Lesson 3: Keywords

What are Keywords?

Keywords are single words or phrases that are "key" to your business. In terms of SEO, keywords are vital in assisting search engines in determining what you do, who you are, where you are, and if your business has any authority being ranked.

How do Search Engines know what my keywords are?

This is a great question that is debated amongst the SEO community primarily because Search Engines do not provide explicit details regarding their private software (a.k.a. search engines) because it is proprietary to them, and quite frankly, they don't have to.

Here is what we do know.

Every Search Engine has stated publicly that the best way to utilize your keywords is in a natural and organic way.

In other words:

While there is no reason to get entrenched in the science behind Search Engine Algorithms (at this juncture) there are a few important things to know while you keep it simple and straight forward for the Search Engines to do their job.

How to make your Keywords Key

Each Search Engine utilizes a "crawler" to scan the WWW. Your website exists as an infinitesimal speck on the grandiose scale of the WWW.

These crawlers visit your website and review the code to help determine what your site is about and where you should be placed in the grand scheme of things. (See Ranking article for more info on how you are being judged.)

Natural and priority placement of content and material on your website is a common metric for finding "key" information such as "keywords" by the crawlers. In simpler terms - what's logical?

An example of (logic) priority placement may be:

• Your URL (your domain name)

  • ex. best-seo-course-ever.com (used as an example only)

• Your Banner or Header Content

  • The information found at the top of your website that can be seen without scrolling
    • Also known as "Above the fold"

• Page Descriptions and Titles

• Meta Tag Titles and Descriptions

  • These provide the information for the SERPS
  • This will be discussed in optimization strategy later