How to add keywords to a website, honestly

The keywords box is a myth

Old sites had a meta keywords tag. Search engines stopped reading it long ago because people filled it with anything. Nothing replaced it. Today the words a search engine sees are the words a reader sees, and that is the whole point.

So when a builder offers a keywords field, ask what it does with the words. If the answer is a tag in the page head, it does nothing. If the answer is that it writes the words into the page, then you are back to writing, which is where the work always was.

The same goes for a density score or a keyword count. Those tools measure something a search engine stopped caring about. Read the page as a customer instead.

Where the words actually go

Once in each of those places is enough. A search engine reading the title, heading and opening will know what the page is about. After that, write for the reader. Extra repetitions add nothing, and they make the page read like a machine wrote it.

• The title, because it is the line in the search result.
• The main heading, because it is the first thing read on the page.
• The first paragraph, because it should answer what the title promised.
• The questions people ask, because they are what people type.
• The address of the page, in a short, readable form.

Pick the words customers say, not the words you say

You call it HVAC. A customer types 'AC not cooling'. You say 'residential re-roof'. They type 'roof replacement cost'. The gap between trade language and customer language is where most sites miss.

Listen to the phone. What do people say when they call? Look at your inbox. Look at the questions your competitors' pages answer. Search the phrase yourself and read the suggestions that drop down; those are real searches by real people.

Write the phrases down as people say them, spelling and all. 'Furnace not turning on' is a search. 'Heating system diagnostics' is a brochure. The first belongs in a heading. The second belongs nowhere.

One intent per page

A search has an intent behind it. 'Water heater repair' wants a fixer today. 'Tankless or tank' wants to learn. Both are about water heaters, and they want different pages. Putting both on one page serves neither.

So the list of words becomes a list of pages. Each page takes one intent, uses that phrase in the places above, and answers it fully. Related pages link to each other so a reader who came for one can find the other.

A good test is whether one heading could sit above both answers. If it cannot, you are looking at two pages. If it can, you are looking at one page with two subheadings.

What not to do with the list

Do not paste it into the footer. Do not write a paragraph that is only the list with commas. Do not make a page per synonym. Do not put a town name in every sentence. Google's spam policies describe each of these, and readers notice them before Google does.

Do not chase words you cannot back up. If you do not offer emergency service, the phrase does not belong on your site, however many people search it.

How the builder's interview captures your words

Website Builder Studio does not ask for keywords. It asks about your business: your services, your areas, who you serve, what makes you different. The in-app assistant asks in a chat, and it can read your existing website address or a read-only Google Sheet of services, areas and prices to fill gaps.

From those answers it writes the title, the description, one main heading, the copy, an answer capsule near the top and the questions people ask. The words you used in the interview are the words that land on the page. Say 'AC not cooling' and the page says it.

Each page is written from a conversation, so each has one intent. Then a check that runs before anything publishes looks at it, validated against Google Search Essentials and modern web standards. The page is genuinely useful only if your answers were specific. Short answers make thin pages.