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What the heck is a keyword?

What the heck is a keyword?

You’ve probably heard this word banded around quite a bit online. And you know it relates to search, but what exactly is a keyword?

Well, to make matters more confusing, keyword isn’t always just one word. You can have a whole sentence that’s a keyword. 

Basically, a keyword is anything we type into Google in order to find something.

Here are some examples: 

🐭 Disney

🏄‍♀️ Surf schools near me

🏴󠁵󠁳󠁨󠁩󠁿 What’s the capital of Hawaii? 

🏝️ Is it better to visit Oahu or Maui?

So you can see, sometimes we google just one word (e.g. a brand or name), and other times, we type whole questions into google.
 
You might also hear people talk about short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords. Bascially, a short keyword is one with only one or two words. A long-tail keyword is anything with more than three words.
 
A common generalization that’s useful to know is that short-tail keywords are used when we’re looking for a specific thing, or when intent to take action is high. We call these high-intent keywords.
 
We use long-tail keywords when we’re looking for information or researching a topic. We call these informational keywords.
 
So when we’re selling things online, whether that be a product or a service, it’s really important to have a mix of both high-intent keywords, and informational keywords, as they will be relevant to different people in the course of their purchasing journey.
 

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