What are keywords and why are they important?

When getting stuck into digital marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO), you may see ‘keywords’ and ‘keyphrases’ mentioned a lot. But what are they and how do they relate to your marine-marketing strategy?

Yachting Pages presents a guide to these keywords, uncovering the basics of keyword research and ranking to help digital marketers begin improving their online presence.

What are keywords and phrases?

Keywords and phrases are simply the terms that users type into search-engine search boxes to find the information they are looking for. For captains and crew in the superyacht industry, this may be a ‘yacht agent in Palma’ or ‘superyacht marina in Florida’, for example.

Why are these important to you as a marine business? Well, they are ultimately what Google and other search engines use to determine what your website and its pages are about, so they can return the most relevant pages for users. They help your business to be found online by end-users by increasing visibility in search rankings.

Think about it, how many times a day do you search the web for businesses using general search words and phrases for products or services, or ask Google a general question? The chances are you do this a lot rather than typing out an exact business name or URL.

Here at Yachting Pages, over 54% of our users currently find our business listings and articles this way. It’s known as ‘organic’ search. That’s why we have a team of digital marketing experts who spend their time optimising pages on behalf of our online advertisers and users.

How do I choose keywords and terms for my business?

So, how do you choose these keywords so you can appear? Before we get into that, it’s worth noting that it's definitely not as simple as picking a few keywords to target and stuffing your pages with them. Keyword research is actually a highly complex topic in itself, often subject to unexpected change. 

You will certainly not see instant results by adding keywords and terms to your web pages, as you are likely not the only business targeting these key terms. It's another long-term project, so you have to work hard to rise up the rankings over time. If your business would appreciate some expert support in undertaking this SEO task, Yachting Pages can help.

To choose keywords and phrases for your business, you will need to spend time using research tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner, or one of these recommended by Search Engine England. These give figures that indicate how many people are searching each keyword, and how much competition there is currently online, which is great when applied alongside your common sense.

Ideally, you will need to shortlist some relevant terms to target and create supporting web pages and content marketing articles that use two or three of these per page in interesting and informative ways. 

When picking keywords, Moz suggests four main metrics to consider:

1. How difficult is the keyword to rank for?
2. How much organic opportunity is there?
3. How important is the keyword to you?
4. Which keywords have the most potential?

You can read the definitions and thought processes behind these metrics on their blog.

There are other ways and means to judge and prioritise your keyword research as well though, such as current trending topics, the autocomplete suggestions that appear when you type terms into Google's search bar, and those related searches that appear at the bottom of results pages (SERPs.)

Common sense will also prevail, as you will likely know the terms that are most relevant and useful to your business. This beginner's guide to keyword research by Moz may help you to understand keywords further.

How to use keywords and phrases

Once you have selected your keywords and phrases, these should be added into the URL, page title tags, page headings, image alt tags and meta description of each page or article, and sparingly throughout the copy – particularly in the first paragraph.

You want to avoid keyword stuffing and bad SEO practices, usually by ensuring it reads naturally to the user and is representative of the content below. By targeting two or three alternative keywords and phrases in each of your articles you should hopefully have more chance of finding your main users. 

Which search engines should I target?

When we discuss keyword and keyphrase ranking, you not only need to consider SEO best practices, but also the complex algorithms of the top search engines used by your customers.

2018 stats from Net Market Share suggest that over 74% of desktop users worldwide search the internet using Google, with Baidu (12.09%), Bing! (7.87%) and Yahoo! (3.50%) taking up the subsequent positions. These are therefore the search engines that you should probably be targeting with your search-marketing efforts.

In mobile search terms, Net Market Share suggests that over 80% of mobile users searched with Google over the same period, followed by Baidu (16.72%), Yahoo! (0.94%) and Bing (0.81%).

In light of these stats, your focus should likely be largely focused on Google, but you should not neglect the other search engines, as their market share is still quite significant. You can find out more and keep up to date with these changing algorithms through industry blogs, such as Moz and Search Engine Land.

You can monitor how your keyword research and SEO efforts are doing by signing up to Google Analytics.

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For other marketing insights and tips, visit our marine-marketing guides. For assistance in improving your business website's SEO, contact us today and learn more about our specialist marketing services.