When it comes to keywords, it’s a hot topic. Are they really still important to SEO success in 2021? A lot has changed in terms of SEO strategies. Finding the right keywords and cramming them in as much as possible isn’t the way forward, that much has been true for a while now. But that doesn’t mean keywords are now completely defunct.

Keywords may not be the holy grail of SEO these days, but they still have their place and can help you generate traffic… if you know what you’re doing.

Let’s take a closer to help decide: are keywords still important in 2021?

The evolution of SEO

If you had a website back in 2008, all you had to focus on was getting as many keywords as possible in the content, title tag, and meta description… and voilà—you ranked! Many people used sneaky tactics to maximize the use of their keywords, making the text and page background the same color so you couldn’t spot the copious keywords they’d stuffed onto the web page. Then Google wisened up.

Now it is more focused on the user experience and quality instead of the number of keywords your page has. Nowadays, that outdated technique is a big red flag from Google. These days, focusing on who you’re talking to (your customers) rather than internet spiders is the best to improve your ranking.

Quality over quantity

Looking at the evolution of SEO over the years, we can see that Google cares far more about quality than quantity. A study conducted by SEMrush looked at over 600,000 keywords and analyzed the 17 most significant factors for pages that were ranking. According to the results, factors such as time spent on the page, bounce rate and pages per session were coming up as more important than keywords alone.

This means that Google is looking more at what users do once they are on your website, so the quality of your content has to be top-quality to nail searcher intent. Do visitors find answers to what they’re looking for or do they make a quick exit?

It was also recorded that 75 percent of pages that rank in Google’s top 10 don’t even mention an ‘exact match’ keyword in their web content. You don’t need a perfect match to rank?! Nope, synonyms are our new best friend. Google states that a word or phrase meaning exactly or closely related to another word or phrase affects 70 percent of user searches.

So, what’s the takeaway? Google is more interested in the topic and content on your site than how often a keyword appears in a piece of content. It’s all about creating content for users that answer what they’re looking for.

Striking a balance

So are keywords still important in 2021? There’s no binary answer. It’s more about striking a balance. This means that choosing to ignore or focus on keywords when writing content isn’t going to work. You need to find the middle ground.

Ensuring your content is good enough to hook your readers and keep them around whilst make sure it is relevant to their search is vital for ranking position. At the end of the day, search engines want to provide the best content that is valuable for their users and cut out the dodgy strategists that are trying to fool the system with keywords.

The answer? Write quality content that answers users’ intent while keeping Google in mind. Keywords help Google understand what your content is about but then the rest is up to you to hook and help your readers.

Be tactful and truthful

At jdp, we know that taking the easiest route isn’t always the most effective, you have to be more tactful. For more help and advice on how to improve your SEO strategy and Google ranking position, contact us for a free consultation.