Keywords in posted content

Searching for content on the Internet would be impossible if not for search engines. Although search engines started out as simple pieces of software that simply looked for keywords in pages, this type of setup was open to abuse. Because of the open nature of the Internet and the ability for anyone to publish content, search engines soon ran in to a problem: they could return many pages that were actually devoid of real content – they were just pages full of keywords, perhaps with links to other sites for marketing purposes or commission.

Search engines now use complex algorithms to determine what information should be returned to the user.

Social media platforms also allow for posts to be tagged with keywords to enable searches to be performed. When using keywords, it is important to limit the number used, and only choose relevant keywords. Some platforms (e.g. Twitter) are based on searching for keywords that are designated as ‘hashtags’. Others, like Facebook, use more sophisticated search algorithms – although keywords are used and still important, the search algorithm also compares the kind of activity that the user typically performs (e.g. what their interests are, what pages they visit, what their browsing history is) and uses that as an additional factor in selecting search results. For example, if other people with similar interests to you favour one page over another, the search results will show you the preferred page with greater priority.

When selecting keywords, it is important to consider:

• Is the keyword specific to the post/company?
• Is it spelled correctly?
• Are there common misspellings, or other languages that you want to also target? You might need to include some misspelled words to ensure you capture all users