What Are Keywords: Complete Guide for Website Owners

Keywords are the terms people type into search engines when looking for products, services, or information. Understanding what your audience searches for is the foundation of search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is the practice of finding and using those terms strategically throughout your website or online store so search engines can find and surface your pages for relevant searches.

According to a Conductor study, organic search drives 33% of overall website traffic to seven key industries, including retail, tech, and professional services. Higher search rankings lead to increased organic visibility, which contributes to revenue—and it all starts with keywords. 

Here’s an overview of what keywords are and how they work, with guidance on how to use them for your own website.

What are keywords?

Keywords are the words and phrases internet users type into search engines like Google, Bing, and YouTube. These search queries offer a window into the terminology people use when they’re looking for products, services, and information on the internet. 

When you enter a search query into Google, its bots review its index of stored web pages, looking for those that best match the query. They analyze factors such as where keywords appear on a page, as well as hundreds of other ranking factors and core web vitals, such as page load times and content freshness. Google then displays high-quality, relevant pages to the query on the search engine results page (SERP). 

While keywords on their own are not the only determining factor in whether your page ranks well, they are one of the ways Google determines relevance to a search query. 

Types of keywords

You may have heard of concepts like the sales funnel and the buyer or customer journey. The buyer journey, for example, breaks down the stages a buyer goes through as: awareness, consideration, and decision. These phases reflect the types of keywords used by individuals as they search for an answer, for a product or service to solve a challenge, or to satisfy a want or need.

There are four categories of keywords, each reflecting a different type of search intent:

• Informational keywords. Keywords associated with informational search intent are used by people who want to learn something. Informational keyword phrases often include “what,” “how,” “why,” or “best way to.”
• Navigational keywords. Users type navigational keywords when they want to find a specific website or page. They might use brand names (e.g., Allbirds, Shopify) or specific page titles (e.g., magazine headlines, “best of” lists) in their search queries.
• Commercial keywords. These come up when users want to research products or services before making a purchase. They might use keywords like “best,” “top,” “review,” or “compare” along with product or service names.
• Transactional keywords. Generally speaking, users type these when they are ready to buy a specific product or service. Words like “buy,” “order,” “price,” or “near me” might appear in a transactional search term.

Often, an SEO content marketing strategy will include a mix of these keyword types. For instance:

• Product pages target transactional keywords, such as “women’s trail running shoes size 11,” because shoppers who search this phrase have a high intent to buy.
• Ecommerce category pages, also called collections pages, target broad commercial keywords, such as “women’s running shoes,” so that shoppers can compare options.
• Blog posts target informational keywords, such as “how to choose the right running shoes,” to reach shoppers still in the research phase and often searching more broadly. 

5 keyword categories

1. Exact match keywords
2. Seed keywords
3. Long-tail keywords
4. Keyword clusters
5. Semantic keywords

There are several categories of SEO keywords website owners use to create content, product descriptions, and ad copy. They include:

1. Exact match keywords

These match the exact phrasing of a user’s search query. For example, “stainless steel water bottle 32 oz.” These help you target shoppers with clear intent because the words on your page align directly with their search. Use them on product pages, collections pages, and specific service pages. 

2. Seed keywords

Seed keywords, or head terms, are broad keywords with high search volume—usually one to two words, such as “wedding band.” They’re often the starting point for keyword research, as they can be branched out into more specific variations, such as “white gold wedding band for women.” 

Because seed keywords are so broad, they sometimes carry mixed intent. For example, the term “wedding band” could refer to a ring or a musician. In this case, it would make sense to also try to rank for more specific terms, such as “wedding ring” or “wedding music.” 

3. Long-tail keywords

These are longer phrases with lower search volume but stronger intent behind the search. For instance, someone seeking general information might search the seed keyword “deck furniture.” Alternatively, someone with a clearer purpose might search a long-tail keyword like “all-season wood deck furniture.” Because these are lower volume and more specific, there’s less competition than for seed keywords, making them easier to rank for.

Similarly, niche keyword research offers a competitive opportunity for smaller, specialized businesses. Think keywords targeting customers interested in “reclaimed teak craftsman outdoor furniture.” Niche stores benefit from a keyword strategy based on knowing their audiences and preferred terms.

4. Keyword clusters

This is a keyword list of words and phrases closely related to a single topic. For instance, the primary keyword “florist” could spawn related keywords like “wedding florist,” “wedding flowers,” and “wedding flowers cost.” Map these related keywords into organized clusters to inform your content strategy. 

One way to organize clusters is a “hub and spokes” model, in which you create an in-depth hub page covering a variety of topics within a cluster, then build out dedicated spoke pages covering specific topics in more detail. For example:

• Hub page: “Wedding flowers.”
• Spoke pages: “DIY bridal bouquets,” “how to choose your wedding flowers by season,” “how much do wedding flowers cost.”

Another approach is to map keyword clusters to buying intent, ensuring you’re targeting the right keywords on the right types of pages. For example:

• Transactional keyword or product/service page: “Buy wedding flowers in Brooklyn.”
• Commercial keyword or collections page: “Best wedding florists in New York.”
• Information keyword or blog post: “How to choose wedding flowers.”

5. Semantic keywords

Semantic keywords are terms and phrases conceptually related to the main keyword. They aren’t variations of the keyword, but rather, all the vocabulary related to it that would signal deep topical coverage. 

Modern search engines use natural language processing to understand a page’s context. That means content that naturally includes related concepts gives search engines more signals that you’re genuinely covering a topic in full. For instance, if the primary keyword phrase is “skincare for sensitive skin,” semantic keywords could include “moisture barrier,” “fragrance-free,” and “redness.” 

How to use keywords to rank higher in Google results

1. Identify relevant keywords
2. Vet your keywords
3. Create a keyword map
4. Incorporate keywords into pages copy
5. Launch a blog
6. Target SERP features
7. Monitor results and fine-tune as necessary

Ranking on Google and other search engines requires strategic keyword use. Rather than turn a web page into a dumping ground for all your keywords, create an array of web content—product pages, blog posts, and even your site’s homepage—and organically weave them into your text. 

Here’s how to go about the process:

1. Identify relevant keywords

Start the process by researching key terms—essentially, identifying the words and phrases your primary audience searches for. There are free and paid keyword research tools available to help you do keyword research. Popular free SEO tools include Google Search Console and Moz. Popular paid tools include Semrush and Ahrefs.

Start by using Google Search Console (GSC) to uncover what terms are already driving organic search traffic to your website. Use that information to brainstorm more keywords. 

From there, use a paid tool like SEMrush to analyze what keywords your competitors are getting traffic from. Decide which of these keywords you want to try to rank for.

2. Vet your keywords

Once you have a list of keywords, evaluate them to make sure their traffic potential is worth the effort to try to rank for them. 

“You need to determine if people are actually searching for what you sell and how realistically you can rank for those terms,” Kyle Risley, SEO lead at Shopify, says.

To assess traffic potential, use your keyword research tool to compile estimated monthly search volume for all of your keywords. 

High search volume isn’t the only thing that matters. Weigh keyword difficulty as well, which is a measure of the number of backlinks, or links your page will need from external sites in order to rank. If a keyword has 50,000 searches, it might seem tempting to attempt to rank for it, but top positions might already be dominated by big brands with thousands of backlinks. 

For newer brands, starting with low-volume, low-difficulty keywords is a good place to begin, gradually moving on to more ambitious terms as your site gains rankings and credibility. 

3. Create a keyword map

Once you have a list of keywords, create a keyword optimization map to assign them to specific pages on your website, such as a blog entry or a product listing. The goal here is to make sure no keywords go unassigned and that you aren’t duplicating keywords across multiple pages.

A basic keyword map can be stored in a spreadsheet with columns for URL, primary keyword, secondary keywords, search intent, keyword volume, and keyword difficulty. Then, match keywords to pages based on intent:

• Transactional keywords to product pages
• Commercial keywords to collections pages
• Information keywords for blog posts

4. Incorporate keywords into page copy

Once you’ve mapped your keywords, weave them organically into your page content so it reads naturally to a human. 

There are several places on a Shopify store where your keywords belong in addition to the body copy: page titles, meta descriptions, headers, and even image descriptions. Incorporating relevant keywords into image alt text can help you turn up in a Google image search. It’s also a component of website accessibility, such as helping people who use screen readers better understand your pages.

You can update most of these from your Shopify admin, under the “Search engine listing preview” section. Keep page titles between 60 and 70 characters, and meta descriptions between 135 and 160 characters, because longer entries get cut off on search engine listings. Also make sure each page title and meta description is unique, as duplicates can hurt rankings.

If you have a large store, updating each page manually can be time-consuming. The app Smart SEO automates this process, generating page titles, meta descriptions, and alt text in bulk, as well as adding file names and structured data so search engines can better understand your store. 

5. Launch a blog

To target informational keywords, you may need to create a new space to write about topics not directly linked to a product or collection—usually by starting a blog. “Content is king and, and blogging is like the most important thing that you probably could be doing,” says JJ Folano, cofounder of Zero Waste Store on an episode of Shopify Masters. 

Zero Waste Store used this strategy to capture more organic search traffic from keywords it couldn’t target with product pages. 

“Start pulling keywords and topic ideas from what actually gets searched,” JJ says. “Drill down into what keywords you want to target and then surround your blogs around those.”

Use keywords naturally within phrases and sentences so your content sounds conversational and engaging. Forcing them in, which is called keyword stuffing, won’t advance your SEO strategy. It’s a black hat SEO tactic that violates search engine guidelines, and it can make your site rank lower.

SEO best practices keep keyword density between 1% and 2%, or one to two mentions per 100 words. 

6. Target SERP features

Do a little SERP analysis. Beyond the standard blue links, Google surfaces pages on various SERP features, including AI Overviews, “People also ask” boxes, “People also search for” suggestions, and local packs for local search queries. 

Showing up in these features gives your brand significantly more SERP real estate, and mentions in AI Overviews can increase brand awareness, even if the user doesn’t click through to your site. That’s because they’ll see your brand name in the citations list. 

Here’s how to align your keywords with each opportunity:

• Target queries that include “what is” or “how to” to capture AI Overviews.
• Add keywords to headings so AI systems know which section to pull into AI Overviews.
• Build keyword clusters to demonstrate topical depth.
• Target local keywords for local packs, such as “carpet store in Brooklyn.”
• Mine “People also ask” sections for longtail keyword ideas.

7. Monitor results and fine-tune as necessary

After publishing, use analytics tools like Google Search Console to see which pages are performing well and which pages are failing to attract organic search traffic. If your first attempt at adding keywords doesn’t increase your search rankings on Google, revisit the page content and compare it to the pages that are beating yours, looking for content gaps. Then adjust your page to fill those gaps. 

Keyword metrics to track success

• Revenue
• Conversion rate
• Organic search traffic
• Ranking

The ultimate goal of using keywords is to increase revenue from organic search and SEO lead generation. But there are SEO metrics that work like stepping stones to that ultimate goal. “Rankings lead to traffic, traffic leads to micro-conversions, and micro-conversions lead to revenue,” Kyle says. “When measuring importance, you should follow that chain in reverse.”

Revenue

Organic revenue is how you justify all your search efforts and tie them to business outcomes. This is the dollar amount generated by all unpaid search traffic, and the metric that all others feed into. As Kyle puts it, “You must watch organic revenue. That’s where everything leads.”

Use Shopify’s built-in analytics along with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to attribute revenue to organic traffic, then filter by landing page so you can see which pages are generating the most revenue. If you find pages with high traffic but low conversions, it might be a sign the keywords you’re ranking for are bringing in browsers, not buyers. Or, there’s a mismatch between the search engine marketing or meta description copy and the actual page content. 

Conversion rate

Conversion rate (CVR) in an ecommerce SEO context refers to the percentage of people who take a desired action on your website after landing from the SERP. These actions include purchases, email sign-ups, add-to-carts, and more.

Review conversion rates for your landing pages on GA4. If a page converts well but gets low traffic, it’s an opportunity to optimize it and drive more traffic. If a page has low conversions but high traffic, there could be an issue with the page’s content, such as images, weak descriptions, or unclear messaging.

Organic search traffic

This measures the number of visitors your website or a particular page receives from organic search. You can measure this overall and segment it by keyword to understand which keywords are driving the most traffic to your site. 

Use Shopify’s built-in analytics tools to see which pages get the most organic traffic, and Google Search Console to see which queries generate the most clicks and impressions. If a page is earning impressions but few clicks, the issue is usually the title tag or meta description. Rewrite them to be more compelling and better match search intent.

Ranking

This indicates a page’s position in the organic search results for a specific keyword. Higher rankings generally lead to more visibility and more traffic for your website, because the top three rankings usually get the most clicks—about 68% of all SERP clicks combined.

Track rankings for the keywords you’ve mapped to specific pages in a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush. If a keyword moves from position 100 to position 30, it’s a good sign your site is gaining more domain authority. If a page is ranking in positions 11 to 20, those are prime opportunities for optimizations to push them to Google’s front page.