Keywords are predominantly the most important part of SEO. Without having proper keywords, your content is bound to be ignored by Google and other search engines. For all website owners, it is crucial to understand the importance of properly researched keywords, the aftereffects of which may be seen in your website’s ranking. However, stuffing keywords into your document and thinking it may get ranked high is a vague dream. You are not going to have your website ranked until and unless you do your homework. And what’s that? Well, a proper and in-depth research. However, a number of people are stuck in a doubt that how to decide if a keyword that looks relevant, is relevant?
To solve this problem, here are the steps to follow:
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1. Discover the keywords
- The first and foremost step is to discover keywords relevant to your content. For that, understand the scope of your topic, and then choose what keywords can relate to your content. What can be done here, is that you can look for similar searches on the search engine, and understand what people are searching for. Also, you can get an idea from the other websites on what keywords they have used for a topic similar to yours. To make your search easier and vast, try the tool LSIGraph, where you input a word or phrase and the tool provides you with multiple keywords relating to what you have entered. BUT, not every keyword is good to be ranked. That’s where the next step becomes crucial.
2. Analyze the chosen keywords
The next step is to analyze what you have selected. It is not possible that every chosen keyword will give you results you are expecting. But how to be sure that a keyword will definitely yield results in your favor? Well, there are numerous tools like SEMRush, SpyFu, etc. These research tools focus on providing an in-depth analysis of how well a keyword is received by the online market. In these tools, you can look for the following things:
Check search volume
Analyze the search volume of all the keywords that you have chosen.
Check competition
Observe how the other websites are set to compete with you by using the same keyword.
Check for past results
A keyword that has done well in the past consistently, will do good in the future as well. However, the keywords that are in trend now doesn’t mean will continue to be so in the future as well. History of a keyword plays an important role.
Check Google AdWords
Go for Google AdWords to have a better view of the performance of your keywords. It provides a detailed analysis of how well the phrases are doing.
3. Pick the best ones
Until now, you have observed how good your keywords are doing. It is now time to filter the keywords and choose the best and most relevant ones. Though companies have many ways to achieve this, the most common strategies used by them are:
Cost vs Competition
Generally, companies choose to go with long tail keywords just because they have low cost, low competition, and a higher conversion rate. Also, they are easier to rank for.
Short tail and Long tail keywords
If you are confused about what short and long tail keywords are, don’t worry. We are here to tell. A keyword phrase is considered to be short when it is equal to or less than 3 words long. Whereas a long tail keyword has more than 3 words. Long tail keywords have low ad cost, low competition, and a higher conversion rate. However, the only drawback is that these keywords have lesser search volume.
Value to customer
Understanding customer’s needs are the first thing a website owner should focus on. Don’t try to rank a keyword unless you are sure why a customer may use it.
SEO vs PPC
Both options are important for the companies, however, SEO is preferred for long-term benefits. Or what you can do, is start off with PPC ads linked to your landing page, and use the profit to invest in the SEO campaigns.
Know what you are writing about
When you write something, you’d have to show the customers visiting your website that you have mastered that subject. The users should get an in-depth and well-researched content that will encourage them to visit your website again. It will also help in building trust for your brand. If you don’t know enough about a topic, it is better not to rank for it.
How much content to produce
It is advisable to go for one or two new pages every week. New keywords should be introduced on a frequent basis as it is beneficial for the website’s growth.
Figuring out what keywords to use is a daunting task but if done right, may yield you with benefits that would be worth your efforts. Proper research and analysis are quite important for choosing keywords, without which, you won’t get ranked for.
Check search volume
Analyze the search volume of all the keywords that you have chosen.
Check competition
Observe how the other websites are set to compete with you by using the same keyword.
Check for past results
A keyword that has done well in the past consistently, will do good in the future as well. However, the keywords that are in trend now doesn’t mean will continue to be so in the future as well. History of a keyword plays an important role.
Check Google AdWords
Go for Google AdWords to have a better view on the performance of your keywords. It provides a detailed analysis of how well the phrases are doing.