Word associations work better than keywords

I don’t like talking about keywords. Strange concept given that I am an SEO consultant. To be honest with you I almost hate talking about keywords. they are one of the things that have always annoyed me in SEO.

Sure they’re useful. They’ve always been. But It makes my blood boil to see how much importance we give them, when there are so many other SEO variables we could work on to achieve our goals. What I think I find most disheartening is the thousands of miles of advice on content optimization.

Out of 1000 articles, you’ll probably have 980 that talk about adding keywords as the first element of work. Basically, you have a page that isn’t ranking well on search engines? Well, just add more keywords or related keywords.

That’s it. All basic. 

Do you want to know what annoys me the most with this way of thinking? It’s that, at no point, does putting more keywords or related keywords help to create or refine the semantic and lexical context of the page in question. So, we end up with a page that is still meaningless. 

And that’s what search engines want. They rank pages which, according to them, mean something and have a context defined by lexical richness.

That brings me to what I’ve been wanting to tell you from the start. If you notice that your pages are not ranking well and you have time to optimize them, the best advice I could give you is to associate the right words.

For instance, imagine that you manufacture aerial work platforms. The best way to talk about your products isn’t to repeat the term “aerial work platform,” but to associate it with other words that will give more substance to your text, like telescopic, articulated, arm, jib, basket, stabilizers, and so on.

“Aerial work platform with telescopic arm” works much better than just “aerial work platform”. 

Another example : 

“Kraft paper food packaging offers a sustainable alternative to common foam packaging for fast-food restaurants and cafeterias” works much better than just “kraft packaging is more suitable for fast-food than foam ones.”

Remember this lesson well. It will be significantly more beneficial for you. Moreover, you have the knowledge to apply what I just told you. You have the vocabulary, so make good use of it and enjoy seeing your pages rank again.

And if you need some help improving your webpages because you don’t have time to do it yourself,  get in touch.