Keywords are absolutely, without a doubt, a major catalyst behind driving the correct traffic to your site. Selecting the best and most appropriate keywords to use in your content will help ensure that you reach your intended target audience. Unfortunately, many small business owners simply do not have sufficient SEO background to truly understand how search engines, site crawlers, and site users process and utilize  keywords.

Here are some 2 quick tips to keep in mind during your research process: 

1. Broad is Bad...usually: For the most part, broad keywords are not the best to use in your website content. Suppose you own a small business that sells specialized running shoes in Pittsburgh. Sure, the word "shoe" might generate millions of search queries globally per month, but what are the chances that the traffic searching "shoe" is in the market for a specialized running shoe within the Pittsburgh region? Very low.  If your site shows up first for "shoe" on search engines, you will surely get users to click on your site; however, they will likely exit immediately after clicking on your website because they realize that your site does not support their intended needs. Instead, brainstorm more specific niche terms such as "running shoe store in Pittsburgh" or "Pittsburgh running shoe store" and use a free keyword analysis tool such as Google AdWords Keyword Tool to research the amount of traffic that is generated on a monthly basis from each of these search queries.

2. Don't Overload: Select a few heavily researched keyword terms and spread them out to specific pages throughout your site. Do not place all of your keywords on your homepage; it will actually confuse the search crawlers indexing your site. Instead, allocate the keywords to parallel pages within your site structure. To continue with our specialized running shoe company example, if you selected "running shoe store pittsburgh", you could place this on your "About Us" page because it successfully encompasses your general offering. Perhaps you would open a paragraph with "[Company Name] is the premier running shoe store Pittsburgh has to offer." On the other hand, if your company also provides running consulting services, you could place a different keyword such as "Pittsburgh running consultant" on your page describing this specific service. Allocating specific keywords to specific corresponding pages will ensure that the right traffic is driven to the appropriate pages on your site.

Frequently, professionals who are just starting out with keyword implementation find themselves hitting a barrier 10 to 20 words into their research. When you are selecting keywords for your website, it is crucial that you brainstorm as many words as possible before researching their specific search traffic. The previously mentioned Google AdWords Keyword tool will provide you with suggestions based on the words you enter into the field. Another tool to help ignite your creative juices when brainstorming possible keywords is the Ubersuggest tool.

Adding Keywords into Your Content:

Once you have selected the best keywords for your site in order to glean search traffic from your target audience, you will need to massage the keywords into your paragraph content in a way that flows smoothly for your readers. Aside from you general paragraph content, keep in mind that search crawlers prioritize the words in the following fields:

• Title Tag
• H1 (Header 1) 
• Alt Tag
• Links
• URL
• Meta description