Keywords are the building blocks of seo. So you might think, okay, well, I just need to get my website built and I can worry about seo later. And that’s true, to some extent. But if you can understand the concepts and pick a few keywords before you start, you’ll save yourself a lot of time going back and adding them in later.
One thing you’ll definitely want to consider is adding keywords to your domain name. If you haven’t picked a website name yet, check out this article on how to choose a domain name first!
So what are keywords, anyway?
Keywords are the specific words that search engines like Google and Bing will look for when decided whether to show your website in someone’s search bar. They can be a single word, or they can be a whole phrase. It just depends what someone might search for. It’s very rare that people search just one single word, anyway, so often a ‘keyword’ is actually a phrase.
Keywords are the ideas and phrases in your market that tell Google and other search engines what your site is about. Some of my keywords for this website are: divi theme, divi developer, web developer, WordPress developer, how to build a website, etc. These are the big themes that tell Google that this is a website about building WordPress websites. These are the kinds of keywords you might want to think about as you’re starting out.
What are longtail keywords?
If you’re just starting out, this is where you might want to focus your energy. Longtail keywords are longer phrases that you might try to rank for. They are more specific, so there’s less traffic, but, there’s also way less competition. You’re not going to beat Yoast in ranking for ‘seo.’ But if you have a really niche seo website, you might be able to start getting traffic with those phrases (like ‘seo for ice rinks trying to attract more figure skaters,’ eg). There’s less competition here, so you’re likely to get a higher conversion, meaning a bigger percentage of people will click on your link.
These longtail keywords are the kinds of words and phrases that are more likely to be used in blog posts or on specific pages of your website. You can use these to get people in the door of your website by providing detailed information and resources. Once they’re on your site, maybe they’ll find other things they need, as well! But because these keywords are more specific and have less competition, it’ll be easier for your blog post or informational page to show up in search results. These are the kinds of keywords you can figure out later, once you have your site up and running and you’re ready to start working on seo.
