If I want to answer that question frankly, I’d say a big YES. That’s because SEO has always relied on the use of keywords. Yet, answering that way would lack nuance. And I like nuance.
In fact, you may not know it yet; SEO has increasingly evolved since its beginning. Thanks to machine learning, search engines like Google or Bing have transformed from simple business web directories into sophisticated answer engines.
This technological shift has changed the way they collect and process information, which, by ripple effect, has transformed how we create and optimize web pages to make them visible.
Part of that change is the focus assigned to search queries.
While several years ago keywords were one of the most important assets for SEO optimisation. If not THE most important. It’s clear that things have changed. SEO has become a combination of web assets as web content or social media (about that, I recommend you to read “Google Semantic Search” written by my friend David Amerland).
Which leads to the question of the impact of the keyword nowadays.
End of chapter for the old fashion SEO
What I notice is that, in the collective mindset, many of you still have a vision of SEO from before the technological changes I mentioned earlier.
Oh, don’t worry—I’m not here to blame you; quite the opposite. I’m here to bring a bit of clarity.
What I call “old-fashioned SEO” is the combo of keyword-stuffed content and high-volume, poorly qualified backlinks. Unfortunately, most of you still think SEO works that way. But that’s just not true.
Say “Hello” to Semantic Search
Part of that change is the emergence of semantic search. Unlike the old days when search engines just matched exact keywords, they now focus on understanding the meaning behind a query.
They analyse context, synonyms, user intent, and even relationships between words. It’s no longer about cramming your content with keywords—it’s about creating meaningful, relevant content that genuinely answers users’ questions.
This shift completely changes how we should approach SEO. Keywords still matter, sure, but they’re no longer the star of the show. Now it’s about how those keywords fit within a broader context. It’s about crafting content that’s useful, insightful, and aligned with what people are really looking for.
And that’s why the old-fashioned SEO mindset just doesn’t cut it anymore. You can’t just pile up keywords and expect to rank. You need to think smarter, more strategically, and with a deeper understanding of how search engines interpret content today.
What to with keywords then ?
Start by implementing keywords strategically. Where they have the most impact. Which means :
- Meta tags : You can still put keywords into HTML tags as Title Tags, Meta Description, Hn Tags.
- Images : Keywords can also be used with alt text, image description, image’s file name (but not much for caption where I rather suggest to be descriptive about the context of the illustration displayed instead of just throwing out non-descriptive queries)
- Internal link anchor text : Even though I believe there are better ways to use anchor text, including short or long-form queries is a good help. From the moment you don’t use the same term for each links you create.
What about keywords within the text
I don’t recommend using any specific keywords within a text. Instead, I encourage you to incorporate a wide range of vocabulary (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives) related to the topic you want to cover.
You can include a few keywords if you like, but don’t forget to pair them with related words to make the text more semantically accurate.