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Unlocking Your Potential Search Traffic With Keywords
By Stephen Pitts
Expert Author
Article Date: 2009-11-18
Many of us in the online marketing community look at keywords as a synonym of a real key that "unlocks" traffic, however, I rather like to look at keywords as actual tools that gives your website the ability to open more than just doorways to additional traffic. Let me explain:
Keywords, similar to screwdrivers, don't always fit the screw that you have sitting in front of you. Similarly, targeted keywords aren't always going to perfectly fit every user's request. Search engines are looking to find the "best fit" from the tools that are in their "proverbial" chests. To that point, semantics are becoming more important than the actual keyword you are targeting. For this reason, it is extremely difficult to be semantically related to a particular topic with minor amounts of content, not meaning you have to provide a dissertation about "pink slippers" or anything, but a reasonable amount of content (a paragraph of content) should be included for each keyword targeted on a page.
Semantics are becoming more important in SERPs, as specific keywords are being replaced by context and topical themes (more information about semantic units). Why are semantic relevance becoming more important? Simply, it makes sense for the benefit of users.
Here is a case in point:
"football magazine article" in Google - 5,030 results
football magazine article in Google - 59,100,00 results
What I am not saying is that you shouldn't optimize content for head terms, however, it isn't reasonable to think that optimization of a particular keyword can only contain that particular keyword. Google sees that there are more than 59 million results that are relevant to football magazine article, but it is only specifically contained in just over five thousand pages on the web. So, there are approximately 1,000 times that, that are relevant to the keyword query.
Incorporating user-centric content optimization, does not mean having the keyword a user searches for on your page, rather, it does mean that your content is relevant and addresses the intent of the search. If I am looking for those "pink slippers" for my daughter for a gift, I really don't care to have missed out on the sites that call the color of their slippers coral, fuchsia, raspberry, rose or even salmon. Makes sense, right?
On the horizon, Google caffeine (not available at this time), appeared that it gave a reasonable advantage to websites that were more semantically related to a keyword phrase than to a specific keyword. It appears that sources are indicating that Google may be implementing caffeine now, just before the 2009 holiday season. or after the holiday season.
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About the Author:
In-house SEO for a private travel company with great success. Has been influential in developing and building a niche travel directory and search engine. I enjoy learning and sharing information on my blog, SEOPittfall.com to others in an effort to build relevant, content driven websites with the user in mind.
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