What is the Importance of Positioning Your Keywords?
A topic, subject phrase, topic title, or descriptors, in content retrieval, is an introductory term or name that captures the basic essence of an individual article. Topic terms constitute a controlled vocabulary for the use in online bibliographic records. In electronic databases that support both indexing and retrieval of content, topic terms are used in a dictionary-form, while subject phrases and subject heads appear more formal in nature. Online subject terms are intended to serve as labels to aid readers in navigating an online article.
For search volume analysis, keyword usage patterns can be compared with the index terms. The index terms reflect overall search volume over time for each keyword phrase, and these patterns can be compared to the number of monthly searches over time for each term. While the keyword usage can fluctuate, for most search volumes, the long term trends appear to be downward. This can be a reliable indicator that the term’s intent has not changed.
To analyze the relationship between keyword intent and keyword ranking, several factors need to be considered. The most obvious factor is search volume; the higher the search volume, the more frequently the website is visited. Therefore, an important consideration in improving a websites search engine placement is to carefully select keywords that are most relevant to the subject matter and theme of the website. Also important to note is the frequency that new keywords are added to the index. The greater the frequency that new keywords are added, the more competition there will be to keep a site at the top of the search engine results page (SERP).
A second factor to consider in keyword ranking is the frequency with which searches are performed. Search engines examine the total number of searches performed each month for each keyword. In determining the search volume for a given keyword, search engines look at the total number of unique visits that were conducted and the average number of times per visitor. This information is used to determine the value of each keyword to a potential advertiser. For example, a keyword such as “puppy names” would rank higher if “puppy names” is searched only once or twice per month compared to the keyword “puppy names” that receives numerous searches per month.
In addition to the above mentioned factors, another way to analyze keyword positioning is through the use of web analytics. Web analytics provides an unbiased snapshot of a websites behavior through various actions such as hits, impressions, and visitors. Keywords are only one of many things web analytics measures. The information provided by web analytics will help an advertisers sales team understand the value of their niche. Web analytics will also provide other important information such as the number of clicks per user, the amount of pages per user, and the duration of time users spend on any given page. This data will be valuable to a webmaster as they learn where improvements should be made as well as how much more traffic they should push to their site.
The above mentioned tips are just a few of the many ways to evaluate keyword placement. Keyword positioning is much deeper than most people realize. It all comes down to one factor: the intent of the searcher. If the intent is to find relevant content for a particular search (such as a brand new website) then the keywords used will have little to do with overall rankings. However, if the intent is for a long term organic climb in the search engine, then a keyword can grow in value the longer it is used in relevant content.