SEO keywords

SEO keywords are the search terms a specific page is meant to be found for. Every important page has one main keyword and a few secondary keywords that together form a topic. What matters is not how often a word appears on the page, but whether the page fulfils the intent behind the search better than any other.

Reviewed by Zoran Artmagic · November 6, 2026

A keyword is a decision. The search term belongs to the customer: they type in whatever comes to mind. The keyword belongs to you: you decide which search a page should be the best answer for. A good SEO keyword is therefore a well-founded bet on how your customers search, backed by keyword research.

Google stopped matching keywords letter by letter long ago; it understands meaning, synonyms and context. Even so, the keyword remains the compass that a page’s structure, copy and linking are aligned with.

Types of SEO keywords in an online store

Category keywords: “trail shoes women”, “ergonomic office chair”. They carry buying intent and often high search volume, which is why they are also called money keywords. In most stores, this is where the greatest potential lies.
Product and model keywords: “brooks cascadia 18 women”. Low volume, but close to the purchase. The matching page is the product page.
Brand keywords: your own store name and the brands you carry, such as “salomon trail shoes”. Searches for your store name show how well known you are.
Problem and use-case keywords: “hiking shoes for wide feet”, “office chair for back pain”. Here someone is looking for a solution, not a specific product. Whoever explains the solution and shows it right away wins the customer.
Question and guide keywords: “do trail shoes run small”. They bring visitors early in the buying process and belong in guides and the encyclopedia.
Local keywords: “outdoor store heilbronn”. Only relevant if you have a physical store or an on-site service.

Cutting across all of these is length. Short terms (short tail) such as “running shoes” have high volume and a lot of competition. Long terms (long tail) such as “waterproof trail shoes women wide feet” are searched less often, but come from people who know exactly what they want.

One topic per page: main and secondary keywords

Every important page gets exactly one main keyword. Secondary keywords are added to it: variants, synonyms and questions that belong to the same intent. For a category “Trail Shoes Women”, this could look like this:

Main keyword: trail shoes women
Secondary keywords: trail running shoes for women, women’s waterproof trail shoes, wide trail shoes women, which trail shoes for beginners

Whatever has its own intent gets its own page. “Trail shoes women” and “hiking shoes women” are two topics; “trail shoes women” and “women’s trail shoes” are one.

Where the main keyword belongs

Title tag: as far forward as possible. The title is the strongest single signal on the page and at the same time the headline in the search results.
H1: the visible main heading, close to the main keyword, but written for people.
URL: short and descriptive, such as /trail-shoes-women instead of /category/123?sort=new.
Introduction: in the first sentences, so visitors and Google see immediately that they are in the right place.
Anchor text of internal links: Linking from other pages with “trail shoes for women” tells Google what the target page is about.
Images: in the file name and in the alt text, where it fits the image.
Meta description: It is not a ranking factor. But Google highlights search terms in it in bold, which improves the click-through rate. More on this in the entry on the description.

Keyword density: a myth that persists

There is no ideal keyword density of two or three percent. Google doesn’t count words; it checks whether a page covers a topic completely and clearly. The best test is simple: read the text aloud. If the keyword sticks out uncomfortably, it appears too often. The opposite of keyword stuffing is not fewer keywords, but more substance: synonyms, related terms and answers to the questions customers have about the topic.

Keyword cannibalisation: when pages compete with each other

A typical picture in a store: the category “Running Shoes Women” and the blog post “The Best Running Shoes for Women” target the same keyword. Google doesn’t know which page is meant, shows one sometimes and the other at other times, and neither really makes it to the top.

The solution is a clear division of tasks. The category serves the purchase, the guide serves the advice, with its own focus such as “Running shoes for women: buying advice by foot type”. The guide links to the category with clear anchor text. If two pages really are the same, they are merged, and the weaker one redirects to the stronger one. Genuine duplicates without added value are duplicate content.

Using keywords correctly in an online store

Product names: “Brooks Cascadia 18 Women’s Trail Shoe” instead of just “Cascadia Black”. Brand, model, audience and product type are exactly the terms customers search for.
Category names: in your customers’ language, not your purchasing department’s. “Office chairs” instead of “seating furniture”.
Filter pages: only as a separate page for Google if there is real demand for the combination.
Category copy: a short introduction that picks up the main keyword and answers the most important questions turns a product list into a strong landing page.

SEO keywords and Google Ads

The same word has a different job in SEO and in ads. In SEO, the keyword determines what a page is built for. In Google Ads, it determines which searches an ad appears for, controlled via match types and negative keywords. The two belong together: data from Google Ads quickly shows which keywords actually sell, and SEO makes exactly these terms cheaper in the long run. More under Google Ads for Shopware and Shopify.

SEO keywords in AI search

In ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity, customers ask whole questions instead of typing keywords. That doesn’t make keywords pointless, but their role shifts: they mark topics, and a page has to cover the whole topic, with all its typical questions, to be named as a source in AI answers. More on this under Generative Engine Optimization.

How keywords become a strategy for the whole store is shown on SEO for online stores. Which tools help with the selection is described in the entry on keyword tools.

An SEO keyword is a promise: whoever searches like this will find what they need on this page. Pages that keep this promise rank. Pages that only repeat the word don’t.