The Truth About Finding Keywords For SEO Purposes

The label of "Keyword" sounds like it should be a magic formula, a secret code known only by the initiated. Fiction has a lot of this kind of keyword, from "Open Sesame" for the legendary Arabian Nights cave of fabulous riches to Tolkein's "speak friend and enter" riddle at the Doors of Durin. 

While it is true that finding keywords for SEO purposes sometimes can seem as perplexing as a riddle, the truth is simple: keywords are what people enter in search boxes.

At the Doors of Durin, saying "Mellon", the elvish word for "friend", opened the doors wide. The door was for the Elves to come into the Dwarves' kingdom and do business with them. It wasn't supposed to be a secret code because the inscription on the door said, "speak friend and enter". Simple, right? But those who came later had forgotten that simple truth and were perplexed.

Finding The Right Words

People who use search engines are trying to find information. The words they put into the search box are their best guesses at finding the information they want, and the search engines take it from there. If the user doesn't find what they want on one search engine, they might try another. 

So Google, the top search engine at the moment, has to stay ahead of Bing and the others who are struggling to take its place. This is why the Google algorithms keep changing -- Google wants to make searching for information easy for people so they stay loyal to Google.

Therefore, a person searching for a good SEO consulting firm in Denver may type in "SEO Denver" and get a list of possibilities and suggestions for other ways to find what Google thinks they are looking for. 

These related search terms along with the autocomplete suggestions that show up when entering a search are words other people use to find things similar to "SEO Denver" and are a good source of keywords, too. Other sources of keywords are industry forums & calendars, conference agendas & abstracts, and Wikipedia indexes.

But the key thing to remember about keywords is that they are supposed to open doors to information being sought. Think like the seeker, and it will be simple to find keywords for SEO purposes because the search engine uses keywords as clues to which doors should open.