Joe Majewski

How do Keywords Impact SERPs

When someone executes a Google search, every word in their query acts as a keyword. When Google decides on the results of that search, keywords act as an important modifier for your website’s ranking; in fact, they are possibly the single-greatest factor in determining where you will rank among others.

PageRank is also an important factor, but realize that PageRank is more general. If your website is about flowers, there is no reason why it should place on top of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for the search query boats. I consider PageRank to be a multiplier-factor; having a high PageRank will boost the relevance of your website for searches containing your keywords, but you must have the keywords to even qualify.

Let’s go a bit deeper. So what if you do want your website to start competing for the keyword boats, even though your website is about flowers? Simple. Every time the word “boats” is found on your website, Google will take note of that, and increase the relevance of that keyword for your website. Thus, it is extremely easy to gain keywords, but it takes time.

So now that you have written about boats multiple times on your website, you now have some relevance with that keyword. The next time someone searches Google for “flowers and boats”, your website will come out on top. Great job! But how often will it be that someone searches Google for such a random phrase like that? Probably not very often, which brings me to my next point; it is generally a good idea to keep your website on topic.

Take this website for instance. The majority of content here relates to Computer Science. Zoom in a little bit, and the majority of my Computer Science content is about web design. When I make a blog post, I make sure that it relates to Computer Science in some way. Yes, that gives me a lot of things to write about, but I wouldn’t dare writing about flowers; I can’t have it all. When deciding what type of content you want on your website, try to choose a broad topic. For instance, if you want to make a website about flowers, but also want to have the possibility to write about boats, you can think of your website as being under the outdoors category. Now you have given yourself boundaries, and that makes it much easier to decide on what you can and cannot write about.

This is the number one reason why most blogs fail. People tend to write about whatever comes to mind. If I decided to write about random topics, I would have WAY more keywords than I do now, but all of my keywords would have low relevance. Start out small, and slowly expand. If I was to write an article about candy, Google would never dream of putting me on the top of the results for a keyword that I only used once.

If you are a webmaster that hasn’t yet signed up for Google Webmaster Tools, do so now. They provide you with information about your top 200 keywords, and the top search queries for your website, along with many other useful tools. Check this out:

While I do get to see my top 200 keywords, right now the relevancy on most of them is rather low. This website of mine is still rather new, and doesn’t yet have a whole lot of content. Leave a comment and share yours for comparison; I’d really like to see what the keywords page looks like for a larger website.

I check Google Webmaster Tools on a daily basis, watching as my keywords get shaped up. Being a webmaster is a full time job if you plan on competing for the top SERPs, but it’s also a lot of fun.

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