Keyword and search intent standards

Overview

Keyword standards are intended to guide how words and phrases are selected and used on Penn Medicine web and digital properties. Our goal is to optimize visibility, maintain consistency, and improve the user experience.  Following keyword standards helps with the following:

• Optimize search ranking: Keywords are selected and applied strategically so priority content ranks high in search results.
• Improve findability: Help users and search engines quickly locate relevant content through standardized keyword use.
• Maintain consistency: Rules for keyword use and management across all web pages and campaigns reduces ranking conflict and the likelihood of search engines perceiving content as duplicative, resulting in de-ranking.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is the foundation of every other SEO decision. Without it, you’re guessing at what people search for instead of building content that actually matches their needs.

The current process for keyword research at Penn Medicine utilizes Conductor, one of many SEO tools that a content creator may have in their arsenal. This tool allows us to perform a myriad of organic search research functions, including keyword research.

Follow these steps to perform thorough keyword research on a topic before you begin writing or creating a new page.

• Use the Keyword Research Explorer section of Conductor to search from a seed keyword. A seed keyword is a word or phrase related to your topic to act as the root of your keyword research. For example, to find keywords related to different treatment options for scoliosis, type in "scoliosis treatment” as the seed keyword. The more concise and direct the seed keyword is, the more variety and volume of related keywords you will be given.
• Find related keywords that are similar in topic to the original seed keyword searched. This is a great way to digest general information about the search interest for a topic, including how users are referring to a condition name or what type of search demand a topic has.
• Designate up to 5 keywords per page of content—one primary keyword as the single, clear topic and four secondary keywords for context, variation and depth—as the target words or phrases using a few reliable SEO metrics:
• What is the monthly search volume? – Targeting high volume keywords insinuates more potential eyes on your content, if found in the search engine results page (SERP) for that keyword.
• Which competitors currently rank for this keyword? – Focus on the webpages that rank on the first SERP page or outrank Penn Medicine (if you are refreshing an existing page) when you search that keyword in a search engine. Are they regional competitors? Do they target other keywords that you did not think to research?
• Does the keyword match the intent? – It is important to select keywords that are most relevant to your topic.  For example, for a blog post about "Exercises for Heart Health" some keywords you would want to target are "heart exercise," "cardiovascular health," "heart health," or "best cardio exercises." However, in the Related Keywords results you might find keywords that focus more on weight loss, which is a slightly different intent. Look for keywords that make sense with your topic and match the audience you are looking for.

Applying your targeted list of keywords

Once you have a thoughtful list of primary and secondary keywords for your page(s), there are a few tasks you need to complete before starting the writing process.

• Check for duplicate content: This is an essential step in the content process to ensure you are not creating a piece on a topic that already has a page using similar keyword and dedicated to a similar topic on the domain. This will confuse Google when the search engine is determining which page to rank for the target search term and, usually, neither will perform well due to internal competition. Understand how a well-defined and maintained site structure can help reduce the possibility of duplicate content.
• Outline the content: Writing an engaging piece of content that follows all of the SEO best practices can feel like a checklist rather than a creative journey. However, it is important to create content and applying your keywords in a way that is optimal for users AND search engines. Learn more about this in our content guidelines for SEO.
• Plan to optimize page elements: On-page elements that are important to SEO often include application of keywords and include headers, internal links, body copy, and more. These elements need to be optimized following best practices but also following regulations set by Penn Medicine. Learn more about this in our page-level standards for SEO.

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