Keywords are an essential part of optimising your website for SEO. Knowing how to add them into your content effectively, without impacting your user’s experience, is a key skill to learn. So, how do you add keywords to your website?
Keywords should be placed organically throughout your content. Adding them to various elements like title tags, H1s and subheadings can all help improve your website’s SEO ranking. However, cramming keywords together doesn’t have the same effect. This is called ‘keyword stuffing’ and can result in penalties from Google, so they need to be written naturally into your content.
Read on to find out more about keywords and how best to use them on your website.
What are SEO Keywords?
Keywords are any word that you want to be the main topic of your content, and are placed throughout the text. Title tags, H1s and subheadings, are the main places to include a keyword to help the page be found on SERPs.
Identifying keywords before you create your content will help your website fill gaps in the market and reach new audiences. It’s important to link your content to what’s actually being searched for.
Incorporating keywords and other SEO techniques need to be balanced with well-written content. There isn’t a hard and fast rule to the number of keywords you should include or where they should be.However, finding the right keywords is the best way to give your website a boost in the search results.
How Do You Search for Keywords?
Knowing how to find keywords is the first step in the process of adding them to your website. The search can be broken down into four steps:
- Identify The Keywords You Already Rank For: You can use paid tools, like SEMRush, or a free program, like Google Search Console. This will help you identify low-ranking pages that could be optimised, stop you from posting duplicate content, and find your best performing pages.
- Brainstorm Ideas: Think about the topics, subtopics, and keywords that your ideal audience might be interested in. This can help you think about what they might search and how your content can provide information.
- Analyse Competitors: Look at your competitors’ websites, and add any topics that you hadn’t thought of to your brainstorm. Look at what kind of content they’re writing. Using an SEO tool, like SEMRush or MOZ, you can check which keywords they’re ranking for and how you can start to rank above them.
- Use Keyword Research Tools: Paid tools, like SEMRush, will give you information on search volume, keyword difficulty and user intent. You can also find out how domains are ranking for specific keywords or see related topics you might need to include. Alternatively, you can use free tools, like Google’s Keyword Planner.
For a more in-depth explanation of how to choose the best keywords for your website, take a look at our blog post, ‘Which Keywords Are the Best to Target?’.
How to Add Keywords to Your Website – Our Top Tips
Keywords are important to the ranking of your website, but some methods of introducing them have more influence than others. Here’s how to get the best out of adding keywords to your website:
1 – Use Keywords In Title Tags, H1s, and Subheadings.
The first step in optimising your content is taking a look at the title tags, H1s, and subheadings. As long as they’re written naturally, inserting keywords in these areas is a great way to boost your website. Google prioritises these elements when crawling websites, therefore keywords here hold more weight in rankings. Adding keywords here is a quick way to see an increase in performance when they’re done.
2 – Include Keywords Naturally
Your chosen keywords should be highly relevant to your content. If the exact search term doesn’t fit naturally and disrupts the flow of reading, use an alternative version. Google uses semantic search, therefore, slight changes to phrasing to make it sound more natural will usually still work for SEO. However, it’s best to use your keywords exactly, where possible.
We explain a bit more about placement here, but to give a short summary, it’s best to include keywords in the title tags, H1s and subheadings. You can then distribute them throughout the text, but only where it fits naturally. Just make sure you don’t go overboard.
3 – Don’t Overload Your Content With Keywords
More isn’t always better when it comes to adding keywords to your website. Search engines will recognise keyword stuffing, which can negatively impact your website’s ranking.
Knowing when and where to use a keyword is important. You can read more about how to avoid overloading your content with keywords below.
What is Keyword Stuffing?
Some sites force keywords into content unnaturally. This is called ‘keyword stuffing’. It’s designed to manipulate rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs) to rank higher, however this practice will often hurt a website in the long run.
In the digital marketing world, keyword stuffing is seen as a ‘black hat’ SEO technique. It goes against search engine guidelines and protocols, hoping to manipulate the system. Google often sees past this trick, favouring content written for the audience, rather than robots.
How to Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Only include keywords when they are relevant and useful. This stops your content from sounding unnatural and keeps the user’s experience a positive one.
Here are some of the best ways to avoid keyword stuffing:
- Keyword Mapping: Being specific about where you’re using your keywords can prevent keyword stuffing. It will stop you from using too many keywords on one page. We recommend choosing one main keyword that is highly relevant and include it in key sections, like the title tag, H1 and subheadings. You can also use secondary keywords, but these should be of lower priority than your main choice.
- Avoid Using Unnecessary Keywords: Keywords should only be included when they are relevant to the content you’re writing and can be written in naturally. The key is to balance improving your SEO and maintaining a positive user experience.
- Avoid Keyword Grouping: Grouping keywords together in a long list is a black hat SEO technique and could result in decreased performance or Google penalties.
Check out our blog post ‘How to Avoid Keyword Stuffing – Keyword Best Practices’ for a more detailed breakdown.
Perfect Your Keyword Strategy with Wildcat Digital
At Wildcat Digital, our team of digital marketers can help with a variety of SEO services. We aim to boost your rankings in search engine results pages and grow your online presence.
Conducting keyword research and writing content including them is what we do. Our SEO department can help your business find and use the right keywords. So, don’t hesitate to get in contact with us. Arrange a free consultation to see what benefits we can bring to your website.
Amy Varley
SEO Executive
