Search Engine Optimisation keywords are the words that, when typed into a search engine, you would like to ‘trigger’ your site to appear. They are words your customers are most likely to use to describe and search for you.

To achieve a good standard of search engine optimisation, you need to decide on relevant search engine optimisation keywords or keyword phrases that are appropriate for your company. At the heart of successful SEO is determining what search engine optimisation keywords to use when optimizing a website. Which keywords you choose can directly influence where your website is ranked on search engine results pages.

You may want to choose multiple keywords by optimising different sections or pages of your website with different search engine optimisation keywords.

Once a keyword(s) is selected it should serve as the focus of a site’s SEO efforts. Keyword Research is very important in SEO. Keywords can determine who your site reaches and who it doesn’t.In order to select an appropriate keyword or keyword phrase for your site, you must first ask yourself some keyword research-based questions.

When choosing a keyword you must ask yourself what words people are likely to use to search for your business or business like yours. For example, if you run a restaurant are people likely to use the word restaurant or will they use other words such as bistro? Diner? Cafe?

You should consider things such as regional diction and geographic elements.

• What words do people use in certain areas?
• Are they different for the same products?

For example, in England, people use the word mobile whilst in the USA consumers used the words cell phone to describe the same product. A mobile phone company would not do very well targeting people in America using the keyword mobile.

There are many more factors that affect what words people use to search online. It can depend on their background.

For example, for a website based on the research and testing of pharmaceuticals, their target audience is likely to use specific scientific terms when searching. Their search terms will differ greatly from those used by the general public to search for the same pharmaceuticals for personal medicinal purposes.

Ranking well on a results page for ‘restaurant’ is very difficult as there are a number of very high-ranking websites already. Other words such as ‘cafe’ and ‘eatery’, whilst still quite common on websites, are far less common than the word ‘restaurant.’ Using these less common keywords will make it a lot easier to influence the search engine rank of a restaurant website.

Be specific e.g. An Italian restaurant based in Manchester does not need or want to appear in the search results for people all around the world who search ‘Italian Restaurant’.If the restaurant had a more specific keyword phrase such as ‘Italian restaurant Deansgate Manchester’ they are more likely to hit their target audience.

There are several useful tools that you can use to help you answer this question.

• Google’s Adwords Keyword Traffic Estimator
• Microsoft’s AdCenter Keyword Forecast Tool
• Word Tracker, a basic Keyword Suggestion Tool
• And finally Keyword Discovery, a basic Search Term Suggestion Tool.

These are just a few of the keyword research tools available online. But beware, these tools only show projections and estimates so you should expect varying results between them. Used together, these tools can help to provide a fairly good idea of what keywords a consumer is likely to use when searching for a particular website.

When using search engine optimisation keywords, your aim is to maximise your content and make your website more search engine friendly. You are also aiming to improve your ranking on search engine results pages.

Achieving Your Aims With Search Engine Optimisation Keywords

There are a few things that you can do to ensure that you are using keywords correctly and also achieve your aims;

• Firstly, don’t just target a few keywords throughout your website. You should aim for around 2-5 per page that you are optimising.
• Use a mix of broad and multi-phrased keyword strings.
• Some keywords are more competitive than others, so pick and target wisely.
• Keyword phrases are what people use to search for. These could be one word, two or even an entire sentence. Make sure you are using a keyword phrase that is appropriate and relevant to your company.

When forming a keyword phrase you must try to be as specific as possible. For example, Italian Restaurant Deansgate Manchester instead of an Italian Restaurant. Specific phrases will have fewer search results as they’re more focused and less competitive. Therefore, your site is more likely to score high on the search engine results pages using long-tail search engine optimisation keywords.