The 10 Types of Keyword You Need to Know for Optimising Your Content
Targeting keywords for optimisation in the right way helps bring your website to the forecourt of your audience, making it more accessible to surfers of 2021.
You have to question whether you and your audience are getting the most out of your content or not. For example, optimised content using a strategised approach with the ten keyword types can help attain more valuable leads. This will increase your overall convergence rates on your site no matter your brand goal.
As well as this, with more people online comes more competition. But, don’t panic, this is where I come to the rescue.
Here at Jade Victoria Copywriting, it’s my job to work alongside you and understand the direction of your content so - through effective use of the ten keyword types - we can begin to optimise your content.
Before I speed into the ten keyword types, if you want to find out exactly what a keyword is, have a look at my other article “What Are Keywords and Why Do They Matter?”.
Now to get down to the nitty-gritty; the ten keyword types:
Main Keywords
The main keyword is exactly what it says on the tin. When it comes to creating content, you’ll have a topic and title in mind that should be influenced by a specific keyword. This is your Main Keyword.
It should be effectively distributed throughout your content (every 100-200 words) alongside other targeted keywords and LSI Keywords (read on to find out more about these!).
Typically, it is mentioned within the title (your H1 tag) as well as a couple of the subheadings (your H2 tags) and the body of content, itself. This tells Google that your content is valuable in answering the search term related to the keyword (just be sure to not keyword stuff!).
2. Short-Tail Keywords
All keywords can either be considered short-tail keywords or long-tail keywords. In the most basic of senses, they just mean keywords that have a couple of words (up to three) and keywords that have more, respectively.
Short-tail keywords can be anywhere between 1 and 3 words long focusing on pretty much anything you believe both resonates with your brand and is of interest to your target audience.
In reality, however, they can be extremely hard to rank for and will often not provide your site visitor with the exact answer they’re looking for.
An example of a short-tail keyword is ‘content specialist’. As such a broad topic, search engines will turn out a large number of results but won’t generate a productive conversion rate to your content due to the competition.
3. Long-Tail Keywords
In contrast to short-tail keywords, long-tail keywords comprise 4 or more words to form a question, description or phrase.
Again, the long-tail keyword can work hand-in-hand with many of the other types of keywords such as the product defining keywords. This is because they can be descriptive of any broad or niche topic relating to both your business and your target audience.
In lengthening the keyword and targeting very specific search queries, you’re targeting audiences with an agenda. With this, any leads you get are more likely to convert through large-scale audiences clicking through to your website than a broad short-tail keyword that might not answer their question.
As well as this, the more specific the keyword is, the less likely there is to be a high competition level and the more likely you are to rank for that keyword. Then, other keywords indexing will follow.
4. Fresh Keywords
Fresh keywords can be short-tail or long-tail and refer to the specific words that search engine users are querying in regards to on-trend topics. However, as they are so on-trend, they are often very temporary.
If you’re quick to the trends and are able to target the keyword before any competitor, you’ll have much higher chances of ranking for the keyword. Although, arriving late to the party with fresh keywords is redundant in the efforts of improving SEO and click-through-rates (CTRs).
Examples of fresh keywords include anything related to popular media and news releases such as the newest album to be released by a popular musical artist or band.
5. Evergreen Keywords
Evergreen keywords, much like the plants will have year-long (and more) relevance to your brand and your target audience. For example, the topic of keywords will likely be a search topic for years to come while trends for other SEO ranking factors will vary with the Google Algorithm.
The idea is that they’re designed to last far longer in the indexing on search engines than fresh keywords.
With this, it’s important to know that the relevancy can fluctuate. This means the search volume and CTR will fluctuate throughout the year, too.
Although, a top trick to ensure the content remains evergreen in the eyes of Google and your target audience is to keep updating the content where you can. Whether it’s once a year or once a quarter. Content does get old, and Google pushes content that is seen to update with the times!
6. Product-Defining Keywords
Another one told as it is the product-defining keyword. They’ll generally be an exact relative to the products and services that you offer as a business or entrepreneur while making sure they’re broad enough to be a relevant search query.
For example, as someone offering professional copy editing in their services, I’ll be sure to get a keyword like “professional online copy editing” into some landing page copy or blog content. This way, search engine users know it’s something they’ll find when they click through to my site.
A benefit to using these types of keyword is knowing that search engine user intent is strong. Therefore, it’s more likely to convert your readers when they click-through. Although, you need to have your internal linking strategies on-point to make sure the intended customer journey is completed.
7. Geo-Targeting Keywords
If you’ve ever searched for a local product or service, you’ll have probably typed “near me” or the name of your location into the search engine alongside what it is you’re actually looking for.
This search query has given way to a new generation of keywords that geo-target customers. When you insert a location into your keyword, you’re telling Google your local relevancy while increasing your chances of showing up on the relevant results page tenfold.
A benefit to these types of keywords is that they’ll e long-tail by default. Meaning they have high levels of search intent, low levels of competition, high CTRs and high conversion rates.
8. Query Keywords
Next up on this list of the ten keyword types is the query keyword. Generally speaking, targeting keywords for optimisation in 2021 involves looking at key search terms and deciphering the most asked questions in Google (or any other key search engine).
With this, most keywords happen to be query keywords; this means they’re full-length questions that are targeted and optimised throughout your content. For example, “what are the ten types of keyword?” might be typed into Google, and when a page features this exact phrasing, they’re more likely to be indexed highly on a search engine results page.
More often than not, these types of keyword for a content strategy are utilised throughout FAQ sections. Be it a specific page on your website or a section at the end of every blog post (mainly pillar blog posts).
The biggest benefit to using these types of keyword is their ability to show within the Google Snippets feature on a results page. However, your website will need previous SEO and will need to optimise the exact query keywords used in the search.
9. Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keywords
You might have seen this keyword type being thrown around a lot in the SEO community in recent times. This is because the Google Algorithm is becoming better and better at deciphering the meaning behind a collection of letters, numbers, words and phrases.
This means you’re able to play around with your keywords more, use paraphrasing and incorporate more detail into each phrase without worrying about being lost to the algorithm or featuring any keyword stuffing.
The idea is to consider the main keyword as a hub while also brainstorming other thematic keywords surrounding the topic in order to target and optimise a broader range of search terms. Additionally, it helps to make your content read more fluidly.
10. Negative Keywords
Finally on this journey through the many different types of keyword for a content strategy is the negative keyword. Although, it is quite a controversial addition to this list.
All other keywords have been part of the organic marketing ring, whereby a keyword is targeted and then implemented into copy and content for optimisation. This, then, has the role of organically marketing a site and brand by showing up within a relevant search engine results page (SERP) without the need for paid advertisement.
However, pay-per-click (PPC) marketing still requires the use of targeting keywords. Many of which are the same as the above 9. But it requires an additional keyword to ensure the content isn’t displayed within non-relevant search engine results pages.
So, spreadsheets of negative keywords are formed. These are keywords featuring homonyms and other contextual words. For example, if you wanted to make the most out of your PPC as a keeper of rare books, you wouldn’t want to show up on a search engine results page of someone looking for a bookkeeper. So, this would become a negative keyword.
And that concludes the introduction to the ten types of keyword you need to know for optimising your content.
It’s important to know that not all of these keywords need to be optimised within every single piece of content or copy written for your site. In fact, you may only need to identify, target and optimise one of them depending on the length and purpose of your content.
As well as this, it helps to use the types of keywords for a content strategy alongside the knowledge as to why they’re so important. So, don’t forget to have a gander at the rest of the Jade Victoria Copywriting library; you’ll find all sorts of useful noggin nuggets regarding writing, editing, learning, English, SEO, IA and so much more.
