Keyword
A keyword is the word or phrase someone types or speaks into a search engine. In SEO it also means the terms you choose to target so your pages show up when people search for them.
Last updated: June 9, 2026
Keywords are the bridge between what people are looking for and what your pages offer. They come in different shapes. Short, broad terms like "coffee maker" have huge search volume but fierce competition and fuzzy intent. Longer, more specific phrases, often called long-tail keywords, like "small pour-over coffee maker for one cup," get fewer searches but attract people who know exactly what they want, which usually means they convert better.
What matters most is the intent behind a keyword. "How to descale a coffee maker" is someone seeking advice; "buy stainless steel coffee maker" is someone ready to shop. A store should match each page to the right kind of query: guides and blog posts for research terms, collection and product pages for buying terms. Naming a keyword once in the page title and a few times naturally in the copy is plenty; the old habit of stuffing the same phrase everywhere now does more harm than good.
A quick note for 2026: the meta keywords tag, an old HTML field where sites listed target terms, is ignored by Google and has been for years. Keyword research still guides what you write, but you no longer stuff a hidden list of them into your pages.
Related terms
Alt text
Alt text is a short written description of an image, added in the HTML, that screen readers read aloud to people who can't see the image and that search engines use to understand what the picture shows.
Backlink
A backlink is a link from another website that points to a page on yours. Search engines read backlinks from trusted sites as a signal that your content is credible, which can lift your rankings.
Canonical URL
A canonical URL is the version of a page you tell search engines to treat as the main one when the same or similar content can be reached through several different URLs. It points them to the copy you want indexed and ranked.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are three Google metrics that measure how a page actually feels to use: how fast the main content loads, how quickly the page responds when you interact with it, and how much the layout jumps around while loading.
Share this Story