What is SEO and how does it work?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization, “Is the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines.” (Search Engine Land)

If your website is SEO optimized, which means you’re using relevant keywords throughout your web pages, your renaming all the images and videos with your keywords before loading them up into your website, your adding your keywords in your blogs, Search Engines would be able to collect information from your website or web pages and index them. Index is like a library that contains all the information any person would search for on the internet. 

Let’s say you’re a Digital Marketing Agency. You wrote a blog about: “How to use Digital Marketing in your business,” and you then research for some relevant keywords that your potential customers would use in looking for your exact services. If you’re using keywords correctly in your blog (that means not keyword stuffing), Search Engines would crawl into your site and index them to the relevant search category, so when someone research for that keyword on the Internet, your content has the potential to show up in the first page of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). 

This is why keywords are very IMPORTANT for SEO.

How to identify the best keywords for SEO?

There are three steps to help you find the best keywords for your website, but before that, if you’ve just started with SEO, use less competitive keywords first, so there’s a chance for you to rank higher than using difficult and over-saturated keywords.

Three steps to find the best keywords:

Step 1: Use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool

If you’re using a third-party SEO keywords tool like Semrush, there’s a feature called Keyword Magic Tool where you can type in a certain keyword and it will give you the number of people using that keyword, the keyword difficulty (KD) number, Cost per Click (CPC), and so much more!

Through these results, you can determine which keywords are very hard to rank or very easy to rank. In the KD (Keyword Difficulty) section, you can tell if it’s very hard when it’s red, and very easy when it’s green.

Step 2: Google search

This process is pretty much the usual thing we use Google for – to search! To find great relevant keywords for your business, simply type in a question that your potential customer would search for about your products/services. 

After typing that question in the search bar, scroll down to the bottom and you’ll find more phrases or keywords that other people are using. 

These are Google recommended keywords, so you can absolutely use them in your website!

Step 3: Use Wikipedia

It’s no secret that a lot of people are still using Wikipedia when searching for anything on the internet. 

According to Statista, there were over 5.1 billion people visiting Wikipedia from December 2021 to March 2022. That’s not even the most recent number. Now, think about the November 2022 result?! It’s going to blow you away!

With that being said, maximize Wikipedia to its full potential, and use it to find great keywords that people on the internet are actually using. 

Here’s how:

1. In your browser, type in www.wikipedia.org
2. On the upper right of the site, type in a keyword or a phrase
3. After clicking enter, you would then see lots of keywords that you can use for your web pages, such as the example below!

Alternative keyword tool for SEO search

We understand that Semrush is not for everybody as it’s not free, but we’ve got you! We found this keyword alternative tool that’s FREE and will help you with your keywords research. This tool is called Free Keyword Tool by WordStream.

Unlike other keyword research tools, this one is super easy to use and easy to navigate. 

Keyword research is not a walk in the park and it usually takes a lot of time doing research and testing, but when used correctly, you’ll see more traffic coming in, more conversions, and more ROI.

Bottom line is don’t rush things. Take your time, and test, test, test until you find at least 5 high potential keywords for your business. Make sure that these keywords have high search volume but low competition volume.