Apparently, I need Keywords.
So, today’s lesson introduced something new into my life. Keywords.
Now up until this point, I thought the plan was simple: Build a website, write posts and exist on the internet and somehow people would fine me. Apparently not!
Now I must think about keywords: short tail keywords, long tail keywords, ranking, outranking. Outranking who exactly? The entire internet? The moment you type digital marketing into the search bar, it’s over. Finished. There are people who have been doing this for years. Companies. Experts. People with full teams.
And then there’s me with my, ‘I just bought a domain and panicked over a sample page’ experience.
So naturally, my brain did what it does best. Spiral. How am I supposed to compete with people who already know what they are doing? How do I outrank content that has been sitting on the internet for years? Can I outrank YouTube? (I already know the answer to that, let’s be realistic.)
Now let’s quickly get into it. What are keywords? I am going to try explaining like I am explaining to a 7-year-old. This is going to be worth it, stay with me.
You walk into a giant library. The library has billions of books, but there are no librarians walking around helping people. Instead, there is one very fast robot librarian named Google.
Now imagine you want a book about dinosaurs. You walk up to the robot and say: “Dinosaurs”
That’s a keyword
The keyword is simply the word or phrase you use to tell Google what you’re looking for. Now imagine someone else says: “Why did the T-Rex have tiny arms?”
That’s also a keyword, but it’s much more specific.
Google hears those words and starts searching through all the books to find the best answer.
Now let’s switch from libraries to websites.
When you write a blog post, you’re basically creating a book and putting it into Google’s giant library. Your job is to help Google understand: “What is this page about?”
Keywords help with that.
For example, if your blog post is about: How I bought my first domain”
Then possible keywords might be:
- buy a domain name
- first domain name
- how to buy a website domain
- buying a domain for beginners
Those are the phrases people might type into Google. Here is where I think I got confused.
I thought the goal was to pick a keyword and repeat it so many times Google would have no choice but to notice me, you know writing like writing DOMAIN one hundred times in my blog post to force that keyword in, so I can be ranked. (I didn’t do it but that’s what I thought.)
But that’s not how it works. Google is smarter than that, who could’ve known, haha. So instead of stuffing the keyword everywhere, you write naturally about the topic.
Google, because it’s a smarty pants notices:
- the title,
- the headings,
- the content,
- related words,
- the overall topic.
And then decides, “yep, this page is probably about buying a domain.”
🎯 Keywords are clues.
You’re leaving clues for Google, so it knows what your page is about, not too few clues, not 500 clues. Just enough clues that Google doesn’t get lost.
The biggest lesson every beginner should learn:
Write for people first and Google second.
Because if people enjoy reading the page, you’ve already solved half the SEO puzzle. Google is just the robot librarian trying to help people find it.
Lessons learned.
1. Google is not a mind reader.
Keywords help search engines understand what your page is actually about.
2. You do not have to outrank the entire internet.
You only need to be helpful to the people searching for the thing you are writing about.
3. Keywords are clues, not magic spells.
Repeating the same word 100 times will not suddenly make your page rank.
4. Write for people first.
If real people enjoy reading your content, you are already moving in the right direction. (I am not sure if there might be ‘fake’ people out there, if that’s the case, this blog is not for you.)