Keywords - They are Just Words!
Too many people are angst about keywords. Often I see Wealthy Affiliate members asking questions that indicate they are in a bit of a panic about them.
Well here are my words and hopefully you will become more comfortable after reading them. If you have any questions arising from this article please let me know.
I don’t actually focus on keywords. Something that amazes me is how many people think a keyword is a magic thing. Well in fact it, or they, are really only ordinary words. So you will have many keywords but if you are writing quality articles naturally this is OK.
I have been telling people this for a while so I just went and tested my theory on Jaaxy. I tested ‘an’, ‘it’ and 'why'. I found ‘it’ is searched way more than ‘an’. Almost 800,000 times! And the KQI is NORMAL. I bet if you actually used just these types of words, you wouldn’t get far though!
I find the best way to find keywords is to write my article naturally. Then I select and test a few words or phrases within the content. I always find some good ones. This makes the stress of finding target keywords much lighter.
Once you have a bunch of these then look at your QSR & SEO. Then check the KQI. Pick the one you like the best and make sure all of these parameters work. You might have to fiddle with the word/s or add/subtract to see if you can improve the parameters.
Sometimes I find one I really like but the QSR is a bit high, the SEO is too low and the KQI is 'normal' or 'red'. What I do then is take another of the phrases I picked out and check these. I do this until I find a good one (even if traffic is low). Then I combine the two of them. I call this my low hanging, long chain keyword!
This one becomes my target keyword. As I have already written my article, everything else ties in with it. Use the target one in your article title and again somewhere within the first two paragraphs.
As for that and since all words are keywords, your article will contain many incognito keywords. You can check by going to Google Search Console. You can see how to do this on my training.
The link is https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/finding-ranking-key.... There you will get a list of keywords people have used to find you.
Here is the first page of searched terms from one of my websites.
And a plus is that you can grab any of these keywords to write new articles.
So all you keyword searchers, take a deep breath and relax. Once you start with natural, flowing text the keyword choice is a lot simpler once you have written your article.
If you chose your target keyword and write around it, your words can often feel forced. As I said in my website's 'Let's Talk About Keywords', and someone commented back to me that it was a good summary:
"Keywords are the metal that unlocks the door to your posts and pages. They need to be a comfortable fit. As you are aware, trying to force a key into a lock it wasn’t made for, can jam the lock. So too can inappropriate keywords.:
Recent Comments
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I'm really confused on the whole keywords part and that whole page in general, and what everything means...
Thanks. I always look for the keywords first and then write my articles. And it usually doesn't come out as smoothly as it probably should. Definitely going to try your way!
Good Morning Helen,
I think you are right, this becoming obsessed will not do our writing any good. The natural flow of the story and that the people will find it easy to read I think comes first.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
We haven't 'spoken' for a while Taetske so how are you these days.
I don't think obsession is a good thing. It generally leads to stress. When people join here, they think they are entering a strictly defined world. I didn't think that as I have had many different jobs as I travelled and am quite relaxed with new things.
People think keywords, and niches also, are a big mystery. But they are not. Realising this makes online website work much easier and more comfortable.
Good Morning Helen,
Yes, it has been awhile since our last contact.
I am busy with Pinterest, it is fun and does help with the websites. It also needs building up, all these internet things take time. Summer has really started and the whole house plus garden walls are being whitewashed, huge job. In the meantime, Michael fishes snakes out of our ponds. In one more than 10 and in the other 6. He is my Crocodile Dundee from the U.S.
After celebrating our 3 years on 7/6 we visited a function of the Cirque du Soleil in Malaga, fantastic. Now I am looking forward to a beach concert by Santana in August.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
Well we had a tiger snake in the shed but none in the dam!
I was really amused when I visited the Greek island. A lot of very narrow cobbled lanes. Some areas didn't have cobbles but concrete. So they whitewashed it to pretend cobbles were there!
I love Santana.
Great job Helen,
Just breathe and we will all be okay!!! Great thoughts.
Tried and True
Elaine
Elaine, that's what is said you should do with a panic attack! As the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy says 'Don't Panic' and 'Always Remember to Take Your Towel Along'. Translated as your comfort blanket!
Good thought, Helen.
I always have read it is the overall expression google uses to rank. The key is writing a high-quality content. Google considers every word as a keyword this is what I gathered from here.
Using low hanging Jaxxy keywords may help for clicks to the site. That is my takeaway.
Anusuya, Google ranking is a balancing act. Keywords are part of it but are more important to the people searching and finding your site. Since Jaaxy returns information on the small words I used it's a good indication that Google notes them. It's just these ones don't any direction to a search.
Glad you like it. I got tired of advising people individually on this. Hopefully others will find it in the search box so it reaches loads of others.
Though my approach is slightly different I also do not fixate on finding target keywords. I know first hand that I can get a well written post to rank on Google page one without targeting a specific keyword.
Our content is not ranked solely on keywords. Google is not looking for keywords but rather naturally written content, which in itself will contain plenty of keywords. Getting content published is far more important than searching long and hard for the perfect keyword.
Hey Boomer aka Robert, you reminded me I did want to put quality in there!
Soon after I joined I gave up spending lots of time on keywords. Basically because what both you and I have said here.
Keywords are OK but Google doesn't pay a lot of attention to them. It's people searching for information that dictate the keywords. We just have to predict what they will search.
We haven't connected much recently but I always read your stuff. And pass relevant links to it for others.
Hope you are doing very well.
Helen
I am doing fine. Just trying to stay cool in this really hot heatwave we have going on here in the New York area.
Darn weather. For you guys freezing to boiling. I left the north of New South Wales after a summer with 2 weeks of 46 plus Celsius heat!
We are now in winter and I find the almost 0 temperatures too cold. But I can adjust for that. It's hard to adjust for the heat when the air conditioners are labouring.
True. When it's cold you can always wear many layers of clothing, but when it's hot you are limited to how much clothing you can take off without causing a visual problem. LOL
We live bush so visual problems aren't an issue. Except for the last place we lived. We could see no neighbours. Old Lloyd next door never walked around the property as he was usually hauling gear. All our organic waste went to the native critters. One day Peter went for a nude walk wearing only gumboots.
All of a sudden he heard Lloyd calling, oi Peter. Fortunately he still had the container to act as a privacy shield!
Brilliant, this is really thinking out of the box. One will not get too fixated by keyword and competitiveness even before starting to write the article. I love this perspective of doing things.
Terry, being in a male dominated profession (civil engineering) I often had to think outside the box. I always wrote my reports, reviews etc before labelling them.
I guess I like it because I become much more familiar of the content once written and the titles tended to jump out at me.
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Thanks, I will try this, since I always struggle with keywords.
Mary
I hope it works for you. When I tried to find keywords first I always got bogged down. Now do remember you will be basing your articles on an idea you have. That idea is a lose keyword. In fact it may turn out to be the right one. But your article may provide you with other natural flowing ones. And that is really good.