Keywords are search terms that people use on search engines to find information or relevant websites. Basically, when you google and type in a word or phrase, you are searching for keywords. Keywords are important because by designating and using keywords on your blog or website, Google is able to know that it is relevant for a specific topic or search. This is one way Google knows when to recommend your website to someone and is a major SEO concept to understand for success.
What’s In a Good Keyword?
When looking for good keywords to use, you should evaluate the keywords search volume, competition, price, word count, and intent. This may seem like a daunting task but there are tools available to help with this!
Search Volume
The search volume of a keyword shows you how popular a keyword is. It shows how many times the keyword has been searched. Search volume can give you some insight into the potential traffic you could get on your site.
Competition
The competitiveness of a keyword is just as important as the search volume. This is because you may do better ranking on a keyword that has a smaller search volume and less competition. The more popular the keyword and the higher the search volume, the more likely you are to be up against well defined websites that are also fighting to be the top search result for the term.
Price
The price of a keyword is the amount that it costs an advertiser when someone clicks on an ad after searching the keyword. If you are planning on advertising, you need to consider the cost per click and decide if it is worth the price of the keyword to pay for advertising for that keyword. Basically, if the CPC for the keyword “workout” is $5 and you are making an average of $6 for each website visitor, it may not be worth the expense to advertise using that keyword.
Word Count
The word count of a keyword is just what it sounds like, the number of words in the keyword. “Workout” has a word count of one and is a very broad keyword. “Thirty minute workouts for abs” has a word count of five and would be much easier to effectively target the searchers that you want on your website.
Intent
Finally, you need to consider the intent behind the people that are currently searching the keyword. Are they wanting to buy something? Are they looking for a specific website? Do they want a piece of information or instructions? This will help you decide whether or not a keyword is right for what you want to incite your visitors to do. If you want to share information, you will want to use a keyword where the primary intention is to learn something.
How to Choose the Keyword for You
- Find out what your website is currently ranking for and build from that.
- If you have content or webpages that would satisfy someone’s search, that is a good place to being. Use words that you would search to find similar content.
- Think of how a novice may search for your content or products. Ask others what words they would use to search for your content or products.
- Avoid keywords that have multiple meanings.
- Avoid keywords that are too competitive, especially if you are not a major player in the market.
- Look for long-tail keywords with specific intent and low competition.
Why You Should Have a Keyword Strategy
- Helps ensure that you are driving relevant traffic
- Identifies quick-win opportunities
- Prioritizes SEO tactics
- Sets expectations around rankings
- Helps measure the impact of your efforts
Developing a Strategy
Look at Where You Are
The first thing you need to do is find out what your current performance is and benchmark your current rankings. This is going to help you see where you are and will help you plan what you need to do to get where you want to be in the future.
Decide Where You Want To Be
Now you have to choose your key performance indicators and set your goals. Remember to keep your goals smart (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely). Some key performance indicators you should consider are return on investment, conversions, organic visibility, organic sessions, organic click-through-rate, bounce rate, branded vs. non-branded traffic, rankings, backlinks, average time on page, coverage issues, and page speed.
Use Competitor Analysis
Understanding your competitors and what they are doing is one of the main ways to find out what you are doing right, what opportunities you are missing out on, and what areas you need to work on to keep up. This will help you during the keyword research phase, as well as planning your keyword strategy.
Set Priorities
Once you have your keywords ready, grouped into topics, and analyzed, it is time to prioritize your keywords and develop your strategy. You want to make sure that the keywords you choose to use are going to help you meet the goals and key performance indicators that you already outlined.
Tracking and Analyzing Performance
Of course, the last step is to analyze your performance and the performance of the keywords that you have chosen to use in your keyword strategy. This process is continuous as you are constantly looking for ways to improve your SEO and traffic.
Conclusion
Keywords are your way to make sure that you are able to rank for search engine results in an appropriate and relevant manner. This is one of the main goals for our content and websites since visitors make money. Our guide will help you make the most of your keywords and help you in your SEO efforts.