What You Need to Know About Why Keywords Are Crucial for Boosting Your SEO

If you are producing any writing for the online realm, it is quite probable you are also keen for that writing to be read by an audience and for it to gain some traction and generate more traffic to your site.

Whether you are a blogger or a business owner, learning how to tackle keywords is a fundamental basic for search engine optimization (SEO)

By including intelligent keywords in your writing, your article is more likely to rank higher up on search engine results pages (SERPs), which means it is also more likely that your article will be clicked on and read.

But, how important are keywords in modern SEO, really? For successful SEO, they are paramount! There are no two ways about it. While it is true the use of keywords has changed over the years, they are still completely necessary for strong SEO.

Keywords can be viewed as the foundation for fruitful content; however, there are rules in place that mean your articles can be flagged if you don’t use keywords in an appropriate way (which could actually damage the ranking your site has).

This means the keywords you choose must be contextual and add value. To keep the likes of search engines, such as Google, happy, you need to avoid “keyword stuffing.” Keyword stuffing basically means adding a long list of keywords that come across as unnatural, or purposefully using unrelated terms that are popular and likely to be searched for. Google has algorithms in place to detect these.

So, it’s not just about the importance of keywords; it is also about the importance of using them correctly. In this article, we cover the top five reasons why keywords are so important in SEO with the aim that you can improve your articles and attract the audience you want.

Five Reasons Keywords Are Important In SEO

This article will cover the top 5 reasons that keywords are important in SEO. Specifically, these are:

1. Keywords drive traffic
2. Keywords increase conversion
3. Keywords let search engines know what your website is all about
4. Keywords can be recycled
5. Keywords help build your business

1: Keywords Drive Traffic

So, what do we mean by this exactly? Keywords can be viewed as linchpins, as they are an integral and vital part of ensuring that your content gets to the targeted audience that is searching for it and will benefit from it. Keywords, in this way, are a paramount factor in creating the rational, logical, truthful link required for impacting positively on SERPS and driving traffic to your site in a meaningful way.

As an essential element of successful SEO, the types of keywords you use will dictate the type of traffic you then get, which is why it is also incredibly important to use them wisely, spell them correctly, and with specificity.

For example, if you own a lingerie store, you may be looking to improve your ranking for “new bras”, but if you accidentally type “new bars,” then you may well end up attracting traffic looking for new nightlife venues instead.

As these form the crucial connection between the searcher and the item being searched for, it is wise to double and triple check your keywords, as well as using a few supporting keywords and phrases that will help assist your intended demographic in finding your content.

By being mindful that keywords will act as the linchpin for generating fruitful traffic to your site, you can use them more intelligently with the express aim of speaking directly to your target market.

2:  Keywords Increase Conversion

Flowing naturally from the first point, which emphasizes the importance of keywords in terms of how vital they are in driving meaningful traffic, this point is really more about what happens once you have that traffic arrive at your site.

With clever keyword utilization, you’ll start generating the sort of organic traffic that can result in conversions, as you are more likely to be reaching your intended audience that has a need for the content you are providing.

One of the key aspects of achieving this is by using a variety of tools that can help you understand which keywords are the most effective. For example, if you decide to use Google Ads, you will have access to the analytics that Google provides as part of this service. You can also make use of their Keyword Planner, which can have remarkable success, and Google Trends to ascertain how often certain words are searched for.

These analytics will pinpoint exactly what keywords, or terms and phrases, your audience is searching for and responding to the most, as well as revealing those that aren’t as effective.

By using this data, you will be able to learn and grow alongside the search behavior of your potential clientele and create relevant, engaging, content tailor-made for them. Content made in this way has a much higher success rate in terms of leading to conversions.

3: Keywords Inform Search Engines About What Your Website Is About

The way we have used keywords has changed in recent times, in that search engines such as Google have gotten much more clever in detecting awful, sub-par content that has managed to gain a top-ranking position in SERPs through keyword stuffing and using unrelated, but trending, keywords.

However, the purpose of them remains the same; the only thing that has really changed is the bar for quality content. This is (trust us) actually a very good thing.

This is another reason why keywords are significant in SEO; with the changes over the years to how keywords are being used, search engines are now more efficient in understanding human language and detecting legit, quality content over poor content.

The better you utilize keywords, the more informed search engines are in terms of what your website is all about. The clearer this is to the likes of Google or Bing, and so on, the more likely you are to improve your rankings and start attracting the demographic audience you are keen to connect with.

4: Keywords Can Be Recycled

That’s right! Putting some time and effort into researching, analyzing, and perfecting the art of utilizing keywords won’t just have a positive impact on generating traffic to your site; you can also reuse them for your other social media platforms in the form of hashtags.

In many ways, keywords and hashtags are part of the same family in terms of boosting your chances of being visible in the very noisy, busy, fast-paced world of online media. It could be fair to say that hashtags are the new, shiny, cousin of the older, more-established, keywords.

For instance, if you are also keen to promote your content on Instagram, you can use any keywords that you know have been relatively successful (by utilizing analytics or other forms of data-collation) and add them as hashtags, where relevant, to the content you post on Instagram.

Using them in this way will not only be effective based on your research and previous success, but will maximize efficiency as you will not need to embark on a whole new research process for the various types of socials out there. Once you have established the types of words that work in generating the audience you want to connect with, you will be able to recycle them whenever it is appropriate to do so!

5:  Keywords Help Build Your Business

In a way, this point is a crossover of the points we’ve already looked at. Keywords are important as a tool to help you build your business by boosting your online visibility. You can experiment with short-tail and long-tail keywords; the former are more general and less than three words while the latter are three or more words and are much more specific.

By employing an intelligent keyword strategy, your content is far more likely to increase traffic, attract the right audience, and lead to conversions, which will have a hugely positive impact on the growth of your company.

Final Notes

So, now that you have some of the main reasons why keywords are crucial in SEO, you should hopefully be feeling a bit more inspired to try to set the bar a bit higher for your own SEO work—particularly if you feel that your online content isn’t quite generating the traffic you want.

By focusing on the quality of your SEO and the way you are employing keywords (or not, if that may be the case), you should start seeing positive developments. 

If you feel like you are still missing the mark, you really want to make some significant changes in where your website ranks on SERPs, you might even want to check out how an SEO expert would create your content, which will provide a great example for learning how to boost traffic to your site.