What Are Keywords: Complete Guide for Website Owners

The value of a website depends largely on how many people visit it. That’s why website owners invest considerable resources into optimizing their websites for search engine ranking. Higher rankings can help you win organic website traffic—traffic that doesn’t come from costly paid ads.

Understanding keywords—the terms that people type into a search engine—is the first step toward successful search engine optimization (SEO). By understanding what your audience is searching for and strategically placing those terms throughout your website or online store, you can improve your chances of showing up in web searches. Here’s an overview of keywords, with strategic tips for leveraging them for your own website.

What are keywords?

Keywords are the words and phrases that internet users type into search engines like Google and Bing. These users’ search queries offer a window into the terminology and phrases people use when they’re looking for products, services, and information on the internet.

Site owners conduct keyword research to compile lists of these key phrases, which they can use when creating content. They also consider the keyword’s monthly search volume—or approximate number of times a word or phrase is searched each month.

There are several types of SEO keywords website owners use to create content, product descriptions, and ad copy. They include:

• Exact match keywords. These match the exact phrasing of a user’s search query.

• Seed keywords. Seed keywords, or head terms, are broad keywords that many people search for. The same seed keywords can sometimes have different search intents; for instance, “wedding band” could refer to a ring or a group of musicians for hire. This means that in addition to ranking for seed keywords, it makes sense to also try to rank for more specific terms—in this case, that might mean “wedding ring” or “wedding music.”

• Long-tail keywords. These are longer phrases that have lower search volume but a stronger intent behind the search. For instance, whereas someone seeking general information might search the seed keyword “deck furniture,” someone with a clearer sense of what they’re looking for might search the long-tail keyword “all-season wood deck furniture.”

• Keyword clusters. This is a keyword list of words and phrases that are closely connected to a wider array of search queries. For instance, the primary keyword “florist” could spawn related keywords like “flowers,” “wedding florist,” and “rose florist.”

• Latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords. LSI keywords go one step further than keyword clusters. They create clusters that don’t use the same core keyword but contain phrases related to it. For instance, if the primary keyword phrase is “running shoes,” some LSI keywords could be “best sneakers for jogging,” “runner’s insoles,” and “marathon training.” All of these might turn up in a user’s related searches.

4 types of keywords

SEO specialists divide keywords into four categories, each reflecting a different type of keyword search intent:

1. Informational keywords. These are used by people who want to learn something. Informational keyword phrases often include “what,” “how,” “why,” or “best way to.”

2. Navigational keywords. Users type navigational keywords when they want to find a specific website or page. They might use brand names (e.g., Allbirds, Shopify) or specific page titles (e.g., magazine headlines, “best of” lists) in their search queries.

3. Commercial keywords. These come up when users want to research products or services before making a purchase. They might use keywords like “best,” “top,” “review,” or “compare” along with product or service names.

4. Transactional keywords. Generally speaking, users type these when they are ready to buy a specific product or service. Words like “buy,” “order,” “price,” or “near me” might appear in a transactional search term.

Often, an SEO content marketing strategy will include a mix of these keyword types. For instance, an ecommerce store might optimize its product pages for transactional searches and try to rank for relevant informational and commercial keywords on its blog. 

7 keyword metrics 

As you seek the best keywords to guide your content creation and drive relevant traffic to your website, it can help to use quantitative metrics to assess which are the best fit. 

Value-based metrics

These metrics help you assess the potential worth of a keyword for your business.

1. Search volume. This metric shows the average number of times a specific keyword is searched for within a given timeframe. Monthly search volume is the most common unit of measure. Higher search volume indicates a potentially larger audience, but also more competition from similar websites and potentially less clear search intent.

2. Cost per click (CPC). This metric comes up in pay-per-click (PPC) search campaigns. CPC indicates the average cost you pay for each click on an ad triggered by a specific keyword. Google Keyword Planner can estimate the CPC of keywords linked to Google Ads. This metric can help you estimate how much you would have to pay for the traffic you’d get in the top position.

3. Keyword difficulty. This is a measure that keyword research tools use to estimate how challenging it will be to rank on the first page of search results for a specific keyword. It often considers the authority of the websites currently ranking (e.g., do they have a significant number of backlink citations), their content quality, and the number and quality of their backlinks.

Performance-based metrics

These metrics help you track how your website is performing for specific keywords.

4. Organic search traffic. This measures the number of visitors your website or a particular page receives from organic search. You can measure this overall and segment it by keyword to understand which keywords are driving the most traffic to your site. 

5. Ranking. This indicates a page’s position in the organic search results for a specific keyword. Higher rankings generally lead to more visibility and more traffic for your website.

6. Conversion rate. In SEO, conversion rate usually refers to the number of people who click on your website from a search engine results page (SERP). These people convert from an impression (seeing your page on the SERP) to a click (which translates to a website visit). A higher conversion rate usually correlates with a higher ranking. Consider looking at conversion rates for desired actions like email sign-ups and purchases once visitors from search land on your site. 

7. Backlinks. This metric counts how many other sites link to your domain or a specific page. More relevant backlinks indicate higher authority, so search engines reward sites with many inbound links from reputable sites. But backlink data alone won’t directly predict or impact keyword performance.

How to use keywords

1. Identify relevant keywords
2. Develop relevant content around your keywords
3. Leverage keywords strategically
4. Monitor results and fine-tune as necessary

If you want to rank high on Google and other search engines, you not only need to find relevant keywords for your website; you also must incorporate those keywords in a clear, engaging way. Rather than turn a web page into a dumping ground for all your keywords, you want to create an array of web content—product pages, blog posts, and even your site’s homepage—and organically weave them into your text. Here’s how to go about the process:

1. Identify relevant keywords

Start the process by identifying the keywords that are important to your target audience. One way to find keywords is by using keyword research tools to see what your competitors are ranking for and uncover additional related keywords. Popular options include Google Analytics, Semrush, and Ubersuggest by Neil Patel.

Once you have a list of keywords, consider grouping them by theme, using a keyword map to assign them to specific pages on your website, such as a blog entry or a product listing. You might also then decide which you want to bid on in paid search campaigns and which you want to try to rank organically for.

If you’re selecting keywords as part of a paid ad campaign, you will also want to flag negative keywords that you don’t want to show up for. For instance, if you sell pool tables, you don’t want to rank for “swimming pool” searches. So if you were preparing a Google Ads campaign, you’d make “swimming pool” a negative keyword, telling Google not to show your ad to people who want to swim, rather than play a table game. This will help you maximize the value of your ad spend.

2. Develop relevant content around your keywords

Once you have a list of keywords, you will need to organically weave them into well-crafted, authoritative content. Use keywords naturally within a sentence so your content sounds conversational and engaging. Forcing them in, which is called keyword stuffing, won’t advance your SEO strategy. In some cases, it might even make your site rank lower.

Different keyword match types belong in different places on your website. High-intent keywords work well on conversion-focused pages, like product pages. For instance, a chocolatier might put a high-intent search phrase like “buy chocolate gift box” on a landing page that specifically offers mail order gift boxes. If the site turns up on a user’s SERP, the user will be taken to a page where they can quickly make a purchase. 

3. Leverage keywords strategically

There are many surface areas on your site where you can add keywords. This includes page titles, meta description, headers, and the first paragraph of your content. Don’t forget image alt text, which is a written description of an image. Incorporating relevant keywords into image descriptions can help you turn up in a Google image search—and it can help people who use screen readers to better understand your pages.

You can also try to rank for SERP features (e.g., featured snippets, “People also ask,” “People also search for,,” and local packs tailored to local search queries) on Google. Featured snippets appear near the very top of a SERP and can get significantly more engagement than content that appears lower on the page.

4. Monitor results and fine tune as necessary

After publishing, use analytics tools like Google Search Console to see which pages are performing well and which pages are failing to attract organic search traffic. Adjust underperforming pages with additional keywords, new information, and a more readable structure. Or you can replace the page contents altogether.

Remember to focus your keyword strategy on phrases that match the nature of your website. Search engines want to show their users websites that command authority. If you sell coffee, it makes sense to populate your website with keywords related to coffee. Do not try to capture search traffic for ancillary topics, like breakfast burritos or waffles.