Keywords remain the cornerstone of SEO even though they are much less important than they used to be. Still, words are how search engines know what a site is about. Even if you have everything else right, not using the right keywords will eventually hurt you and you won’t get the results you want. The issue is that many people can’t tell when their keywords aren’t working and what makes a keyword a good choice for their content. Here are a few signs that your blog strategy might be inefficient.

People are Bouncing Right Out of Your Pages

People need to understand that keywords are about humans first, so you can’t expect to cram your page full of irrelevant keywords with high traffic and automatically have great results. Even if you manage to get a lot of people to your site, it doesn’t matter if you can’t get them to convert or even stay on a page for more than a few seconds.

So, if you notice that you’re experiencing low time-on-page and high bounce rates, then it could be a sign that the page is incongruent with what people are searching for. You might get a lot of attention, but you are wasting time and could get more results with highly relevant keywords with strong intent, even if the monthly search numbers are abysmal in comparison.

Low Click-Through Rates with High Impressions

Another sign that your blog posts may not be optimized for the right keywords is if you have high impressions but low click-through rates. This is something you will be able to see through Google’s search console.

That means that you will have to improve your meta titles and descriptions and find keywords that are more enticing to people. Writing meta descriptions is an art, however, and if you don’t know how to do it, you might want to work with someone who does for optimal results.

You Noticed a Significant Drop in Organic Traffic

There are some cases when you could see a drop because there was a Google Update. But, if you know you’ve been using questionable practices and your site suddenly gets penalized, it’s usually a sign that they finally caught up to you.

This is especially the case if you were using techniques such as keyword stuffing or black hat tactics like cloaking. None of these are worth it, and if they can get you results, these will usually be marginal at best.

Instead, focus on creating content that allows you to integrate keywords naturally into the text. You can do that by looking at your core keywords and use them as a theme instead of having a set quota to be inserted following some esoteric density formula. Not only will you end up pleasing the people at Google, but your content will read much better and get better engagement from your readers.

These are all clear signs that you are using the wrong strategy for your blog’s keywords. Revise it immediately if you notice any of these red flags and work with someone who’ll be able to help you build a sustainable keyword strategy.