Keywords and Keyphrases for Bloggers

We are going to start with one of the most vital but overlooked tools of blogging – keyword research.

Here, you will learn

• what a keyword is
• and why your need to spend sometime looking at them – before you even write a post.
• what tools to use to for research
• what tools you can use to check out your competition.

You may already know about keyword research if you have a website. If you so, that means this chapter will be easier to understand.

The process by which  internet search works is really quite simple. Think of the internet as a huge library (us bloggers love the library comparison) full of more information than you could ever hope to read. Racks and racks of books and all of them all over the place, in multiple languages and many different formats – yep, not just books but video and audio as well as other formats.

This library isn’t organised by the Dewey decimal system. It’s actually organised by search engines and each search engine has their own method of organisation. There is one thing they have in common when they organise or index web pages and sites – keywords.

Now let’s turn our attention to the user – you. When you’re looking for  information online you utilise a search engine by typing into the search box your keyword. You may also type your search queries into social media channels such as Twitter (20 billion searches a month at the time of writing) or Facebook.

No matter where the search takes place; keywords are how you get found.

If you want to learn who has participated in more Formula One races  than anyone else you might search by these keywords, “who has the record for the most Formula One finishes”. Or you might simply search for Formula One Trivia. These are two very different searches for the same information. To use keywords / key phrases to your advantage you have to think like your reader, what would they search to find you?

One thing you might notice, and it’s important, is the use of keywords for both searching and organisation. While it may seem that the internet is in utter chaos when it comes to organisation, the fact is this keyword system works well. As the internet grows and changes, keyword searches and indexing will grow and change too, they adapt to the human user’s needs.

“The ultimate goal of a search engine is to serve up the most relevant content to the person searching for that information.”