A search engine’s list of keywords is called a keyword list. In information retrieval, an index term, topic term, title term, or other descriptive term, in a data set, is a keyword that captures the meaning of that set of data. Keywords are frequently used to organize and classify sets of data. Keyword lists are also useful for machine-learning applications in which pre-existing data is used as a training database for complex decision making processes.
In keyword ranking, searchers want to be able to quickly determine the most relevant set of information. For instance, if someone were searching for “plumber” they want to be able to quickly sift through search results with the words “plumber” or “help.” They don’t want to have to wade through unrelated search results just to find the person they need. Therefore, they want a website’s search results to be well organized and clearly labeled so that searchers can understand the meaning of the site’s most targeted keywords.
There are many factors that go into calculating the relevance of a given word or phrase to a site’s search volume. These factors include overall keyword relevance, search volume over time, search volume in popular categories, the number of pages linking to a site from other sites, and the total number of pages in the whole domain name that contain the keyword. The most important factor is the search volume, since it is the driving force behind a site’s position in search results. The less search volume, the lower a site will rank. Search engines strive to provide users with the most search volume possible, so even though a particular keyword may not be effective for driving traffic potential, a high rank in a highly searched category can be helpful.
One of the main reasons search engines rank web pages is because users entered a search term in the search box and the site returned results based on the user’s input. A searcher doesn’t want to click on a site that is irrelevant to the search term or one that is too general. They would much rather go to a site that is specifically designed for them. So a website must have specific, targeted content. It’s critical to target keywords within the first three to seven words of a search term in order for a site to be ranked highly.
To optimize your website for a specific keyword, a good way to gauge its importance is to calculate its search volume divided by its related search terms. If the result shows more than ten million searches in a particular field, you’ll know that this is highly relevant. If it shows less than ten million searches, you should think about how much money advertisers are willing to pay for the keyword so that you get the most clicks. If the result shows less than ten million searches, then you can conclude that the keyword is not particularly important to the searcher and it’s unlikely to attract enough competitors for you to make any money with it.
The third step in keyword difficulty is to determine how many people search for that keyword will generate traffic to your website. There are two ways to find this out. One is to analyze the performance of sites similar to the keyword you are targeting. Google Analytic provides a free tool to identify similar keywords to analyze their performance. The second is to use a link building system such as SEO Elite to analyze the link popularity of sites that target your own keyword.