Once you’ve got your SEO marketing going, it becomes easier to see what words are doing well and which ones are not. In that way, you can focus your attention on those words which are really working and find ways to tinker with those words which are not.
The thing is, that’s only possible once you start collecting data and interpreting it. It can take months before you get there. And you don’t want to spend those months focusing on words that aren’t all that effective or that you even decide to abandon once the data is in.
So how do you choose those words before you’ve gotten started? What strategies can you use so that you’re at least in the right ballpark and perhaps even have a few phrases which are spot on?
Start by developing a strategy
If you start your SEO strategy with the idea of ‘generating more traffic’ then you’re heading in the right direction, but only just. You really need to make sure that your strategy is a bit more developed than that. Otherwise, you’ll end up zigging and zagging instead of heading straight towards your goals.
Here are some things to consider:
Do you have a specific audience? Is your goal to simply attract traffic to your site, or do you want to focus on a specific market segment and a specific group of people?
If it’s the former then you can create material that’s generally appealing to a wide slice of the audience, while if you’re in the latter category then you really want to focus on the interests of that group. Obviously, both have their advantages.
If you aim more widely, then you might be able to draw in more traffic. If you aim more specifically, then your traffic flows might not be quite as big, but you’ll have a bigger chance of attracting people who will come back due to the high relevancy, and who are more interested in buying your product in the first place.
Do note, with recent changes to Google’s algorithm, it’s still a good idea to focus on a specific range of topics. This is because Google and the other search engines will give your page a higher priority if they find relevant keywords across a number of pages, as you’re more likely to be an expert. This is known as keyword clustering.
Are you trying to sell or are you just building brand awareness? People do searches for a wide range of reasons. For example, they might just be looking for general information about a topic. Alternatively, they might be further along in their searches and be looking to actually buy a product.
If you focus on the former group, then the likelihood that you’ll make a sale right there and then will be greatly reduced, though you’re more likely to be able to shape opinions.
If you aim at the second category, then obviously the people reading your article have largely already made up their minds. This means you can’t exert as much influence over their purchasing choice, but if you have what they want then you might well be able to sell it to them.
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How much time do you have? SEO is always a long-term strategy. At the same time, you can turn it into a medium long-term or really long-term strategy, depending on how much time you have.
If you want results as quickly as possible, then you don’t want to aim at the top-ranked words in your sector, as though they might have the most search volume, they are also the words where the competition is the fiercest.
And as the lion’s share of the clicks goes to the first listed results, that means it can take a long time before you actually rank sufficiently well that it becomes worth your while.
In that case, it’s better to aim at words where the search volume is perhaps a little lower but where you have a decent chance to actually climb into the first page. As then you’re going to book results more quickly.
If, on the other hand, you’re okay with playing it long and can rely on other forms of marketing to keep you going while you slowly climb the ranks upwards, well then you can go for the tougher keywords where you’re going to get more serious play when you do break through.
Long-tail keywords and head keywords
Now that you’ve made these decisions you can start thinking about what combination of keywords you want to take. There are a lot of different kinds of keywords, obviously, but there are two distinctions you should be aware of. These are ‘long-tail’ and ‘head’ keywords.
Head keywords. These are the big keywords that are most likely immediately obvious to your team and the average internet user. For example, if you sell shoes then ‘shoes’, ‘trainers’, ‘pumps’ and ‘sneakers’ would be part of the head keyword group.
The thing about these keywords is that people will use them very often when searching for certain products, even if not on their own. So they might search for ‘affordable pumps’ or ‘designer trainers’ for example. When you rank well for the base word, then there is a good chance you’ll rank well for the more elaborate search as well.
Of course, because these words are obvious, the competition will be fierce.
Long-tail keywords. These types of keywords consist of a longer phrase. The traffic here will often be far lower than on the head keywords. On the other hand, there’s a good chance that they haven’t yet been cornered by the big boys. An extra bonus of long-tail keywords is that often when people search for these phrases, they’ve moved further along in their purchasing decision. They know what they want, now they just want to find the best price.
An example of a long-tail keyword for shoes would be ‘best priced Nike sneakers in Brooklyn’. No, not many people will be looking for those, but when they perform that search, then they know what they want, so the likelihood they’ll convert is much higher.
Now you can get started
Once you’ve got a general idea of what kind of combination you’re interested in, it’s time to start looking at some keywords. The best place to get started is to brainstorm keywords related to your industry and collect all of these together into a list. Now, you’re not trying to be an online essay writer, here, so your list does not have to be completely exhaustive. Just the basics will do.
When you think you’ve got a good core, you can then go to something like Moz’s keyword explorer, type up your keywords and look at both the numbers you get back and the keywords suggestions that they suggest.
Another good way to expand your list is to type in the keywords into Google itself and see what the suggestions are at the bottom of the page. These words are semantically connected, according to Google.
That means that if you use them all and you rank well for some, you’re more likely to also rank well for the others. Even better, the more of them you use throughout your site, the more likely you’ll be considered focused on this area and the more likely you’ll be ranked more highly in these keywords when people do search there.
Rank the words
Based on this, you can now start ranking the words from best to worst. Those with high volume, where competition is low and which directly relate to what you’re trying to do are going to be your primary candidates. The weaker the phrase is in each of these categories, the less interesting you want to be.
Do note, sometimes words have multiple meanings. Make sure that the meaning you’ve attributed to the word actually is the meaning that the people out there have attributed to it.
The best way to find out if this is so is to search anonymously (otherwise Google will give you back results specifically tailored to what you generally search – which means the words will probably be skewed).
Then type in the keywords that you’re considering. Are the results you’re seeing actually related to what you’re planning to do with the keyword? If so, then you’re in business. If not, then people are using this keyword differently from how you are and it’s not a suitable candidate.
Hey presto! You now have keywords.
That’s it. Now you just focus on the best keywords that are the most relevant and you should be good. Obviously, over time your strategy will still change, but at least now you’re starting off well positioned, which means you’ll be spending less time spinning your wheels in the air. And that’s valuable, seeing as SEO already takes so long.
About the author: Ashley Kornee is a blogger and freelance writer. She always tries to write about ordinary things in a creative way. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter.