What are Keywords?

What are Keywords?

This is something that I must admit, confused me for quite some time – the question “What are keywords” and how do they work?

I just didn’t quite have a handle on it. I new basically what they were, but how to actually use them? That was a bit of a mystery. My confusion was caused in part because I wasn’t sure if a keyword had to be just one word or if it could be more, and what the difference was if any between keywords and keyword phrases. Sounds blonde I know – but I am! And I’m also sure that there’s a lot of other people out there with the same problem.

There’s a bit to get your head around with keywords and how to use them (I think anyway) so I’ll do my best to explain the basics. Here we go!

Keywords are specific words or phrases that are used in a web page or article to optimise it for the search engines. How’s that? Need more info? Ok.

First. Keywords can be one word or a group of words (like a sentence or phrase). They are specific words or groups of words that people search for in the search engines. For example if I was searching for someone who repairs shoes in Brisbane, I might to go Google or Yahoo or Bing (or various other search engines) and type in perhaps ‘shoe repairs brisbane‘. Chances are that I’m not the only person who would do that search, am I right? There are probably other people in Brisbane searching for someone who repairs shoes. But Jo next door, might also be searching for someone to fix her shoes and on opening her trusty search engine, type in ‘fix shoes brisbane’. Same question – but different keyword. Get it?

Now, if I was creating a web page to advertise my shoe repair business in Brisbane, I would want to know how to let those people who are searching for me, find me – right? This is where keywords are used. Before making my web page, I need to do some research and find out how many people are searching for shoe repairs in Brisbane and what they’re entering into the search engine to find someone to fix their shoes, because I want to optimise my site so that as many people as possible will find my site and my business.

If you’re a bit confused at this point and wondering where I’m going with this, bear with me and I’ll try to make it clear.

What keywords are people searching for?

I need to ask the question what keywords are people searching for? The reason that I need to know what people are searching for and how many people are searching using a particular keyword is because when the search engines look at my site to see what it is about, they will pick up words and phrases that are used often within my site and match them up with other words and phrases to ascertain what my site is about and that is what they will record for my site as being it’s subject.

If for example,my site has an article on a page and it’s talking about shoe repairs. The phrase Shoe Repairs Brisbane might appear in the article three or four times. If in my article the phrase fix shoes brisbane also appears a few times then the search engines should (all going well) decide that my web site is about the correct subject and record that information about my web site so that when someone types shoe repairs brisbane into the search engine, my web page will come up in the results. If someone else types in fix shoes brisbane, my web site should show again in the search engine results, albeit in a different spot. (Note: these are not accurate, researched keywords – only examples pulled out of thin air for the purpose of easy explanation!)

If however, my web page contained the keyword shoe repairs brisbane a couple of times, and lets say I decide to add some information about the other businesses around me – maybe the bakery and the beauty salon – and I don’t know how to use my keywords effectively, then chances are the search engines may decide my site is predominantly about cakes or beauty therapy and those people looking for a shoe repairer in Brisbane are never going to find my web site!

Well, I hope that’s helped to clear up that question of What are keywords? More info to come on how to find the keywords that people are searching on, for your web site subject.

Note: I just had a look to see how many people are searching online for shoe repairs in Brisbane – I wouldn’t bother with a web site on the subject if I were you!

Tagged with: Brisbane • Confusion • Creating A Web Page • Google • How Many People • Keyword Phrases • Keywords • Mystery • Other Search Engines • People Search • People Searching • Phrase • Repair Business • Search Engine Type • Search Engines • Shoe Repair • Shoe Repairs • Shoes • Yahoo

Filed under: Earn Money on the Internet - The Basics

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!

Possibly related posts