What is the difference between a keyword and a keyphrase?

27 March 2019 7 Content SEO, Keyword research, SEO basics

You’ve probably heard that keyword research is an essential first step in optimizing your website. But what exactly is a keyword? And what is the difference between a keyword and a keyphrase? In this SEO basics post, we’ll explain the difference between the two.

What is a keyword?

Keyphrase versus long tail keyword
You’ve probably heard of long tail keywords. Most of the time, they consist of more than one word. So what’s the difference between a long tail keyword and a keyphrase? Keyphrases always exist of more than one word, while long tail keywords may consist of more than one word. They don’t have to. In addition, a keyphrase can either be general (puppy training) or specific (puppy training for deaf dogs), but a long tail keyword is always very specific (puppy training location in LA).

A (focus) keyword is a word that best describes the content of your page or post. It’s the search term you want to rank for with a certain page. So when people search for that keyword in Google or other search engines, they should find that page on your website.

Example

Let’s say you own a website about dogs. You’ve just written a blog post about puppies. The keyword that describes the content of that post best is probably: “puppy”.

What is a keyphrase?

A keyphrase has mostly the same definition as a keyword! So, a (focus) keyphrase is a phrase, consisting of a few words, that best describes the content of your page or post. It’s the search term you want to rank for with a certain page. So when people search for that keyphrase in Google or other search engines, they should find that page on your website.

Example

Let’s use the previous example again. You still own a website about dogs, but this time, you’ve written a post about how puppies can become obedient. The keyphrase that best describes the content of this post could be: “puppy obedience training”.

What is the difference between a keyword and a keyphrase?

Though a keyword or a keyphrase both describe the essence of what your post or page is about, there’s one difference: keywords are single words, and keyphrases are made up of a few words.

Iris Guelen

Iris Guelen is Yoast's Content Lead. She loves to write and is responsible for Yoast's content strategy. Making sure you get top-notch content through articles, email, social media, video, and more!

Discussion (7)

Gnanadev Apr. 10, 2019

a very good article. But I have one doubt. I hope someone will comment and clear my doubts. When we use a long tail keyword in the description or page title or anywhere, and someone is searching related to that particular keyword, per example my keyword is best holiday tour packages and a user is searching for holiday tour packages, then will my keyword get traction? I mean will it visible in SERP?
sowmyasri129 Apr. 03, 2019

It’s a very clear explanation about keyword and Keyphrase, thanks for the helpful content…
Mark Apr. 01, 2019

Aren’t Long Tailed Keywords the same thing and the more accepted term?
- Hanneke Apr. 02, 2019
  
  Not necessarily, in the sidenote of the article, you can find information on the difference between long tail keywords and a keyprhase.
  
  Hanneke – Yoast
Cj Austintown Mar. 30, 2019

I love this post. it is very helpful.
Paty Mar. 28, 2019

How to define key woi or key phrase from a DJ post that includes various and diverse music genres?
sumit Mar. 28, 2019

Strictly speaking, a keyword means one single word. When the first search engines were launched, they had relatively simple algorithms and many users used single words for their searches.
So a key phrase means a set of separate words that build a phrase (so it’s a multi-word search term). If it is really necessary to distinguish between a single word and a phrase, these terms are used in their initial strict meaning.