Keywords

Keywords are those words that describe the theme, subject or category for a piece of content. They are an important part of what search engines examine when ranking your content. The term keywords also refers to the search terms that users enter into search engines to help them find what they are looking for.

Thinking about keywords (or key phrases) as you prepare your content is important to ensure you present it so that people can find it. Choosing the right keywords when writing your text or when choosing advertising search terms can help to attract views to your website.

Think about your keywords in the context of tags and metadata and try to choose the words your customers, supporters or donors will use in searches. Do not rely on your own assumptions—you may have a very different view of what is ‘relevant’—and ask others.

You can check the popularity of keywords by using a free service like Google Trends. There are other online services that, at a cost, will provide more accurate data on clicks per keyword.

Good search engine rankings depends on more than a well optimised website (see search engine optimisation). They also depend on the popularity of a keyword, or keyword term, and the number of other sites using that keyword. Certain keywords are so heavily targeted that getting a good position as a new player may prove extremely difficult and potentially costly.

In such cases it is a good idea to find a niche term, or get out the thesaurus to make sure you have covered all possible alternative terms. Achieving a top ranking against a less obvious keyword could well return you more traffic than a mediocre ranking against the most popular keyword(s).

A simple process you could follow is:

• list your keywords and search terms
• check them against market popularity and trends
• finalise your list (keep it at a manageable size)
• optimise your web pages by using these keywords regularly and effectively on the relevant pages
• continue to check and tweak your keywords to move with the development in the market.