You may know that keywords are essential to the right referencing of your website, but you continue to ask yourself a lot of questions about them: are they (really) as important as they say? How do I choose them? Which ones to avoid? Answer sets.

1. Uh, what's a key word?

A keyword (or "keyword") refers to a word or group of words that people type on search engines.

2. What are (really) keywords for?

For your site to be well positioned in search engine results, it is important that the content of its pages coincide sities with the terms users use when they make their queries. The choice of keywords is therefore the keystone of a good natural referencing strategy.

Imagine you're visiting Tours and looking for a nice place to dine. What are you going to do? Probably draw your smartphone, open a Google page and then type "Restaurant Tours". This is a keyword query about the activity and the locality. Simply.

Good to know

Google regularly scans site pages to invent the keywords that make them up. But be careful! If you repeat the same keywords all over the page in the hope of being better positioned, Google will penalize you…

3. How do you choose your keywords?

The three main criteria to consider when choosing your keywords are:

• their popularity

The more a keyword is "popular," the more it is searched by Internet users and the more traffic it generates on the sites in which it appears. To estimate the volume of searches but also the competition of a particular keyword, use Google Adwords.

• their relevance

Select keywords that best describe your business activity in all its facets. If you are a beautician, consider "face care," "body care," "slimming care," "hair removal," etc.

• competition

While taking care to exclude those that appear least often in the queries of Internet users (except to associate them as 'long-drag' to target very targeted queries), try to avoid some keywords that are certainly very popular but too Competitive.

For example, there are many plumbers in Paris. Therefore, on the locality "Paris", one can consider that "plumber" is a popular keyword. However, the popularity of a keyword also drives up its cost. The more it is used by Internet users, the more expensive a keyword will cost. If you have a limited budget, it is not necessarily cost-effective to position yourself on these types of keywords. On the contrary, it is better to try to put yourself in the shoes of a surfer who would be looking for a plumber. With the exception of "plumber," what other keywords would he likely to type: "clogged sink," "pipe problem," etc.

Good to know

• If you lack inspiration in choosing your keywords, keyword generators will give you a boost. Whether it's paid generators (Google Keyword Planner) or free generators.
• Look at the keywords your competitors have chosen. A 'crawler' (ScreamingFrog, WildShark, SEOToolsForExcel) will help you analyze their sites.
• Check your site's positioning on your keywords on a regular basis. This will allow you to make the necessary adjustments.
• SEO experts can help you analyze your site's SEO. Or even optimize your natural and/or paid referencing. Indeed, launching a Google Adwords campaign can quickly bring back a lot of visitors.

Key points to remember:

• The larger the volume of searches attached to a keyword, the more popular that keyword will be.
• Natural referencing requires, position yourself on several uncompetitive queries rather than on a single highly prized keyword.
• Don't hesitate to have your keywords audited by a professional.