Building Your Brand? Use Keywords to Get Noticed

Once upon a time, I believed running ads was the only way to attract attention. I remember barely figuring out how to create a Facebook ad (it took several hours), linking my credit card, and launching a single ad to draw traffic to my natural hair blog.?

Thousands of people viewed it. Filled with joy, I believed that meant my little blog would see a ton of traffic, and I’d be on my way to success. None of that happened because no one clicked the link. I got a handful of new Facebook followers for the $10 I spent. That was it.?

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Not long after, I got my first content marketing gig, and it opened my eyes to how small businesses were using blog posts to get search engines like Google to boost their website’s visibility.?

My first long-term assignment was for a natural hair wig manufacturer. My job was to write posts about how Black women could style and maintain their products. Once a week, I received a list of topics to write about and a list of keywords to include in each blog post. From that experience, I learned that search engines organize all of the Internet’s content by keywords, and to get content seen, it was important to include the most relevant keywords in every piece of content I wrote. The most important revelation was that if this were done consistently, Google would move the content up in its results pages, causing it to be seen by more people and clicked on more often. All of this meant increased website traffic for free.?

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Keywords Explained

Keywords are the words and phrases we type into Google, Bing or Yahoo when we’re searching for something. When you ask Google a question, its algorithms use keywords to sort through the billions of pieces of content online to find the most relevant answers.

Let’s say you get hit with a craving for homemade chocolate chip cookies. You might type phrases like “chocolate chip cookie recipes” or “easy chocolate chip cookies” into Google’s search bar. On the flip side, if you’re a really good baker and like sharing your tips online, you would include these same phrases in your content to help people using search engines find it.

Types of Keywords

There are two types of keywords: short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords.?

• Short-tail Keywords are broad search terms, usually consisting of one or a few words. For example, "baking" or "chocolate chip cookies." People search for them often, so they appear in tons of content. If you use these keywords alone, your content will get stuck behind all of the content that’s already out there.
• Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific phrases of three or more words. For example, "easy chocolate chip cookies" or "three ingredient cookies." Because they’re so specific, people search for them less often, which means you can use them for your niche content and attract the exact group of people that need it.?

Keywords are essential because they connect your content to the people searching for it. By incorporating relevant keywords into your content, you improve the chances of your content ranking higher in search results, which can lead to Increased traffic and other amazing benefits without costing you a dime.?

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