Optimizing content can sometimes take forever and haven’t got 10 minutes to spare before the break or another project. That’s why it’s important to come up with an innovative strategy to improve your keywords. In addition, coming up with better keywords shouldn’t last more than 10 minutes on average.
Now, we are not saying that your initial keywords are necessarily bad but merely that there is always room for improvement. What you need to understand is that finding SEO keywords is a process that always has room for improvement. In a nutshell, your keywords can and should be better so here are a few tips on how to do it with time to spare.
Asking the right questions
In order to know what people are searching for, you first need to understand why they are searching for that particular product or service. You should do your best to rise above the figures and understand what drives your customers and which problems they are trying to solve. The more you learn about your customers’ needs, the better will you be able to put together exact phrases.
Of course, you can always start from the rankings and then choose a keyword-based on them. However, this strategy comes with the downside of unpredictability, as you will depend more on others than on your own marketing fortes. A sudden change in the search preferences will leave you with poorly optimized content without ever realizing what had just transpired.
In terms of the actual questions you need to ask yourself, so-called “Wh questions” take the lead. What specific type of product or service are people more likely to search for? Who is your clientele? What time of the year, week or day are the likely to look for a specific service? What is the best time of the year to sell a specific product, i.e. does it have a season? etc.
Using a keyword research tool
Digital marketing is no child’s play but luckily, there are many tools that help marketers fine-tune their SEO strategies. One such tool that can be online or come in the form of an app is a keyword research tool. It works in a way that you come up with some seed keywords that you input into the tool to get a whole range of other possible keywords and key phrases.
The results of a keyword research tool provide you with are important for creating an all-encompassing SEO strategy. No matter how good you are, you’re still going to omit at least one keyword, a common question or a topic that your content should cover. Think of this tool as a calculator in the hands of a skilled mathematician; you can do without it but you work so much better with its help.
Understanding Google AdWords
The way Google makes money from search is through pay-per-click ads. However, people who wish to create these clickable ads need to come up with proper keywords so they would actually show up in Google’s search results. That’s why many advertisers turn to marketing agencies like GWM to help them optimize their content and especially make the keywords better.
What you can learn from the search volume
The more people are searching for a specific keyword or a key phrase, the less likely it is that you’ll achieve higher rankings. A keyword with a high search volume means that the first 10 or so results are reserved for major brands that have more leverage and better SEO. This means that your brand will face an uphill battle to reach at least page two of Google results.
In general, organic ranking success is hard to achieve if you’re faced with fierce competition for the hottest keywords. That does not mean that you should avoid such keywords but that you should go for more specific searches, not low-profile ones. By using specific phrases up to 8 words long, you are increasing your chances of getting ranked high.
The effect of a long-tail
If you type in “hose” in the search box, you are likely to get all kinds of hits. From fire hoses to a baseball glossary of terms, you might not even get a single hit regarding the garden hose you were interested in buying. Most people soon realize what they are doing wrong and add a word or two to their search to make it as accurate as possible.
This segment of SEO is where the biggest opportunity for recently launched or refreshed websites lies. Namely, by using long-tail keywords, you are expanding the possible number of hits you will get. In SEO, long-tail keywords often have a lower search volume which means your content will rank higher.
Furthermore, if someone searches for “a blue 20-meter garden hose” then they are more likely to actually purchase such a product because they know exactly what they want. Therefore, using long-tails means that not only will your keywords generate more leads but the conversion rate will ultimately be higher.
All of the tactics listed above take up to 10 minutes to implement. Finding better (and longer) keywords should never cease to be imperative if you’re aiming for SEO stardom.
