Optimizing your content for SEO can be tricky. Rules and best practices are always evolving and it can be hard to sort through all the information out there to find the best (and still relevant) advice.
Keywords are one of those SEO topics where there’s some confusion. They used to play a major role in any decent SEO strategy with higher keyword densities on a page generally resulting in higher rankings. But with all the search engine algorithm updates over the years, how relevant are they now?
The short answer is that keywords still matter but not in the same way. Search engines used to be more easily tricked by “keyword stuffing” which was a prevalent strategy. But then came Google’s 2011 Panda update that targeted content farms that churned out thin, keyword-packed content in an effort to manipulate the search rankings. Since then, Google has continued its assault on keyword stuffing and search algorithms have become far more sophisticated in an effort to ensure that results pages actually contain relevant content for users.
How to Use Keywords Now
Today, search engines care more about intent than actual keyword density. They want to figure out the meaning behind your content and user queries.
The debut of “semantic search,” released with Google’s 2013 Hummingbird update, took the idea of intent-based search results a step further. For example, when a user searches for “cheap coffee in Chicago,” the old, keyword-centric search engines would have returned pages that contained these three keywords, regardless of what each page was actually about. However, semantic search works differently. It deciphers the meaning behind the query – the user is looking for inexpensive coffee options located in Chicago – then it looks for websites that meet these criteria, regardless of whether the exact query terms are in their content.
Therefore, if your content describes you as an affordable purveyor of coffee, and your location is defined as Chicago, you could snag a top spot in the search results, even if the actual words “cheap,” “coffee” and “Chicago” aren’t all in your content. So, to take advantage of the way search works now, you need to optimize your content for a particular meaning rather than for a particular keyword or phrase.
Where Keywords are Still Essential
Updates to search algorithms and changes to SEO best practices don’t mean you should abandon keyword research altogether. While keyword frequency is no longer a huge influencer on page rank, keyword placement can still make a difference. Having keywords in your title, subheadings, URL and image descriptions can give your ranking a boost. In addition, long-tail keyword phrases can be preferable to short ones since they tend to bring in higher-quality, targeted search traffic.
Here to Stay
The role of keywords in search engine optimization has diminished over the years, but it’s safe to say that keywords still have a place in today’s SEO landscape. Keywords are just one part of good SEO along with good content creation. Publish valuable, relevant content and provide a great user experience and you should have no difficulty making yourself visible in the search results.
