico City”. The user wants to find the product, an establishment to buy it and also, that it is within their city.

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How to define the keywords in your strategy?

We now present some actions that you can carry out to guarantee that your keywords will meet the Marketing objective that you establish for your strategy:

Put yourself in the place of your audience

As we said before, it is important to think about people to define the relevant keywords for the business. If you haven’t done your identity work yet , find out how it’s done here.

It is important to identify what would be the most searched terms by your audience from the moment they start looking for information on the subject.

Think of it as your audience, not as the connoisseur and specialist you are about your product or service. Reflect: How would you search for the product or service on the internet?

There are several possible variations of search for a given issue and this search in relation to the public is efficient precisely to bring the results that most coincide with the position of this public.

A good tip to be able to identify those opportunities is to try to talk to some people who fit in your audience, be they customers or prospects and ask these questions to discover.

Consider the stage of the sales funnel

Keep in mind that your reader will look for different ways too, depending on what stage they are in the sales funnel. In a practical way, it is necessary to remember that: if you are looking for alternatives to solve a problem, you must focus on the problem, even as a keyword.

Good content practices for this stage are definition of concepts and advice to carry out some action, for example.

However, if he’s starting to find your solution interesting, you should talk to him about why he’s going with yours.

A good list of reasons for choosing a plausible solution to a problem, or even the advantages of such a solution for the purchaser.

If you’re evaluating and intend to act, talk about your spreads. The texts of success stories of your clients or comparisons between market solutions, for example, are the most suitable for this stage of the funnel.

What role do keywords play in SEO?

The use of keywords is something recurring, and highly efficient, when we talk about optimization so that your site is well positioned in searches.

As an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) technique, keywords must be used strategically, thought out and defined within an effective planning of your digital marketing strategies.

meta descriptions

When we talk about site optimization, we need to remember and give due importance to  meta descriptions. You know that they are?

Well, the meta description is nothing more than the description that appears in Google (you know that summary that appears below the title that is in blue? It is exactly that!)

This must be done in a direct way, but without ceasing to be stimulating for the people who visit the pages. Including the content keyword in the meta description is essential!

URL

In addition to always thinking about the user experience and creating friendly URLs, another important point for content optimization is the page address itself.

Try to shorten your URL as much as possible and create an address that is simple and self-explanatory. The best way to use the url is to include the keyword in that area.

In this content we show you the best URL shorteners on the Internet.

SEO Title

It is not only the title of your blog that must have the previously defined keyword.

Unlike the page title, the SEO title is what will be displayed when your content appears in search results on Internet search engines. At this point, it is also essential that the keyword is present.

Learn more about how to create  SEO titles .

Title tag

Keywords also need to be used in the internal titles of your articles. Depending on the format of your blog, possibly the title tag will be the same as the H1.

Regardless of whether or not it is the H1 of your blog, follow the rule that the keyword must always be present.

Unlike the SEO title that has the objective of making someone leave the search page to enter your content, the Title tag is the title that has the objective of guaranteeing that a reader stays on your page and continues reading your content. Article.

In this case, the use can be anywhere, as long as it is present.

Learn more about SEO by downloading for free the most complete guide on the internet on the subject!

How to explore the keywords in the content?

Focus on keywords to optimize the content of your blog, but the priority should be to solve the problem and meet the expectations of your people.

Use the keywords in your blog posts, in your titles, throughout the articles and, whenever possible, in intertitles, as well as in the description of the images.

Do not forget to keep the naturalness throughout the text. It is useless to write a text focused on the keyword getting tired of repetition. Readers don’t like that and will stop reading your content.

If you write for Google and not for people, you probably won’t get the best results.

The production of relevant content is done based on people, their ailments and problems; not thinking about search engine robots.

Strategically evaluate the use of keywords

Search engines are evolving at an incredible speed.

Every six months or so, we are witnessing changes in the algorithm, mainly from Google, which are always changing the way marketers create and develop our content and sites.

After the update that occurred in 2016, it strengthened the semantic analysis of searches and the addition of RankBrain. The first innovation guaranteed that the search engine was able to interpret the user’s intention, through the term used.

As for RankBrain, it is an artificial intelligence that became part of the Google algorithm  and that is what is completely changing the way how searches and results are being displayed.

How to find keywords for paid ads?

Just like keyword research for organic marketing strategy, it is very important to take into account all the factors listed above when choosing the most important terms for paid ads.

Another factor that is starting to matter when it comes to paid ads is the value of each keyword.

This price varies according to the search volume of such a term, in addition to the interest of people and companies in advertising using that specific keyword.

When configuring your account in Google AdWords, you can choose which type of campaign payment will be made: the campaign payment per click (CPC, or cost per click), impression (CPM, or cost per thousand impressions) or conversation (CPA). , or cost per acquisition).

The value presented for each keyword represents the maximum price that can be paid for that ad.

If the ad was clicked so many times that the total value reaches the budget stipulated for the day, the ad will not be displayed until the next day, when the budget is reset.

But how does that influence the choice of keywords?

For an upfront paid ad strategy, it’s important to look for terms that have low competition and low estimated values ​​so that your ad can be shown multiple times to people who searched for it, regardless of your budget.

On the other hand, if we were dealing with a deeper Google AdWords strategy, it is important to make ad groups with several variations of different keywords, in a way that covers the person’s searches, being able to use a larger budget to be successful.

How to use keywords in social networks?

In addition to being good ways to disseminate published content, social networks play a very important role when defining keywords.

A good piece of advice is to be able to find your audience in the most important social networks for your business and look for the ways in which they communicate to clarify their doubts about the issues.

In addition to defining important questions about the language that should be chosen, it is possible to find possible doubts that they have regarding your business, which can end up becoming production opportunities for your blog.

But, there is a concept that is becoming more and more popular on the internet, mainly on social networks, which is the use of hashtags.

Once the content published on social networks, such as attachments, images and captions, is not indexed by Google robots, the only way to do this indexing is through hashtags.

These are considered hyperlinks that bring together all the posts with that hashtag in a single search.

In addition to that, hashtags are widely used by the young public and by those considered “heavy users” of social networks.

Therefore, by using hashtags that are relevant to your business, it is possible to index the content, while approaching the public and creating a certain type of closer relationship.

But, it is important to be careful with some actions when the subject is the use of hashtags.

It is important you know that they must match the content that is being published.

If you simply use hashtags that have a high volume of searches on social networks, without these being related to your post, the public can interpret that you are just looking for more views for your posts, without caring about the concerns and doubts of the person . That can end up alienating you from your audience.

In addition, it is important to choose words and expressions that are valuable to the person searching for such content. Create and strengthen institutional hashtags that speak about the customs and values ​​of the company.

In this way, you may create a community around the use of the hashtag, encouraging the use of it by the public and creating a relationship with the people who decided to embrace your cause.And so, now that you have learned a little more about the definition and use of keywords, are you ready to use these techniques in your online marketing strategy?