Keywords are one of the lifelines of your blog. They dictate what a certain blog post is all about. They drive traffic towards your blog. They are the reason why people look for content on your blog.
Keywords are that powerful. Hence, learning the proper way to use keywords in your WordPress blog posts is a must.
Ever went to a search engine and typed up a few words about a topic you want to look for, such as “customizing WordPress blogs”, “food delivery in New York”, or “cheap maxi dresses”?
Yes, the strings of words you’re looking up on a search engine are keywords for a specific niche or topic.
Simply put, a keyword is either a single word or a string of words that pertains to the topic you want to write about on your blog posts.
Keywords actually exist to lead the wandering and curious Internet user down to a certain blog post, which he views to satisfy his needs.
To further illustrate, this post you are reading right now can have the following keywords in it:
Keywords
Keywords in WordPress posts
Effective keyword use
It all boils down to the specific topic a blog post is pertaining to.
Why Is It So Important in WordPress Posts?
Your WordPress blog needs to rank high in search engines if you want your content to reach as many people as possible.
This means when a person searches for content related to your blog on a search engine, that search engine recognizes your blog and lists you among the first few pages of their search engine results, helping people see and read your blog posts.
Having the keyword strategically included in the title tag means that search engines can easily find your blog post and display it for a user who entered that specific keyword as a query in the search engine platform.
Focus well on optimizing your title with your chosen keywords; it must have the right mix of informativeness and algorithm-friendliness.
It is often 155-160 characters long, and is displayed by search engines on their actual search results pages to give the viewers a glance of what a certain webpage is all about.
Given that the meta description lands on the search results pages itself, it is crucial to optimize it with your blog post’s keywords.
Inserting your keyword as naturally as possible in your meta description can prompt a search engine to consider your post as a potentially helpful search result, and thus displays your blog post when a user searches for your keyword online.
Search engines will most likely include your blog post in its results page if your keyword appears in your description.
6. In the URL Permalink
URLs also play a vital role in search engine optimization.
This means that search engines will most likely index your blog posts if their URLs carry a keyword or two, rather than it being a jumbled mix of letters, numbers, and characters.
For instance, this article can be indexed by Google as follows:
https://www.blogbeginner.com/12345ABCDE-123/
But, you can tweak this URL before publishing the post so that it looks something like this:
https://www.blogbeginner.com/how-to-use-keywords/
Google will prefer to show users the second text-based URL rather than the first one because it quickly gives the users a sneak peek of what the article is about, unlike the first URL.
The second URL is miles ahead of the first one for its user-friendliness, isn’t it?
Be sure to edit your blog post’s URL to reflect your keywords before your posts get published and go live. It can be hard to edit permalinks once it’s already being circulated online.
This will result to a page URL similar to the first example above.
By all means, switch to the text-based structure for your permalink so that you can add your relevant keywords to your final URL.
You can easily do this via your admin dashboard.
Also, remember to use 10-15 words at the most for your blog permalink.
Too much text in the permalink will make it harder for users to remember your blog post.
Search engines are also most likely to favor short to medium-length URLs that are descriptive in nature, so be sure to plan your permalinks well.
To wrap this tip up, placing keywords properly in all these parts of your articles helps ensure that your blog posts are optimized for search engines, increasing the chances for them to be read by your target audience.
7. Emphasize Strong Keywords in the First Paragraphs of Your Article
The first 100 words of your WordPress post is crucial in Google indexing.
Placing your strongest keywords within the first few paragraphs of your articles can do wonders for your search results rankings.
You have the rest of your post to elaborate on your main topic; focus on getting a strong introduction for your blog so that both readers and search engine algorithms will get a sense of what your blog is about at first glance.
8. Avoid Keyword Stuffing
As much as you would like to include keywords in every part of your blog post, bear in mind that too much of it can kill your chances of ranking high on search engines.
Keyword stuffing means that you’ve loaded your blog posts with too many keywords.
Your articles are screaming with keywords and are not natural enough when you read its entirety.
Too many keywords in your WordPress post is distracting to readers and to search engines alike.
An example of keyword stuffing would look something like this:
“Are you looking for the best beach destination in Asia?
Then take a look at this list of the best beach destinations in Asia; we’re sure you’ll find inspiration on where to go for the best beach destination in Asia in this blog post!”
Guess what the keyword phrase is in the example above?
Keyword stuffing is repetitive and plain spammy. That’s why search engines and even readers hate seeing posts like this.
The early stages of search engine optimization (SEO) had search engines value the number of keywords included in a blog post.
The more keywords stuffed everywhere, the higher they ranked on search results pages.
That is why mechanical-looking posts that are nothing but a bunch of repetitive keywords strung together in the entire article have gained higher ranks in search engines than natural-looking posts before.
But now, search engines got smarter.
Who wants to read a bunch of keywords disguised as a blog post today? Search engines now value the quality of blog content over repetitive keyword usage.
Algorithms tend to shun down posts that have too crowded keywords, favoring those articles that flow more naturally in their content.
You can avoid keyword stuffing by following these tips:
Randomly inserting a grammatically incorrect phrase such as keyword stuffing not good in your articles will make your post sound too stiff and well, grammatically incorrect.
Even if you reached the desired keyword density, Google will still frown upon your post because it’ll look mechanical and unnatural.
WordPress isn’t inherently SEO-friendly. You have to work to perk up your site’s SEO with the proper use of keywords, as well as other elements in your blog.
So, start researching and planning your posts now, and don’t forget to take all these keyword tips to heart, and apply them to your blog. Search engines and your readers will surely take good notice of your efforts.
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