We've looked at two important aspects: the topic and the intent. We further went into the need to pay attention to the Buying Cycle, and “long-tail keywords”.
But - it's not about the keywords!
I now explain all ...
Yes, search engines use them in their page rankings for searches. But it's not about the actual words keyed in. By this I mean that in the past, an unethical practice was to ‘stuff’ the page with the phrases assumed people would search on.
Fishing at Port Lincoln! Come and enjoy the wonderful fishing at Port Lincoln. Come and fish at Port Lincoln for a day - or stay for longer fishing at Port Lincoln! Special Fishing at Port Lincoln Deals.
- We see that this is a disgrace! It's horrible to read, uninformative, and a cheap way of trying to grab SEO points. And search engines didn't like this either - because it gave them a bad name. So, they clamped down on ‘keyword stuffing’, as it was called.
So don't do ‘keyword stuffing’! And neither do we need to ... because it's not about the keywords! Employ the key phrases you want to be searched for. Insert them in strategic points. But concentrate on quality writing that's relevant and helpful. Because search engines are now sophisticated enough to understand from the context what you are saying!
But we need to go even further ...
It is well-known that, on occasion, websites have ranked highly WITHOUT EVEN USING THE KEY PHRASES TO BE SEARCHED ON! Because search engines are advanced enough to be able to analyze phrases and their synonyms, understand context, and even substitute different phrases when they consider it appropriate.
So the best thing is: pay particular attention to what your users are looking for, and write well (be informative)!
Read more on this important issue of quality.
