What are keywords and how to research them?

If you are taking your first steps in the world of SEO, you’ve probably already heard the term “keywords” In this article, we’ll explain in simple terms what keywords are, why they’re important for website optimization for search engines (SEO), what types of keywords exist, and how to conduct keyword research step by step. We’ll also discuss popular tools for finding keywords, how to evaluate the value of a keyword, the most common mistakes, and offer practical tips to help you successfully use keywords in your content.

What Are Keywords?

Keywords (also called search terms) are words or phrases that people type into search engines (such as Google) when looking for information, products, or services online. Simply put, a keyword is a search query that reflects the user’s need. For example, if a user wants to find a chocolate cake recipe, they might enter “chocolate cake recipe” into Google—this is a keyword phrase. If someone is looking for the nearest hair salon, they might type in “hair salon in Vilnius” or if they want to buy a phone, they might search for “best smartphone 2025 reviews” All these phrases are keywords.

It’s important to understand that keywords are the link between what users are searching for and what content creators provide online. If your website content matches the user’s entered keyword, there’s a good chance that a search engine will display your page among the results. This way, keywords help potential visitors find your website.

Why Are Keywords Important for SEO?

Keywords are the foundation of SEO—they reveal the main idea of your page’s content and tell search engines what your site is about. By using the same words or phrases that users commonly enter into search fields, you help Google understand that your page is relevant to those queries, which can increase the organic (free) traffic to your website.

Furthermore, keywords help attract your target audience. If you choose the right keywords, you’ll get visitors who are interested in your topic, product, or service. For example, a website optimized for the keyword “children’s clothing online” will attract people who actually want to buy kids’ clothes online. On the other hand, if your content isn’t optimized, your page may not appear in search results at all for people who could benefit from it.

It’s worth noting that the majority of website visitors come through search engines. Research shows that about 64% of all organic website traffic comes from Google search (compared to only about 10% from social media). Therefore, if you want to increase your online visibility, SEO optimization with the right keywords is critically important.

To sum up, keywords play a dual role in the SEO process: they help search engines understand your content’s topic and quality, and they help users find your content among many other results. By choosing and using keywords properly, you’ll have a better chance of ranking higher in search results, attracting more visitors, and achieving your business goals.

Types of Keywords

Keywords can be classified according to different criteria—by length (number of words) and by search intent (user intent). Below we’ll cover the main types of keywords: short, long-tail, informational, commercial, and others.

Short and Long-Tail Keywords

Short keywords usually consist of one or two words. They describe a very broad topic and generally have a high search volume. For example, the keyword “phones” is short and very broad—people enter it with all sorts of intentions (looking for phone news, stores, reviews, etc.). Due to their popularity, short keywords also have massive competition: many strong websites are optimized for them, so it can be hard for a new site to reach high positions with a short keyword. Moreover, a short keyword doesn’t reveal a clear user intent—we don’t know exactly what someone wants when they search for “phones.”

Long-tail keywords are longer phrases (three or more words) and are much more specific. For example, “best smartphones 2025 review” is a long-tail keyword reflecting a very specific user query (they’re looking for reviews of the best phones for a certain period). Such long phrases usually have a lower search volume than short keywords, but they reflect a clear intent and often have less competition. The advantage of long-tail keywords is that they allow you to reach a targeted audience—users who are looking specifically for the information or product you offer. Although there are fewer of these queries, their conversion rate is often higher, since the searchers already know more precisely what they want.

A short keyword, like “bikes” yields very broad search results—various bike shops, general information, etc.

Such a query doesn’t reveal a specific intent, so Google shows a bit of everything: online stores, “People also ask” sections with frequent questions about bikes, popular bike models, and so on. Meanwhile, if you enter a much more specific phrase, such as “mountain bikes for beginners” the results are more related to mountain bikes for newbies—articles with tips, “best of” lists, etc.

A long-tail keyword indicates a clearer need, so the search results are narrower and better match the specific query. As we see, Google in such cases presents content specifically aimed at beginner mountain bikers—demonstrating the potential of long-tail keywords to serve a niche audience.

Keywords by Search Intent (User Intent)

According to users’ search intent, keywords can be grouped into several categories—informational, commercial (transactional), navigational, and so on. These categories help you understand what the user expects when entering a particular query and what type of content to provide.

Informational keywords: These are keywords users enter to find information, learn something, or get answers to questions. Usually, they include questions or general topics. For example, “how to create a website,” “what is SEO,” “tortilla recipe”—all these queries indicate the user is looking for information or advice. For informational keywords, it makes sense to create content that provides knowledge: articles, guides, FAQs, video tutorials, and so on.

Commercial (transactional) keywords: These keywords indicate that the user is planning to purchase or compare before buying. They often include words like “buy,” “price,” “sale,” product names, models, or even “best” (e.g., “best smart TV 2025”). Such queries show buying intent, so when optimizing content for commercial keywords, it’s worth providing product descriptions, e-shop pages, product comparisons, customer reviews, etc. For example, the keyword “iPhone 14 Pro Max price” clearly suggests the person is interested in buying that model, so the best match is a store page with price and maybe a description.

Navigational keywords: These are queries where the user is looking for a specific brand, website, or page. Often these include brand names or website names, such as “Facebook login,” “Youtube,” “Delfi news,” “Barbora supermarket.” When entering a navigational keyword, the user expects to go directly to a specific site or its section. In SEO, navigational keywords are important to ensure that your own site is easily found by your brand name. However, if your site is not that particular brand, competing for navigational queries is usually pointless (e.g., it would be futile to try to outrank the official Facebook site for the keyword “Facebook”).

(There are also other classifications—for example, sometimes local keywords are distinguished (with place names, e.g., “restaurant in Kaunas”—in this case, the user is looking for a service in a specific location), but most often, they are also informational or commercial by their nature. The main thing is to understand the user’s intent and provide content accordingly.)

How Does Keyword Research Work?

To find the most suitable keywords for your website, you should conduct keyword research. This is a process of methodically searching, generating, and analyzing a list of potential keywords. Here is a step-by-step guide for keyword research:

Define your topic and target audience. Start by clarifying your business or website’s topic. Ask yourself: What problem does my product/service solve? What topics are relevant to my customers? Also, think about your target audience—who are they, what are their needs and search habits? This initial step will help you understand which categories of keywords to look for (e.g., if you sell sports goods, you’ll likely be interested in keywords related to sportswear, equipment, specific sports, etc.).

Create an initial list of “seed” keywords. List the main words and phrases (seed keywords) that best describe your activity, products, or topics. Your business knowledge will help here—include the most commonly used terms in your field. Try to see it through your client’s eyes: how would they search for what you offer? Write down all ideas. Also, look at competitors—review content on similar sites, product names, titles. If your competitors are already visible in Google search, what keywords (topics) are they using? This may give you new keyword ideas. At this stage, write everything down—even if a keyword seems too general or too long; you can filter them later.

Use Google search suggestions and related queries. When you have some main keyword ideas, enter them into the Google search box and observe what the system suggests to complete (Google Autocomplete suggestions). The suggestions that appear as you type are popular queries that other users have entered. For example, when you type “wedding photographer,” you may see suggestions like “wedding photographer prices,” “wedding photographer search,” and so on—these phrases can enrich your keyword list. Also, don’t forget to check the “Related searches” section at the bottom of the search results page—there you’ll find 8 more similar queries people have searched. This method helps you understand how your potential clients formulate searches and may reveal unexpected keyword options. For example, searching “good coffee machine” related searches may show “best coffee machines 2025,” “coffee machine comparison,” etc.—all valuable for expanding your keyword list.

Use keyword research tools. After you’ve generated plenty of ideas manually, the next step is to use specialized tools that can expand your list and provide data. Various SEO tools (discussed in detail in the next section) can generate hundreds of related keywords based on your seed terms, showing their search volume, competitiveness, and other metrics. For example, entering a keyword in Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest, you’ll get a list of similar or longer queries. This can help you find keywords you hadn’t thought of. Combine multiple sources—use both Google suggestions and tools—to create the broadest possible list. At this stage, don’t miss out on good ideas: note everything that seems relevant to your topic, even if some keywords overlap or vary. You can filter them later.

Analyze keyword data. Once you’ve compiled a broad keyword list, you need to find out which are the most valuable and priority keywords. Data analysis helps here. Key metrics to pay attention to: search volume (monthly search volume), competition (difficulty), and relevance (targeting). Search volume shows how many times per month people search for a particular phrase—it helps assess potential traffic. Competition level (or keyword difficulty) indicates how hard it would be to rank high for that keyword—tools often provide a difficulty score (e.g., on a 0–100 scale). You can also see what sites are already ranking in the top positions: if they’re strong competitors, it will be harder for a new page to break through. Meanwhile, relevance means how well the keyword matches your business offers and user intent. Critically evaluate: will someone searching for this keyword find what they need on your page? For example, the keyword “free movies online” may have high traffic, but if you’re a movie review blog (not a streaming platform), that traffic is useless—visitors will leave when they don’t find movies. The data provided by tools (search volume, keyword difficulty, click cost, etc.) help objectively compare keywords. For example, if you see one phrase has 10,000 searches/month but very high competition, while another has 2,000 searches, less competition, and better fits your service, the latter may be a better choice. Also, consider user intent—check what results Google shows for that query (are there lots of informational articles or, conversely, product pages?). This will help you understand what type of content to create if you decide to target that keyword.

Select and organize the best keywords. Based on your analysis, remove overly general, irrelevant, or too competitive keywords from your list. Leave those with sufficient search volume and that are specific enough for your topic. Often it’s worth focusing on long-tail phrases with clear intent, as they bring less but higher quality traffic. You can also group the selected keywords by topic or intent. For example, if you have an online clothing store, separate keyword groups could be: “men’s shoes” (with sub-keywords like “men’s winter shoes,” “leather shoe care,” etc.), “kids’ clothes” (e.g., “kids’ winter jackets,” “baby clothes”), etc. Such grouping helps in creating a content plan—deciding which keyword will get a separate page or article. Ultimately, you should have a list of target keywords—dozens or hundreds (for bigger projects)—that you’ll focus on. This list will be the basis of your SEO strategy.

(Note: It’s very useful, if you can, to also check what keywords your competitors get traffic from—tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush help here. This may reveal keywords you missed. For beginners, this isn’t mandatory—you can come back to it later, once you’ve done the basic research.)

After completing these steps, your work isn’t done—keyword research isn’t a one-time task. You need to constantly monitor results, learn from which keywords users click, and periodically review and update your keyword list as the market changes or new trends emerge. But more on that in the practical tips section below.

Tools for Keyword Research

Keyword research is greatly facilitated by special tools—programs or online platforms that provide data about search queries. There are many of these tools, from free to expensive professional ones. Below we discuss some of the most popular keyword research tools that beginners should know (most have free versions or trial periods):

Google Keyword Planner: This is a standard and one of the best-known keyword research tools, as the data comes straight from Google. It’s free, but accessible through a Google Ads account. Keyword Planner allows you to enter some initial words and get a long list of related keywords with their monthly search volume, competition (in Google Ads), and suggested cost per click (CPC). You can filter results by country and language—for example, choose Lithuania and Lithuanian to see how often a keyword is searched in Lithuania per month. Although this tool is designed more for ad campaign planning, it’s great for building an initial keyword list and evaluating search volumes for SEO purposes. (Note: Google Keyword Planner shows ranges (e.g., 100–1k) if you haven’t spent on ads, so smaller projects may have to settle for approximate data.)

Ubersuggest: Created by marketing expert Neil Patel, this online tool has recently become popular among beginners. Ubersuggest lets you enter a keyword and see its search volume, SEO difficulty, paid difficulty, and average click price. It also provides ideas for new keywords and content topics. For example, after entering a word, you’ll get not only a list of similar keywords but also a list of the most popular articles on the topic. Unlike Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest gives more context and insights—showing whether a keyword is better for SEO (organic search) or paid ads and offering content ideas. The basic version is free (with some daily query limits); you can get more data with a paid plan. For beginners, the free version is often enough, as you can check a few main keywords and get the big picture.

Ahrefs (Keywords Explorer): Ahrefs is one of the most powerful paid SEO platforms on the market, highly valued by professionals. It includes the Keywords Explorer tool, which allows you to analyze keywords from every angle. Ahrefs’ database is huge—including Lithuania—so you can find out the monthly search volume for virtually any Lithuanian keyword. Besides search volume and difficulty rating, Ahrefs also shows click counts (how many people click on results for that search), gives a detailed SERP (search engine results page) view: which exact links are in the TOP10, what’s their domain authority, how many backlinks they have, how much traffic comes from that keyword, etc. This helps assess competition. Another function—Ahrefs can show what keywords any entered site ranks for. So you can do competitor analysis: see which keywords bring them traffic and find keyword opportunities for yourself. The drawback—Ahrefs is not free (though they offer a short trial), and it’s quite pricey, so it’s usually used for more serious projects or agencies. But its insights are extremely valuable for advanced SEO.

SEMrush: Another leading SEO tool, very similar in capabilities to Ahrefs. SEMrush is an all-in-one digital marketing platform with over 50 tools for managing website SEO, analyzing competitors, researching keywords, tracking rankings, analyzing backlinks, etc. For keyword research, SEMrush offers the Keyword Magic Tool, which generates thousands of ideas from a single keyword, grouped by topic. Like Ahrefs, SEMrush has a large keyword database, including Lithuania (you can choose the country). It also shows keyword difficulty, competition level, trends (e.g., whether keyword searches are increasing or decreasing over time), and provides SERP samples. A unique SEMrush feature is keyword position tracking and on-page SEO analysis in one place—that is, you can not only find keywords but also later track how your site ranks for them. Like Ahrefs, SEMrush is paid but offers more affordable plans for small businesses or even some free daily query limits, which may be enough at first.

Other Tools: Besides those mentioned, there are many other keyword research tools. Here are a few:

Google Trends: A free Google tool that allows you to compare the popularity of two or more keywords over time and by region. Great for seeing whether a keyword is gaining or losing interest, and for detecting seasonality (e.g., the peak for “Christmas gifts” searches is in December). Google Trends won’t show exact search volumes but shows relative popularity and trends.

Keywordtool.io: An online tool that works like Google Autocomplete. You enter a keyword, select a language (including Lithuanian), and get a long list of search suggestions and related questions people search for on Google. The free version doesn’t show search volumes, but it’s useful for generating ideas, especially for long-question keywords.

AnswerThePublic: Another popular tool, especially for finding content ideas. It visually presents questions and phrases people often associate with your keyword. For example, entering “SEO” will display a cloud of questions: “what is SEO,” “how does SEO work,” “how much does SEO cost,” etc.—helping you understand what content people are looking for. You can filter by country/language.

SE Ranking: Mentioned because some Lithuanian marketing specialists like it as a cheaper alternative to Ahrefs/SEMrush. SE Ranking also allows keyword research, has data on Lithuanian searches, shows keyword difficulty, and offers competitor analysis. Its interface is simpler, but for beginners it may be sufficient, especially as the prices are more flexible.

Moz Keyword Explorer, SpyFu, Serpstat, Ranktracker, etc.: These are more internationally known tools. Each has its advantages (e.g., Moz calculates a Keyword Difficulty score, SpyFu focuses more on competitor tracking, etc.), but their basic functionality is similar—they help you see search volumes, competing websites, find new keywords. Ranktracker even has a Lithuanian interface and articles on the topic, but essentially it’s an international tool.

Are there any Lithuanian-only keyword tools? There isn’t a separate, widely available Lithuanian market-only keyword tool (most commonly, the above international tools are used). However, all the major SEO tools support Lithuania, so you can conduct keyword research targeting Lithuanian queries. Lithuanian digital marketing agencies also sometimes share lists of popular queries or similar data publicly. For beginners, the tools listed above are enough, especially since Google provides many free insights (Google Ads Planner, Trends, search suggestions, Google Search Console data for your site, etc.).

How to Evaluate the Value of a Keyword?

The value of a keyword is the benefit that a specific keyword can bring to your business or website goals. Not all keywords are equal: some can bring lots of visitors, but those visitors buy nothing and leave quickly, while others may bring fewer people, but they become loyal customers. So, how do you evaluate which keywords deserve your attention? Pay attention to these criteria:

Search volume: This is the main number indicating the keyword’s popularity. The more people search for a term, the greater the potential traffic to your page. However, a large volume doesn’t always mean high value—traffic quality is important, too. Still, search volume lets you know whether a keyword is worth considering at all (if the monthly search volume is double digits or less, it may be too niche, unless it’s very relevant to your business).

Competition / keyword difficulty: Assess how competitive a keyword is for SEO. Tools provide difficulty indexes, but you can also check for yourself: if top results are dominated by authoritative, well-known websites, it’ll be tough for a new site to break through. Sometimes it’s better to choose a less popular keyword if the competitors for it are weak. It’s also helpful to check the Google Ads competition column (if you use Keyword Planner)—“high” or “low” competition shows how many advertisers are competing for that keyword. This isn’t a direct SEO indicator, but if there’s little advertising, organic search may not be crowded either.

Relevance: This is perhaps the most important quality criterion. The keyword must match your content, products, and user intent. Ask yourself: will a person searching for this keyword find what they’re looking for on my page? Can this visitor become my client/regular reader? For example, if you have an online store, the keyword “free nutrition seminar” would attract not buyers but simply information seekers—unless your goal is specifically to inform. A keyword’s value is higher when it brings your exact target audience. That’s why it’s important to evaluate not just search volumes but the nature of the queries (informational or commercial). Often, lower-traffic but highly targeted keywords (e.g., “buy Xiaomi vacuum cleaner Vilnius”—clear intent to buy in a specific location) will give you more value than broad high-traffic ones (e.g., “vacuum cleaner”—unclear if the user wants to buy or is just researching).

Click price (CPC) and competitor bids: Even if you’re not planning paid advertising, the CPC (cost-per-click) metric in Google Keyword Planner or other tools gives a hint about the commercial value of a keyword. High CPC means advertisers are willing to pay more per click, so the traffic generates revenue (there are purchases, conversions). For example, the CPC for “life insurance” may be much higher than for “what is insurance,” because in the first case, the user is closer to making a purchase. So a high CPC keyword is generally more valuable commercially. Of course, there are exceptions (e.g., finance-related keywords have high CPCs due to competition, but if your business isn’t related—it’s not important for you).

Conversion potential: This is already related to your individual website—you should monitor and measure how visitors who come through certain keywords behave. If you have an online store, see which queries result in purchases most often. Maybe you’ll notice that certain phrases bring “hotter” traffic. For example, people who arrive through the keyword “XXL men’s shirts” often buy, while those who come through “fashionable men’s clothes” just browse. In that case, the first keyword is more valuable to you, even if it’s less popular. Google Search Console can show which keywords users found your site through and how many clicks you received—these are real data to analyze and assess the practical value of a keyword.

To sum up, a good keyword’s value lies in the balance between traffic quantity and quality. Ideally, a keyword is frequently searched, relatively easy to rank for (lower competition), and matches your business exactly—then it brings not just visitors but conversions (inquiries, sales). However, it’s not easy to find such “perfect” keywords, so you’ll have to prioritize. The usual practice is to use the data to create a keyword matrix and estimate potential traffic and conversions. Remember: sometimes it’s better to have 100 visitors, 10 of whom buy something, than 1,000 visitors, none of whom take any action. So always think about what value the keyword brings specifically to you.

(As SEO specialists emphasize, it’s important to assess the true value of a keyword for your specific website. If one of your goals is sales, monitor which keywords bring buying customers. If your goal is to inform, see which ones bring engaged readers. This “value” may not always be apparent immediately during keyword research—it will be revealed by your site’s analytics.)

Mistakes to Avoid

When working with keywords, beginners often make similar mistakes. To get the best results from your SEO efforts, try to avoid these mistakes:

“Keyword stuffing” – excessive use of keywords: This is the practice of repeating the same keywords too often in page text, meta tags, or even hidden elements, hoping that the search engine will rank the page higher. In the past (about 15 years ago), this sometimes worked, but today Google strictly penalizes keyword stuffing. Text where the same phrase is repeated in every sentence not only sounds unnatural to the user but is also recognized as spam by algorithms. So avoid overusing keywords—use them moderately, only where they fit naturally. For example, if an article about garden care mentions “lawn mower tractor” 20 times, it won’t lift you higher—in fact, you risk dropping in rankings or being removed from the index entirely. Better to focus on high-quality content and keyword synonyms than mechanically repeat the same word. (Remember: you write for people, not robots—search engines actually value naturally written, smooth text.)

Irrelevant (wrong) keywords: Another common mistake is to optimize a page for a keyword that doesn’t really match your content or user intent. This can happen if you choose a popular keyword just for its high traffic, without considering whether it’s really related to your offer. For example, if you have an online store selling laptops and see that “free computer games” has lots of searches, you might try to attract that traffic with a blog post on the topic. While you’ll get visitors, they’re unlikely to buy anything in your store (since they want games, not a computer). Irrelevant keywords can bring useless traffic and a high bounce rate. Also, if the keyword doesn’t fit the content, the search engine may not rank your page at all for it. So always ask yourself: is this keyword really relevant to my business, and will my content be the best answer to this query? If not—better not to use it. Avoid trying to “catch” visitors with keywords that don’t match your actual content—it’s a short-sighted strategy.

Focusing only on very broad, generic keywords: Understandably, high search numbers are attractive, but focusing only on the most popular (short) keywords is a mistake, especially for new or small projects. As discussed earlier, such keywords have a lot of competition, so you may spend lots of time and resources trying to break into the leaders, but never make the first page. Meanwhile, specific long phrases can bring quicker results. For example, in the car topic, trying to rank for the keyword “cars” would be very ambitious (and likely unrealistic), while for “used cars from Germany in Kaunas”—your chances are much better. A common beginner mistake is ignoring long-tail keywords and casting too wide a net. It’s better to have ten pages, each targeting a specific niche (and each attracting some visitors), than to try to adapt one page for everything at once. Focus your content. Later, once you’ve gained authority, you can compete for shorter keywords.

Ignoring search intent: This is somewhat related to irrelevant keywords, but worth emphasizing separately. Every keyword has a certain user intent—do they want to learn, buy, or browse somewhere? A big mistake is when the content doesn’t match the intent. For example, if someone searches “how to fix a bike tire” and you optimize a page selling bike pumps for this keyword, the visitor will be disappointed (they expected instructions, but got a store). Google understands this—if people quickly return to search, your page will drop in the rankings. Avoid this mismatch. If the keyword is informational, make sure the content provides information (and only then you can offer products). If the keyword is commercial, the user probably wants to see product selections, prices—so don’t start with long introductions about history. In summary: give the user what they’re looking for. Ignoring this principle is a mistake that costs both positions and reputation.

Inconsistent use of keywords on the site: Some beginners think that just selecting good keywords is enough, and the job is done. But if those keywords aren’t later properly used on the site, the results won’t be good. A common mistake is messy keyword distribution: e.g., several pages optimized for the same keyword (internal competition), or stuffing one page with 20 unrelated keywords (hoping to attract everything). Avoid competing with yourself—it’s better to have a dedicated page or article for each main keyword, thoroughly matching that query. Another mistake is not using keywords in important places (discussed in detail in the next section). For example, if you have a good keyword, but it’s not included in the page title, headings, meta description, only thrown in the text—you may lose much of the effect. So it’s important to consistently implement your keyword research results on the site, not just leave them “theoretical.”

(Of course, the list of mistakes could go on: not analyzing results, not using internal links, forgetting to update content, etc. But the above are the most common keyword mistakes. Avoiding them will make your SEO efforts much more effective.)

Practical Tips for Beginners

To conclude—a few practical tips to help you start using keywords on your site and improve SEO results:

Start with your business goals and audience. Keyword research shouldn’t happen in a vacuum. Sit down and clearly define what you want—do you want to sell more products, attract newsletter subscribers, increase brand awareness? Different goals may mean different keywords. For example, if the goal is sales, you’ll focus more on commercial keywords (“buy,” “price,” specific products). If the goal is audience growth and education, the focus will be on informational keywords and frequent questions. Also, think about the audience: what language do they use (maybe optimize for synonyms or dialect variations), what level of detail are they looking for, what problems do they want solved? Always start keyword planning from your business context—then your chosen words will be more targeted.

Use keywords in the most important parts of your page. Once you have good keywords, it’s crucial to integrate them properly into your site’s content. There are several critical places where your target keywords should definitely appear:

Page title (Title tag)—this is the meta title shown in search results as the blue link. Include your main keyword here, so Google and users instantly see the page’s topic. For example, instead of a generic “Home – My Company,” use “Men’s Sports Shoes – My Company.”

URL address—if possible, the keyword should appear in the page URL. A short, clear URL with a keyword helps both SEO (Google takes URL structure into account) and users understand the page’s topic. E.g., mysite.com/services/seo-optimization is better than mysite.com/services/id45.

Page heading (H1 tag)—usually the main visible headline. It should include the main keyword or phrase so it’s clear what the content is about. E.g., a heading “What is SEO?” naturally includes the keyword “what is SEO.”

First sentence (or paragraph)—search engine algorithms pay much attention to the beginning of a page. If your keyword is mentioned at the very start, it signals the topic. But make sure the sentence sounds natural, not forced.

Last paragraph or conclusions—similarly, mentioning the keyword at the end subtly reinforces the topic’s closure. Often this can be done when summarizing (e.g., “To sum up, SEO optimization…”).

Throughout the content, evenly—the keyword (and its synonyms) should appear naturally throughout the text. A good test is to read the text aloud: does it sound smooth? If the keyword repeats too much, rewrite some sentences. You can also use close phrases, so the content doesn’t seem monotonous.

Image file names and ALT descriptions—if you have illustrations, name their files descriptively (e.g., manicure-set.jpg instead of IMG12345.jpg) and use ALT text with the keyword. This helps image search and adds context to the page.

Meta description—although the meta description doesn’t directly affect ranking, it’s worth including the keyword for users. In search results, query words are bolded in the meta description, so people are more likely to click results that show their search phrase. For example, if someone searches “car rental Kaunas” and your meta description is “We offer car rental in Kaunas…,” that phrase will be highlighted—attracting attention and increasing click-through rates.

Create quality, comprehensive content around keywords. Just putting a keyword on a page won’t do wonders—the content must provide value to the reader. Search engines evaluate how well your content satisfies the user’s query. So if you decide to target a specific keyword, make sure the content answers all possible user questions on the topic. For example, if you choose the keyword “how to start a business,” your article should cover various aspects: business plan preparation, registration, funding issues, common mistakes—so the reader finds as much information as possible. Comprehensiveness and quality are big SEO allies. Write clearly, structurally, with subsections (H2, H3 headings), use lists, examples. The more convenient and useful for the reader, the better Google will rate it. Remember, the goal of SEO is not just to “stuff keywords,” but to satisfy the user’s search intent. So focus on content quality—let keywords be a natural part of good content.

Avoid the “one keyword miracle”—diversify your keywords. Sometimes beginners focus too much on one or two keywords and ignore others. For example, they imagine that only one specific keyword will bring traffic and put all their energy into it. In reality, traffic usually consists of many different query combinations. Even a single article can be found through hundreds of similar phrases (synonyms, question forms, etc.). So, a tip: when optimizing a page for the main keyword, don’t forget long-tail variations and related terms. E.g., if your main keyword is “hotels in Vilnius,” organically mention “accommodation in Vilnius,” “where to stay in Vilnius,” etc., in the text. This broadens your visibility. Of course, don’t overdo it (again—keep it natural), but just think more broadly: users may vary their queries a bit, so try to cover that semantic field. This will help you catch the “long tail”—smaller but cumulatively significant portions of traffic.

Monitor results and learn from them. SEO is an ongoing process. After adding keywords and writing content, watch how it performs. Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console: see what keywords bring visitors, how they behave (e.g., do they read for a long time, do they convert). If you see that certain keywords work well, you can increase your efforts on them (e.g., create more content on the topic, improve the existing page). If some pages never rise or attract the wrong audience—review whether you chose the right keyword or whether the content matches the intent. Don’t be afraid to adjust: SEO isn’t set in stone—you can edit pages, change meta descriptions, add new information with more keywords. Also, it’s useful to watch competitors—maybe you’ll notice they started targeting new keywords or creating content on topics relevant to you. Then you can react, do additional keyword research. Regularly monitoring results ensures your strategy stays effective in the long term.

Continuously update your knowledge. Search engine algorithms change, user behavior evolves (new search habits appear—e.g., voice search, very long natural language queries, etc.). What worked yesterday may be less important tomorrow. So read about SEO updates, follow trusted sources, experiment. For example, today much attention is paid to content depth (E-E-A-T principle: Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness)—just keywords aren’t enough, you need to show expert content. Tomorrow, maybe there will be “People also ask” optimization methods or something else. Stay curious and flexible. That way, your keyword strategy won’t become outdated and will provide long-term benefits.

Keywords are like a bridge connecting searching users with your website’s content. Learning to choose and use them correctly is a fundamental step in SEO. By following the tips in this article, you’ll better understand your audience’s search habits, attract higher-quality traffic, and avoid common mistakes. Remember, SEO is a marathon, not a sprint: take your time with keyword research, patiently optimize your content, and over time you’ll see positive results—higher search rankings, more visitors, and, most importantly, you’ll reach those people who truly benefit from your content. Good luck with your optimization!