The different types of keywords in seo and their roles

In addition to being an indicator in the interpretation of the content of your site by search engines, keywords define the subject of your site or your web page. Finally, your keywords must best match the queries of your potential prospects.

These three aspects, intertwined with each other, therefore give keywords an essential role in your positioning on Google.

You have therefore understood that choosing the keywords for your site is a balancing act requiring in-depth work, so that they meet these three criteria.

If you want to know more about the complete process of choosing keywords, do not hesitate to regularly consult our blog, an article on the subject will be published soon.

Many SEO experts claim that the “1 keyword = 1 page” rule is outdated. This is not entirely correct and it is necessary to qualify the statement by applying the rule of “1 main keyword = 1 page”.

It is with this idea in mind that the principles of main keywords, secondary keywords and semantic keywords come into play .

WHAT IS A MAIN KEYWORD?

As the name suggests, this is your main “subject”. This main keyword is in a way the guideline of your page or your site.

Generally, it is chosen because it is the one that best defines your service or your product and that it has an interesting search volume/level of competition ratio.

The strategic use of your main keyword within your content will be essential to hope for a good positioning on Google and other search engines.

WHAT IS A SECONDARY KEYWORD?

Secondary keywords are usually very close variations of the main keyword . They are often, but not always, less sought after and less competitive than the main phrase.

Secondary keywords can be used in particular in subtitles and body text to avoid repetition. Being relatively close to the main keyword, they reinforce the signals sent to search engines to help them grasp the “subject” of your page.

Let’s say that we have identified as the main keyword of our page: “buying furniture”.

Our secondary keywords can be “buy furniture” or “buy furniture”.

Note that we can include in this category synonyms of the same family (in our example “furniture”).

WHAT IS A SEMANTIC KEYWORD?

Last link in the chain, semantic keywords . These are the terms closely or remotely associated with the main and secondary keywords.

Semantic keywords can thus be distant synonyms of main and secondary keywords. It can also be words simply related to the subject or terms that are often related to the subject treated .

Semantic keywords are aptly named. They are defined by the fact that there is a semantic correlation (a link of meaning) between them and the main and secondary keywords.

For our more academic readers, this is also called the lexical field .

Let’s go back to our example of the main keyword “buying furniture”.

We have already identified relevant secondary keywords such as “buy furniture” and “buy furniture”.

Semantic keywords are therefore all terms that revolve around the theme of buying furniture. It can therefore be expressions such as “buying chairs” or “shopping for a table”.

WHAT IS THE USE OF SEMANTIC KEYWORDS?

The role of semantic keywords is essential in the context of qualitative content . It is in this type of SEO strategy that semantic keywords come into their own.

Thus, at a time when search engines are moving towards understanding the search intent of users, semantic keywords can help algorithms better understand the content of your site. Thanks to the rich and varied vocabulary of semantic keywords, your text can be better contextualized by robots.

Thus, if your content meets the search intent of a user, it is very likely that Google will find your site relevant and therefore, that it will position you in a good place.

Another advantage, by diversifying your terms, you increase your chances of “matching” with a long tail keyword .

HOW TO DEFINE SEMANTIC KEYWORDS?

There are many free and paid SEO copy writing tools to get semantic keyword suggestions .

A dictionary of synonyms, the 1.fr site, Google’s Keyword Planner or even SEMRush… to list and describe all the tools available would take an entire article.

The only advice to remember, try them to see if they meet your expectations.