Here’s a simple fact: keywords are the most important aspect of search engine optimisation (SEO). In fact, choosing the right keywords is so important that it can make or break your entire SEO campaign. Therefore, it is necessary to pick the best keywords to ensure the success of your campaign.
However, picking the best keywords isn’t always easy. This is why a good SEO agency will work around the clock to develop effective keywords that bring organic traffic to a website. Luckily, you can take a few pages from their books. Here are a few tips that can help you pick the right keywords for your SEO campaign. Read on to learn more.
1. Set Your Goals
Before you can decide which keywords would suit your brand, it is important to spend some time accessing your goals. Most companies use SEO to increase their website traffic, which in turn, increases their revenue.
However, your goals need to be a little more specific than that. It is important to remember that SEO is a long term strategy; you’ll have to be patient before you can see any results. So it is important to set your goals accordingly.
You also need to determine the kind of traffic you are seeking. Are you focused on a specific type of audience or are you flexible with the type of people visiting your site? Are you just trying to increase awareness of your brand or do you want people to buy your product? All of this helps create an effective SEO strategy, which will then make it easier to pick the right keywords.
2. Research Keywords
Once you have your goals in mind, you can start working on picking the keywords. The first step to doing this is researching keywords. There are various online tools you can use for this purpose; Google Ads has a very effective keyword tool you can make use of.
Other tools you can use include Raventools and SEMRUSH. This will help you gather data on keyword trends, keyword volume, similar keywords, and most importantly, keywords competition.
Remember that the digital world moves too quickly, so stay updated with your searches. Yesterday’s trend may not be the most effective keyword to use today. So keep monitoring and analysing the data.
3. Think Like A Customer
While it is important to stay up to date with the trending keywords, it is equally important to keep your buyer’s persona in mind. What would your customer be searching for when they try to look up the type of product or service you are offering? What type of keywords would they use?
A simple way to do this is by asking yourself, ‘What would I type into Google if I was looking was this type of service?’ You can also consult friends, families, coworkers, or even your current customers to get a better idea of the type of phrases they would use to look up your product or service.
4. Think About the Intent of the Search
In addition to thinking like a customer, it is also important to consider the search intent behind each query. Sometimes, different keywords are divided into different categories by SEOs. These categories include:
- Navigational Keywords: This is when Google is used as a navigational tool to reach another webpage. For example, if someone wants to reach twitter.com, they may type “Twitter” into Google instead of typing the entire URL.
- Informal Keywords: This is when searchers use Google to find specific pieces of information. For example, someone might type in “what is the capital of China” or “why is there a leap day.” Another example would be people trying to learn something, such as “how to tie a tie” or “how to register to vote.” Some vague questions may also fall into this category, including, “what is the meaning of life” or “why do people lie.” Needless to say, a large majority of search queries on Google fall in this category.
- Transactional or Commercial Keywords: These are the searchers that indicate that a customer intends to make a purchase. Therefore, this is where you want your page to show up. A strong indicator of this is when the searchers add words like “buy” or “price” in their query. For example, if someone types in “buy gold-plate iPhone” or “gold-plated iPhone price,” there is a good chance that they’re planning on making a huge purchase.
Search intent is a crucial part of keyword research, as it enables you to plan your content in a way that meets the user’s needs. For instance, a person typing in “iPhone price” is likely not looking to read a blog reviewing the camera of the phone. Instead, they want to land directly on a product page that includes the price and other relevant information such as specifics and shipping information. It is important to include keywords that will attract such buyers to your webpage.
5. Plan Your Buyer’s Journey
A buyer’s journey is the typical journey a potential customer will follow from the moment they become aware of a product to when they make their first purchase. For most businesses, especially the ones that sell high-ticket items, the first purchase wouldn’t be made the instance a potential buyer stumbles upon their product or service. Instead, they’ll likely go through a series of stages, including awareness, consideration, and decision.
Awareness is when a potential customer will learn about a product they need but won’t necessarily think about making the purchase yet. For instance, a person looking for a new mobile phone may come across a phone that serves their needs and comes under their budget. But they would still be looking at multiple options to ensure that they make the best purchase. During the consideration phase, this potential customer would start giving serious thought to a certain mobile phone. They’ve likely done their research and have figured out which model suits them the best for the price. Finally, the decision stage is when they decide to make a purchase.
As a marketer, your aim is to do your best so that the customer chooses your product over any potential competitors. Therefore, it can be useful to think about your target reader and their stage in the buyer’s journey to increase your chances of making a sale.
6. Create a List of Keywords
Now that you have a good idea of the type of keywords you are looking for, it is time to create a giant list. Think of this as your first draft, which means that you don’t have to be highly critical of the keywords you choose.
Instead, try to come up with as many keywords as you can and note down every single one that comes to your mind without any editing. Once you have a good list, it is time to narrow it down. You want to identify keywords on your list that aren’t very competitive but are still looked up by people. Doing a few web searches will help you get an idea of what keywords have low competition in your industry.
7. Analyse the Competition
The digital market is cutthroat. Therefore, it is extremely important to study and analyse your competition constantly. Pay attention to the competition for your target keyword phrase. The easiest way to study the competition for any keyword is to simply look it up on Google or any other search engine and see what results come up.
On Google, look for results that are marked with either “Ad” or “Sponsored” tags. These are paid-for ads and will always be displayed before other results. It is definitely worth analysing the ad landscape before you create a big piece of content.
Afterward, look at the results that are showing up organically on the first page of Google for your target keywords. If these pages are dominated by brands with huge marketing budgets, it is unlikely that you’ll be able to take the top spot with your initial blogs no matter how much you’re willing to spend.
In this case, try looking up different keywords. Lastly, figure out if the content in the top results if beatable. Can you create content that the average consumer will find more interesting than the content that currently takes the top spot? If the top content seems weaker than what you can come up with, it means you’ve found an effective keyword for your brand.
8. Don’t Sleep on Long Tail Keywords
Most keywords you want to choose should be “head” keywords. These are short phrases that are usually one to three words and are generally associated with higher traffic. However, these also usually have higher completion.
This is where long tail keywords come in handy. These are longer, conversational phrases. They have lower traffic, but also lower competition. You’ll need at least a few long tail keywords for better short-term and fast result-centric strategies. To create the most effective strategy that brings in both short and long term results, you’ll need a good combination of both of these keywords.
9. Use the Correct Content Format for Your Keywords
Creating effective web content isn’t just about writing the best piece or article, as it involves so much more than that. Here’s an example.
You’re creating content for a website that sells clothes. You come up with an excellent article describing the quality of the clothes being sold, but you don’t add any relevant pictures. How do you think your content will rank on search engines?
A person looking to buy clothes wouldn’t be that interested in reading elaborate paragraphs about how the fabric will feel against their skin. Instead, they’d want to look at the clothes from different angles and on models with different body types to get a better idea about how they’d look in a particular dress. It doesn’t matter how brilliant your written content is; without images supporting the content, it is highly unlikely that a potential customer will go past the awareness stage.
Therefore, it is very important to identify the correct content format that works for your target keywords. This goes beyond the text, pictures, videos, and sounds. It can include lists, graphs, tables, charts, infographics, and even maps. Understand what type of content will hook your readers to ensure that they’d want to visit your website again.
10. Mark Specific Keywords to Specific Pages on the Website
Lastly, it is important to map out each target keyword to a specific page on your website. This way, people will more likely land on the most relevant page they need in accordance with their search query. The most effective way to do this is by keeping your ideas organised via a simple content schedule.
There are two main reasons you should use a content schedule:
- It helps you stay organised throughout a long campaign.
- It can prevent you from targeting the same keyword on multiple different pages on the website.
Generally, it is better to ensure that your web pages target different keywords each. Your product and service pages should focus more on keywords with commercial intent. In contrast, blog posts and similar articles should be targeting informational keywords. It is a good idea to avoid targeting the same keyword on two or more different pages on your website.
Choosing the right keywords means you’ve won half the battle when it comes to attracting organic traffic to your website. So don’t rush through it, and spend some time finding the best keywords for your product or service.
While you can work around the clock to come up with great content for your website if you want to, another great option is to collaborate with people who are experts in this department. TopRankings is one of the best SEO services in the market. We are a team of talented and determined people whose main aim is to help you build a strong online presence and rank your website higher on the search engine. Contact us so we can work to come up with an effective SEO campaign for you.
