How Using Seed Keyword Can Launch Your Site to the #1 Search Result
Everyone has been there. A user types their desired search words into a search engine and the first results most of the time is the giant companies of the likes of Amazon, Walmart, and the main competitors in any industry. However, every so often, an unknown company sneaks in either right below, in between, or even higher than these companies in search results. How could this possibly happen? The answer is quite simply that this small company is “playing the game” with search engine algorithms and creating the exact keywords that will shoot them to the top of search results. For the user, this process is mainly unknown. For the developer/company, however, this is a process that is tediously worked on and changed/improved constantly. The final result for the user, company, and search engines is one that started with a simple few words called “seed keywords”.
As Geoge Do, COO of LongtailPro explains, a seed keyword is a starting idea that is broad and simple that can help a company find competitors and influencers in their field. Before even reaching this point, companies should first consider their goals and how their keywords should align with these goals. After forming these keywords, a company then types them into a search bar to find blogs and sites within their niche, start with their seed keyword and type each letter of the alphabet to see what the search engines autosuggest, and finally find customer/fan forums on their product with their seed keyword. After completing all of this, companies will have a spreadsheet full of keywords that their potential customers are searching for. Then a developer will take those keywords and place them into search engines, see where companies like their own rank, and judge if they should go with their current list or try to create new keywords to increase their ranking in search engine algorithms.
Keywords are so important because search engines are built to read keywords that will provide their users (which turn into a company’s users) with the best experience possible. If a company does not have strong keywords and/or if a company has the wrong keywords, either the company’s product/service will not come up when it is searched or the search engine will hide your page due to user dissatisfaction. Search engines do not care as much about the size or scale of a company when they suggesting results. What they take into the greatest consideration are the keywords that are present in a company’s URL, title tags, header tags, main content, image alt text, and anchor text. For this reason, keywords should be something that are deeply thought out so a site can please both its users and the search engines. If all of their seed keyword research and the resulting longtail keyword placement is done correctly, even the smallest of companies can compete with the giants in the world of search engines.
