Choosing the right keywords for your website can feel tough. Like, climbing a mountain in flip flops – or cowboy boots – kind of tough.

But the reason it feels that way is often because you’re sitting at your laptop, looking around, just trying to come up with the right words and phrases to include on your website.

No one feels confident pulling keywords from thin air!

Once you have a clear process for choosing the right keywords for your website, it feels like lacing up Gortex hiking boots and tackling that mountain again.

You’re more prepared, sure-footed, and ready to reach that view!

What Keywords Do For Your Website

Let’s kick off this process with a definition of WHAT KEYWORDS ARE and how they help your website copy.

Keywords and phrases are just words and phrases that you use on your website. Like ‘Wedding Photographer in Calgary, AB’ or ‘PR agency for Canadian audiences’.

These words and phrases help with your website’s SEO (search engine optimization) which helps tell Google or other search engines WHAT your website is all about, WHO will find value on your pages, and WHEN to show it to them.

Google is designed to give its users the best experience possible. Using keywords (among other SEO techniques) is an important part of Google knowing when to provide its users with your website pages in their search results.

Beyond Google rankings, keywords and phrases also tell your readers what they are reading and ensure they understand your website’s purpose, topic, and relevance to their question or search query.

TLDR; keywords help Google show your site to the right people AND help people understand your website better.

Brand + Audience Research

The first step to deciding the right keywords for your website is to understand your brand and audience really well. Open up a Google Doc or grab a pen and paper and let’s create a list of potential keywords for your website. 

I like to use the SEMrush tool (free or paid version) to see what keywords your website is already ranking for in Google results. Note those down!

I also will use Answer The Public to search for certain industries or topics to see what questions people are asking about. Write any relevant questions or phrases from this step as well.

Then I head to Google and type out a bunch of keywords, questions, and topics that come to mind for the website I’m working on. It’s helpful to see what results are showing up under these search queries.

I also do some audience research – I often ask current clients how they found our website or what search terms or questions they would use when searching for our company or industry.

Each of these steps helps add more clarity to the search results, terms, questions, and content relevant to the brand or website I’m working on.

Competitor Research

The next step is to analyze what your competitors are using for their keywords! You can use tools like SEMrush to do this, or you can go look through your competitor’s websites yourself.

The goal of this step is not to copy competitors but to get a sense of the words other brands in your industry use to describe their offerings and position themselves in the market.

This research allows you to position yourself with unique words and phrases, answer questions even better than your competitors, and stand out as the perfect option for your ideal clients. 

Choosing The Right Keywords For Your Website

Okay, now you have a nice big list of keywords and phrase ideas, the question is… Which of them are the right keywords for your website? 

Here are some general rules of keywords:

• Have 1 keyword or phrase per page/blog post
• Use keywords naturally, don’t just add them everywhere
• Be specific with keywords! Especially as a smaller business
• Look and see who is already ranking for each keyword/phrase
• Research keyword difficulty using tools like SEMrush
• Use tools like Google Analytics to see which pages are gaining traffic

I like to select a bit shorter keywords for your core pages (home, about, services, contact) and then use longer, more specific key phrases for blog posts or landing pages.

For small to mid-sized businesses, I never use super general keywords like ‘website designer’ because the competition for Google to rank you for that term is TOO high. 

Instead, I would use something like ‘Website Designer For Wedding Photographers In New York City’.

Here are some examples from my website… 

• Keyword for my homepage is ‘Website Design and Copy Studio’. 
• Key phrase for my About page is ‘Website Designer in Calgary AB’. 
• Key phrase for this post is ‘Choosing The Right Keywords For Your Website’.

You’ll notice none of these are too general and they are easy enough to use in my website copywriting a few times for each page – that’s the goal!

Where To Use Your Keywords

Keywords compound over time when used in the right places!

Even social media posts can help clarify your keywords and boost your SEO when you share about similar topics and use the same terms consistently. 

Where to use your keywords on your website:

• 3-4 times in the copy of your page if possible
• In the header/title text of your website (use the H1 tag)
• Label your images with the keyword or phrase
• In several of the subheadings if possible
• In your meta description (page) or excerpt (blog post)
• In your title tag (what shows up in Google results)

Bonus Tip: Yoast is a WordPress plugin that does a great job of telling you where to use your keywords in each blog post or page. ShowIt uses this plugin for your blog posts as well – which we love!

Resources For SEO and Keyword Education

The steps I’ve explained above are just one part of my SEO process here at Belle White Creative. I’ve been blessed to learn from countless amazing resources through my time in the website and copywriting world.

If you’re interested in learning more about SEO and using the right keywords for your website, explore some of my go-to resources:

• The Hubspot Academy SEO courses
• Duo Collective; Podcast + Resources
• BTL Site Series Course
• SEO resources on Pinterest!
• The Hubspot blog for SEO 

If you’d like support with choosing the right keywords for your website from me directly, let’s chat about getting your website’s SEO foundations set up strong and ready for growth.