Keywords are the terms, phrases, and questions that people enter into the search bar. The types of keywords you add within the content (and the way you add them) helps Google understand what type of queries you want the content to rank for.

Perhaps the major purpose of keyword analysis and research is, it allows you to target the right audience with your content.

Related Keyword Research

Let’s go over some basic terminologies you will come across while doing keyword research.

1.   Keyword Search Volume

The total number of times a keyword is searched in a specific period of time. In most cases, this will be measured monthly.

2.   Keyword Density

The total number of times you use a keyword in your content. This used to be a big keyword ranking factor in previous years but doesn’t hold monumental importance these days.

3.   Keyword Competition

The amount of content people produces that targets a particular keyword is known as the keyword competition.

4.   Keyword Difficulty

This is an estimated rating that helps you understand how difficult it will be to rank for a keyword. Different SEO tools display it in different ways.

5.   Focus Main Keyword

The focus keyword is the main keyword you want to target on your page. The key to rank your content for the focus keyword is to ensure that your content justifies and covers all the important points related to it.

6.   LSI Keywords

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords are the words that are not synonyms but are related to your keyword. Say for example – if “bat” is your keyword then “ball”, “running” and “jogging” will be your LSI keywords. Let me be very clear here, LSI keywords do not directly impact search results in any way. Choosing the right LSI keywords helps Google understand the topics and content you have covered around your main keyword.

7.   Keyword Ranking

The position for which your webpage is ranking on the SERPs for a certain keyword.

8.   Keyword Value ( CPC)

Keyword value shows the potential of the traffic that comes through that keyword. It is measured in CPC (Cost-Per-Click). The value can certainly differ (at times to a large extent) from tool to tool.

9.   Question Keywords

You will hardly see this term being used – I use it to define the keywords that are in the form of questions. These keywords generally have the highest potential and clearest intent – as the users are looking for very specific answers when they search for these keywords. How to search for them and use them in your content is discussed in the latter part of this guide.

10.        Longtail Keywords

While there is no standard word count, we consider that keywords four or more words long can be considered as longtail keywords. Though the search volume for these keywords is usually pretty low, they are VERY specific. In turn, the potential they have for conversions and attracting highly relevant traffic is way greater than shorter, general keywords with large search volumes.

11.        User Intent for a Keyword

In simple words, user intent for a keyword is what a user expects to see in the search results when they search for that keyword.

12.        Keyword Stuffing

The practice of overusing a keyword in an unnatural way throughout a piece of content is known as keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing used to work in the early days of SEO, but that all changed after a series of major Google Algorithm Updates. These days, your content can be penalized for keyword stuffing. Here is what Google considers as keyword stuffing.