Are keywords still important?

- People sometimes wonder whether or not keywords are important when it comes to SEO. And keywords can have a broad meaning. Typically, it has been meant to mean that you've done some research and understood that there's certain words people are using to try to find your product and service. So if you sold running shoes, the keyword for your website that's important would be say running shoes. And they are still important, though the search engines have gotten much smarter than in the past. So you know years ago, if somebody was searching for running shoes, and you had those words, you greatly increased the odds of them perhaps finding you, versus if you had just said athletic footwear.

These days, the search engines may understand that if all you said was athletic footwear, that should match to running shoes as well. So you have much more leeway than you had in the past. Although generally it's still good to have your content speaking in the primary language that people are using to seek your information.