SEO for Rookies #5 – What are keywords and keyword phrases?

This is the fifth post in my “SEO for Rookies” series.

You’ve been advised, “You need to target keywords to better your ranking on Google.” Let’s dig into what this means in plain English:

Keywords are words and phrases your potential customers search for on the internet.

For example, if one of your potential customers types into Google: “How much shampoo to use when bathing a 35-pound labradoodle,” the keyword phrases might include:

Shampooing a labradoodle
Shampoo labradoodle
Type of shampoo labradoodle
Shampoo amount labradoodle

You can imagine that there are tons of web posts about “bathing a dog,” but much fewer for “shampooing a 35lb labradoodle.”

What do I do once I have some keywords and phrases?

Use the terms and phrases verbatim in your posts.

You don’t have to go overboard and repeat them incessantly, but add them in uisng natural language throughout your post.

Mix things up – Google is smart – it can tell that “bathing a labradoodle” is the same thing as “washing a labradoodle.”

“General” keywords are hard to rank high for.

Some keywords are hard to rank for – these tend to be the less specific keywords related to your industry. Many potential customers are searching for these terms and keywords, so they are highly coveted (lots of searching customers = more money for company) and very hard to rank high for.

Words like “interior painting” are hard to rank for keywords in the painting industry because so many painting companies want to be at the top of the first page of Google for “interior painting” to capture that enormous market.

Long tail keywords help demonstrate “expertise” to Google.

Some keywords are easier to rank for – these are highly specific search terms for which a small niche of your customers might search. These niche-y keywords are called “long tail keywords.”

On my website, “painting walk-in freezers” is an example of a long-tail keyword phrase because, well, not many people ever search for this.

It’s important to stop here and understand that one of the ranking factors for a company to be high in Google search results is “demonstrating expertise.”

Using long-tail keywords to demonstrate expertise is a great strategy, especially when you’re just beginning to work on SEO.

Once Google sees some traffic heading to your website, even for nichy-projects outside your local area, they attribute more expertise to your site and will increase your overall ranking for harder-to-rank search terms.

Case study – “Painting walk in freezers.”

In other words, to more easily rank higher for profitable terms like “interior painting,” try to rank first for long-tail terms like “painting walk-in freezers” to acquire some expertise in Google’s eyes.

I have a case study on our website of a walk-in freezer project we painted years ago. This article likely gets very little local traffic. Still, it’s at the top of Google searches nationally for “painting walk in freezers” because, not many others have written about such a specific type of project.

This nationally ranking article demonstrates painting expertise to Google. As a result, this gives us a higher overall ranking for harder-to-rank-for search terms (like “interior painting”) that reach tons of potential local customers.