Important Keyword Terms (with Definitions) in SEO

Your keyword strategy determines your target audience and impacts your search engine rankings. As a marketer or SEO professional, you cannot optimize your content for search engines if you don’t target the right keywords. Using the right keywords is important to attract your ideal customers and drive traffic to your site.

Moreover, your SEO efforts will go in vain if you don’t choose the keywords that your potential customers use in their search queries. Identifying and targeting the best keywords is an important part of on-page SEO. 

We have compiled a list of important keyword terms to help you optimize your content and improve your keyword strategy.

Keywords

These are words or phrases that a user types into search engines when looking for a product, service, or some information. Keywords describe your page content; these are the terms you want to rank for. Your page is likely to appear on the SERPs if you use the right keywords in your content. 

You can check if you’ve chosen the most relevant keywords for your webpages by considering some keyword metrics.

Keyword Density

It’s a metric that shows how frequently you have used a keyword in your content in relation to the total number of words on the page. Expressed as a percentage, you can calculate a keyword’s density by using a simple formula:

KD = No. of times a keyword is used / the total word count of the page * 100

So, if your target keyword appears 20 times in a 1000-word blog, its density will be 2%.

Note that keyword density is not a ranking factor, as search engines now use other ranking signals to understand a page’s content. It does not matter as long as your content reads and flows naturally; just avoid keyword stuffing.

Keyword Difficulty

As the name implies, this SEO metric helps to identify how difficult it is to rank on the first page of search results for a specific keyword. The higher the score of a keyword, the more difficult it is to rank for it. 

You can filter out the most competitive keywords and find low-hanging fruits, i.e., keywords with a difficulty score of 40 or less. 

This way, you can identify the keywords with a higher ranking chance for you. The score is only an estimation, and different SEO tools use their own formula to calculate a keyword’s difficulty.

Keyword Ranking

In simple terms, keyword ranking refers to a website’s ranking on the SERPs for a particular keyword. A website may rank for multiple search terms and have many keyword rankings. The top three organic results on the SERPs get three-fourths of all clicks.

So, claiming a top keyword ranking leads to more visibility and drives more organic traffic to your site. You can determine the average ranking positions for the keywords your website ranks for through Google Search Console.

Seed Keywords

Planting a seed is the first step to growing a plant; similarly, a seed keyword is the starting point in the keyword research process. Seed keywords or phrases shape your optimization strategy and cover the most important topics of your site. 

Also called short-tail keywords, these words comprise one or two words and don’t have any modifiers. Moreover, seed keywords are the most competitive ones and have a high monthly search volume. 

You can add a modifier to a seed keyword to create a medium- or long-tail keyword that describes the seed keyword or clarifies it. For instance, if the seed keyword is “SEO audit,” you can generate more keywords by adding modifiers, such as:

Medium-Tail Keyword

• Comprehensive SEO audit
• In-depth website SEO audit
• Local business SEO audit

Long-Tail Keyword

• Free SEO audit for small businesses
• How to conduct an SEO audit
• SEO audit checklist

 

Primary Keyword

The primary or focus keyword is the main topic of your web page. It’s the term you want your page to rank for in the search results. Targeting and optimizing the right primary keywords can help you drive organic search traffic to your pages.

Primary keywords have the highest search volume within a given keyword cluster that you can potentially rank for. If you optimize the primary keyword for search engines, it will send a clear signal about the content or topic you’re covering. 

Your primary keyword is usually the seed keyword that sets the foundation of your keyword search strategy. This means you can modify your primary keyword to generate more keywords for your page.

Secondary Keywords

These are the long-tail keywords, sub-topics, or terms related to the focus keyword of a particular page of your website. Secondary keywords help to explain the context of your page’s content and add more value and depth to satisfy the user’s intent. 

Unlike primary keywords, secondary keywords are less popular and have low competition. They are more specific and help you attract a qualified, narrower, but more engaged audience. 

You need to optimize your web pages for both primary and secondary keywords and ensure they complement each other. This will help increase your chances of ranking for more and more keywords in addition to the focus keyword.

Short-Tail Keywords

Short-tail keywords, also known as the fat heads or the head terms, are the most popular search terms for a given topic. A short-tail keyword may have only one word or a combination of two, three, or even four words. For instance, “salons near me” is a more popular search term than “salon” or “salons.”

These keywords serve as the seed keywords that lay the foundation of your keyword strategy. You can generate hundreds and thousands of keywords from these words. While the competition is high, you can rank for short-tail keywords if you have an authoritative site with a strong backlink profile. 

Long-Tail Keyword

Long-tail keywords are more specific and intentional and allow you to target niche demographics. These words have a low search volume and are less competitive than the short-tail keywords. 

A long-tail keyword can have three, four, five, or even more words; some shorter-keyword terms with a lower search volume can be classified as long-tail. 

Since the competition is low, you can aim to rank for these words, especially if you have a new website. Targeting long-tail keywords makes it easier to satisfy the search intent and increase conversion rates.

Branded Keywords

As the name suggests, any keywords that have your brand or company’s name are branded keywords. For instance, “Core SEO Audit technical SEO services” is a branded keyword for our agency. Branded keywords can help attract people specifically interested in knowing about your company.

So, the people using your branded keywords are your potential target audience who already know the product or service that you offer. This means branded keywords can serve as the low-hanging fruit that can help you attract qualified leads.

If a keyword on your page contains the name of another brand, such as when comparing two services, it will not be a branded keyword for your business. 

Non-Branded Keywords

These words are relevant to your product or service, but they don’t include your brand’s name. For instance, “SEO audit company” is a non-branded keyword related to the services we offer. People who want website audit services will use this keyword; they may not be necessarily aware of our agency. 

These people are at the initial stages of the sales funnel or buying process. So, optimizing your pages for non-branded keywords can help you improve visibility and reach new customers. Since non-branded keywords don’t have a brand name, these words are more competitive and difficult to rank for. 

Informational Keywords

The name shows the search intent—people use informational keywords when they’re looking for some information to gather knowledge or learn about an idea or concept. These words may not help convert leads into customers, as the user only needs information. 

However, you can create content around informational keywords, such as how-to guides, to build trust and establish yourself as an authority in your industry. Informational keywords often start with the 5WS+H, including “what,” “when,” why,” “where,” “which,” and “how.”

Navigational Keywords

A searcher who wants to access a specific webpage or website uses navigational keywords. These keywords usually include a brand’s or company’s name, its product, or website.

In simpler terms, a search uses a navigational keyword to find a specific website and navigate to it; for instance, “Netflix.” This means the user knows where they want to go next. Ranking for navigational keywords is not that difficult; you have to ensure to add your brand name to your:

• Landing page 
• Home page
• About Us page
• Product pages
• Contact Us page

Commercial Keywords

Commercial keywords are the keywords that tell you more about a specific brand, product, or service. Buyers in the consideration stage use these words to compare two or more products, check online reviews before making a purchase, or just look for discount offers.

Commercial keywords help your potential customers to make an informed buying decision. They usually have modifiers that encourage the searcher to take action, such as top-rated, best, vs, etc. You can create different types of content around commercial keywords, including listicles, how-to articles, and comparison articles.

Transactional Keywords

People who are ready to make a purchase use transactional keywords in their search. Besides, these keywords show a clear intent to take immediate action and include words like “buy,” “order now,” “sign up,” or “subscribe.” Searchers using these words are usually close to completing a transaction. 

You can target transactional keywords for your product or landing pages. Since these keywords encourage marketing-campaign-related actions, Google often displays shopping ads in the search results. Optimizing these words can help you improve conversions, especially if you’re an e-commerce business.

Keyword Cannibalization

A website may unintentionally target the same keyword for various pages, leading to keyword cannibalization. This means that one page eats up the potential traffic of the other page and dilutes the link juice. 

In other words, cannibalization occurs when two or more of your website pages rank for the same search term, hurting the site’s overall organic traffic. You can fix cannibalization by either merging the pages or deleting one or more pages ranking for the same keyword.

Keyword Clustering

Keyword clustering refers to the process of grouping topically related keywords. The purpose is to create search-engine-optimized content around these similar, relevant keywords. When you optimize pages for a keyword cluster, you can potentially rank for multiple keywords. The keywords in a cluster tell search engines about the content depth. 

Here is an example of a keyword cluster for the word “comprehensive SEO audit.”

• SEO audit services
• In-depth website audit
• Technical SEO audit
• On-page SEO audit
• Off-page SEO audit
• Local SEO audit
• E-commerce SEO audit
• Enterprise SEO audit

Keyword Stemming

Keyword stemming means reducing a search query to its ‘stem,’ ‘base,’ or ‘root.’ When a user enters a search query, Google analyzes and understands the different forms of the same search term instead of just relying on the exact keyword.

The search engine then shows relevant results for the search term, including variations of the original word rendered in bold. For instance, the stemmed version of the words ‘optimizing’ or ‘optimization’ is optimize. 

So, it’s better to include variations of the main keyword in your content naturally. This helps to satisfy the user’s search intent and improve ranking in search results.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is the practice of using the same keywords or phrases in your content repeatedly to make it to the SERPs. Many websites try to manipulate rankings by using keywords excessively throughout the page. Keyword stuffing makes your content sound unnatural and is easy to spot.

Google has clear instructions about keyword stuffing in its algorithm update and has listed this technique in its spam policies, which means Google can take manual action against this practice. So, it’s better to use variations and avoid overusing the main keyword, even in anchor texts and URLs.

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