Why Are Keywords So Important?

Keywords are the most important factor in search engine optimisation. The reason for this is that,

• when people do a search at a search engine, they will enter words they are interested in finding results for and those words are called keywords,
   
• and it is those very same keywords you will need to target with your web site  if you want it listed in the results page following a search,
   
• and this means that people will find your web site through search engines.

Keywords Research

Keyword research is the very first thing you should do before putting a web site together as your choice of target keywords will determine the text of your links, the names of your web pages, your menu items, the content of your web pages and lots more...

Basics of Keywords Research

In order to properly research the keywords you need to target with your web site, there are 4 basic things you will need to be aware of:

1. keywords tools: know where to go online (or what software to use) to get a list of relevant keywords + relevant data + suggestions,
    
2. concept of 'demand': you will need to understand the concept of demand ie. how many people actually search for a given keyword each day or each month. After all, you don't want to target a keyword that no one is using in search engines!
    
3. concept of 'supply': understand the concept of supply ie. how many web sites target a given keyword. The reason for this is that these web sites constitute your competition.

   At the time of writing this text, we did a Google search for 'flowers' which reported 217 million hits. That is a lot of competition!
    

4. issue of relevancy: understand the issue of relevancy ie. you need to target keywords that are highly relevant to the theme of your web site.

   For example, if your web site sells 'flower baskets', then don't target 'flowers' but 'flower baskets' as that is exactly what you offer, and you want visitors to your web site who are interested in 'flower baskets' and not just 'flowers'.

   At the time of writing this, a Google search for 'flower baskets' reported 975 thousand hits, which sounds like a lot of competition but in reality, it is much better than a competition of 217 million!