Keywords For Local SEO In Houston,Tx
Everything is moving towards digitization and if you are running a small local business in Houston, then you can’t ignore the power and opportunities of the internet. Nowadays, every business is present in the digital world and other than a good website, fast loading time and good customer support, ranking high on the search engines is very much important.
SEO is the right way to go if you want to rank higher in search results, but the problems which most businesses face is that the rules and algorithm for SEO keep changing with time and ranking high in the searches are becoming more and more difficult.
Although there are many factors which affect your SEO strategy, the one factor which is still prevalent and a strong weapon in your fight to rank high are keywords.
First, What Are Keywords?
Keywords are basically the terms which we enter in the search engine when we are looking for information, tips, trick, solutions and other queries. For example, if you are searching for a Website hosting provider on the internet and you enter ‘Website hosting’ in the search engine then Website hosting will be the keywords.
But when it comes to SEO, keywords have a very special role to play as the keywords are the basis on which a search engine knows what you are looking for and then it goes through its algorithm to present the most relevant web pages in your search engine results.
How Keywords Help A Website To Rank Higher?
Organic search is the best and the most precise way to bring customers to your local business. You will always wish to rank high in all those terms which your audiences are looking for. For example, if you are a running an online bakery shop then you will wish to rank high when a person searches for ‘buy brownies online’.
You can place keywords related to your business in your website, blog posts, meta descriptions, blog titles, and more to make it easy for the search engine to know what your page is all about. But many people misinterpret the use of keywords in organic SEO and try to stuff them on their website and end up degrading their website ranking and traffic.
You should first write the content for your audience and then optimize it according to your keywords because too much keyword stuffing is damaging from an SEO perspective.
What Are The Perks Of Keywords For Businesses?
With the help of keywords, you can get listed in relevant search results
- By using targeted keywords, you can bring a huge amount of traffic to your website
- The right keyword density approach can be used to boost your ranking in your niche
- The domain authority of a website can also be increased with keyword targeting
Why Keywords Are Not Outdated And Still Ruling The SEO Strategy?
Many people say that those days are gone when keywords helped businesses rank higher but that is not completely true.
The Google’s search algorithm has surely evolved and become smarter with the addition of things like RankBrain but it doesn’t mean that keywords have become an outdated part of the SEO strategy. Keywords might be the most basic SEO strategy to adopt for your business, but it is still a strong contender when it comes to it’s important in an overall SEO strategy.
Search engines like Google still love keywords and use them as a major component of their algorithm to show to most relevant results. By using the right approach and planning for keywords, you can surely make the most of it.
But it is also true that your whole SEO strategy shouldn’t be only focused on keywords as SEO is composed of several different parts.
What are the different types of keywords?
There are basically two types of keywords:
- Short tail keywords – These keywords are basically composed of not more than 3 words like find a job online, best Italian restaurant, term insurance, internal medicine doctor, etc.
- Long tail keywords – These keywords are more specific and it is composed of more than 3 words like “how to lose 10 pounds in one week”, “finding the right price for a car online”, “cheapest QuickBooks hosting provider”, “best smartwatch with GPS for running”, etc.
Where should you use keywords?
- Use keywords in the page title tag
- Use keywords in the URL of the page
- Use keyword throughout the page copy (but do not overuse it should sound natural)
- Put keywords in your meta description
- Use keywords in the image file path (name of the image before uploading)
- Use keywords in ALT tags for images
- Use keywords in the anchor text
Points To Remember While Planning Your Keywords Strategy
- When using keywords in your blog, always keep the keyword density in mind. The standard keyword density should be between 1 to 3%.
- Keyword research should be done precisely as it will set the base for your keyword strategy.
- Never use those keywords which are not relevant to your website.
- Don’t use generic keywords as many businesses will be competing for it. Be more specific and analyze your target audience to find keywords which are not that generic. This is where long-tail keywords can come into play.
- Always check your keywords to know whether you can get on the first page of search results or not. If you are choosing the word ‘WordPress’ then the first two search result slots will be occupied by WordPress and Wikipedia and there is no way you can beat them. However, going after the search term ‘wordpress web designer Atlanta’ is much more realistic to rank highly for.
- Don’t try to stuff keywords on your website as it can hamper your ranking and affect the traffic on your website. No one wants to read an awkward sounding, keyword stuffed article. It can come off as spammy and lead to higher bounce rates which can affect your ranking.
Conclusion:
So, to recap keywords are a critical part of an effective search engine optimization strategy. Whether you want to rank higher or get more traffic on your website, keywords are the right road to follow.
Looking to develop a comprehensive Local SEO strategy in Houston, but lost on how to get there? Cruz Online Marketing is a digital marketing agency that has experience building search engine strategies that generate new customer growth and drive revenue.