Have you just finished your keyword research and wondering what to do next?
In today’s article, I want to share with you a simple, yet effective guide on the steps that you should follow to make the best out of your research.
Regardless of what keyword research tool/method that you used, let’s all agree that keyword research is essential.
Online, it’s not enough to write.
You have to know what to write about and create content that people need, and this is actually the major reason why we do keyword research.
The next step
After you completed your keyword research, you’ll most probably end with a Google Sheet or an Excel file that contains a certain number of keywords with the related data.
Well, keywords are there to be used.
The next step is to qualify those keywords based on certain criteria and choose the best ones to create content around.
The factors that you should take into consideration include:
Your knowledge
In simple words: How well you know about the topic/idea that people are searching for on Google.
For me, this is the top factor to consider when choosing keywords to target.
With the latest updates, Google are more& more prioritizing content quality and relevance as the most important ranking factor.
The best keywords are always those that you can confidently write about, covering the topic in details and providing real value to the reader.
It’s also important to consider the nature of the search query performed and create a piece of content that matches it.
Search queries can be:
- Informational: e.g. the person is looking for an answer to his question.
- Commercial: e.g. the person is looking for a certain product to buy.
- Navigational: e.g. the person is looking for a specific web page.
Level of competition
For me, this is the second most important factor to consider when you’re qualifying your keywords.
This is more relevant if your website is still new.
Competing with huge websites is a losing game (in 99% of the cases).
You have to choose keywords that have lower levels of competition to target.
These keywords are mostly what we call “long-tail keywords”.
Long-tail keywords are specific, longer phrases that are less competitive and can drive qualified traffic to your website.
These types of keywords are often more targeted and have a lower search volume than short, broad keywords. However, they can be a valuable addition to your keyword strategy as they can attract more qualified leads and help your website rank for more specific, niche searches.
For example, a short, broad keyword might be “SEO course.” This keyword has a high search volume and is very competitive.
On the other hand, a long-tail keyword might be “Best SEO course for beginners 2023.” While this keyword has a lower search volume, it is much more specific and targeted.
Someone searching for this keyword is likely further along in the purchasing process and is more likely to make a purchase.
Incorporating long-tail keywords into your website’s content and metadata can help you attract more targeted traffic and improve your search engine rankings for specific, niche searches.
It’s important to remember to include long-tail keywords naturally in your content and not stuff them in just for the sake of including them.
This can come across as spammy to both users and search engines like Google.
Popularity
Balance is the key.
It is right that you should focus more on the competitiveness specially when you’re just starting.
However, you should also consider how popular is the keyword.
Keywords with a high search volume are generally more competitive and can be more difficult to rank for, while keywords with a lower search volume may be less competitive but may also drive less traffic to your website.
To determine the popularity of a keyword, there are several free and paid tools you can use, such as Google’s Keyword Planner and SEMrush.
These tools can also provide data on the difficulty of ranking for a particular keyword and the potential traffic it could bring to your website.
It is worth mentioning that keyword popularity can change over time, a keyword that was popular a few years ago may not be as popular now.
It’s important to regularly conduct keyword research and track the performance of your keywords to ensure that you are targeting the most relevant and popular keywords for your website.
Next: Create valuable content
Once you qualified your keywords, you can order them according to the previous factors we’ve discussed and choose one to start creating content around.
Content is the king.
Even the best SEO tactics fall short when the content quality is bad.
However, “quality” can sound vague sometimes.
I see people struggle understanding the factors that actually make their content worth of being at the top of search results, these include:
- Relevance: Again, an article should be relevant to the topic it is discussing and provide value to the reader.
- Unique content: In order to stand out in search results, an article should contain original, informative content that is not duplicated from other sources.
- Proper formatting: An article should be easy to read and navigate, with headings, subheadings, and short paragraphs.
- Length: In general, longer articles tend to rank higher in search results, as they are often seen as more comprehensive and in-depth. However, it’s important to balance length with quality – a long article that is poorly written or lacks substance is not likely to rank well.
- Internal linking: An article should contain links to other pages on the website, as this helps to improve the website’s overall link structure and can increase the visibility of other pages.
- External linking: An article should also contain high-quality external links to reputable sources, as this can demonstrate the credibility and authority of the content.
- Image optimization: Including relevant, high-quality images and properly optimizing them with descriptive file names and alt tags can improve the user experience and increase the chances of the article ranking well in search results.
Read more: What do you need to balance when doing SEO
Link building
Just published your content? There is more to do.
Link building is the process of acquiring backlinks (links from other websites) to your own website.
These backlinks serve as “votes” of confidence in the quality and relevance of your content, and can help improve your website’s search engine rankings.
There are a number of ways to acquire backlinks, including:
- Guest blogging: Write a blog post for another website in your industry, and include a link back to your own website in the post.
- Broken link building: Find websites in your industry that link to broken or outdated pages, and offer to replace the broken link with a link to your own website.
- Resource page link building: Find websites in your industry that have a resource or links page, and ask to have a link to your website included on the page.
- Infographic link building: Create an infographic that is relevant to your industry, and offer to share it with other websites in exchange for a link back to your website.
It’s important to note that not all backlinks are created equal.
Search engines place more value on backlinks from high-quality, authoritative websites.
It’s also important to avoid participating in link schemes or purchasing backlinks, as these practices can be seen as spammy and can actually hurt your website’s rankings.
Share & Track
Sharing your content in different marketing platforms and tracking your results are final crucial steps to make.
One way to share your website’s content is through social media.
By posting links to your content on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you can reach a wider audience and drive traffic to your website.
It’s important to be strategic about where and when you share your content, and to consider the interests and preferences of your target audience.
Another way to share your content is through email marketing.
By building a list of subscribers and sending newsletters or promotional emails, you can directly reach potential customers and drive traffic to your website.
It’s important to make sure that the emails you send are engaging and relevant to your audience.
In addition to sharing your content, it’s important to track your SEO results to see how your efforts are paying off.
There are a number of tools you can use to measure the effectiveness of your SEO strategy, such as Google Analytics.
This tool can provide data on your website’s traffic, keyword rankings, and more. By regularly reviewing this data, you can identify what’s working and what may need to be adjusted in your SEO strategy.
Related questions
Is keyword research still relevant?
Yes, keyword research is still relevant and an important part of search engine optimization (SEO).
Keyword research helps you understand what your target audience is searching for and can guide your content creation and SEO strategy.
It also enables you to identify the terms and phrases that are most relevant to your business and have the highest search volume.
This can help you create content that is more likely to rank well in search engine results and attract targeted traffic to your website.
Are Meta keywords still relevant for SEO?
Meta keywords are tags that you can add to the HTML code of a webpage to indicate the keywords that the page is targeting.
These tags were once used by search engines to help determine the content and relevance of a webpage.
However, meta keywords are no longer a factor in most search engine rankings.
In fact, Google has stated that it does not use the meta keywords tag as a ranking factor in its search algorithms.
This means that adding meta keywords to your webpage is unlikely to have any impact on your search engine rankings.
How often should you do keyword research?
How often you should conduct keyword research depends on your business and the needs of your website.
Some businesses may find it necessary to conduct keyword research on a regular basis, while others may only need to do it occasionally.
Here are a few factors that may influence how often you should conduct keyword research:
- The competitiveness of your industry: If you are in a highly competitive industry, you may want to conduct keyword research more frequently to stay ahead of your competitors and identify new opportunities.
- The frequency of new content: If you are regularly creating new content for your website, you may want to conduct keyword research more often to ensure that you are targeting the most relevant and popular keywords for each piece of content.
- The performance of your website: If you are not seeing the results you want from your current keyword strategy, you may want to conduct keyword research more frequently to identify new opportunities or adjust your strategy.
