Choosing the right keywords and keyword phrases is an important part of any SEO strategy. It is the way to attract the right audience to your website. You will have to do some research to find keywords that your target audience uses.
Get them right and Google will understand what your content is about and rank it so people can find it when they type in a search query. The following tips will help you to identify some keywords and find new ones but you will need to use a purpose-built keyword research tool to evaluate the terms you’ve chosen.
- Put yourself in your customers’ shoes
When you’re creating your list of keywords, you need to think, “What would I type into Google if I was looking for the products or services I sell?” When you know what your customers are looking for, you can provide them with the answers they need.
You will be able to use your keywords not only in your blog posts but in your email marketing and all other promotional activities. If you’re battling to find the right keywords, especially if you’re trying to target local customers, Blogger Local has a post listing the top SEO companies in Kansas City.
- Study the keywords your competitors use
When you’re trying to choose keywords, one of the best ways to find out what type of keywords you should be targeting is to look at what keywords your competitors are using.
One of the easiest ways to find out what keywords they’re using is to make use of a good keyword tool. There are tools where you enter the competitor’s URL into the tool and can search competitor details. You will be shown keyword data that includes metrics such as search volume competition and an opportunity score.
- Choose quality over quantity
In the past, people tended to stuff their content full of keywords to artificially push pages to the top of the search results. The quality of keywords was seen as less important than keyword density.
Such a practice is likely to be penalized by Google today rather than rewarded thanks to tweaks in Google’s search algorithms. Keyword stuffing and having a large quantity of poor quality links are both practices Google will penalize rather than rewarding. SEO for Growth gives advice on the best link building agencies to use today.
- Use longtail keywords
Longtail keywords are those that consist of a combination of words. Competition for longtail keywords is lower so they have a higher chance of ranking and the traffic they attract is likely to be more relevant.
By using longtail keywords, you can be more specific about your products or services. For example, typing in “dresses” will bring up millions of results but typing in “blue short-sleeved dresses” gives you fewer results.
- Understand user intent
More and more people today use mobile devices with digital assistants to search by voice. They use natural language and ask questions instead of having to type in text. Rather than using a single target phrase, people are now using semantically related keywords. This means using related phrases that mean basically the same thing.
Latent semantic indexing (LSI) helps search engines offer more relevant results when people search and this is why you should use semantic keywords.
You are likely to have noticed that Google autocomplete results change as you type words. The more words you type in, the more context Google has. The related search terms at the bottom of the page can also offer you more clues about what keywords to use.