Because keyword research is one of the first things website owners should consider before ranking their website. The process can make or break a website’s online campaign. Ranking for a keyword can require a lot of effort and be very time consuming. That’s why one should carefully and meticulously find the right keywords. This will ensure that the time and effort spent trying to rank a website or webpage will not be in vain.
Keyword Research Before You Write Your Website Articles
Keyword research is not as easy as just choosing keywords that website owners fancy writing about. This process is no joke and is one the biggest reasons why many internet marketers and website owners fail in gaining favorable rankings in search engines. Without these rankings, there will hardly be any visitors to the site which means making profit will be close to impossible.
The following are important things website owners should remember when doing keyword research prior to writing website articles or website content.
Think of General Keywords
While ranking high for general keywords certainly means getting a huge amount of traffic, Competition for these keywords can be extremely heavy. More often than not, the effort, time, and money spent to rank for these keywords can be very great, that most website owners targeting these keywords surrender early in their campaigns. However, it is good practice to start keyword research by making a list of general keywords from the website owners can base smaller specific keywords which are easier to rank for,
List Specific Long-Tail Keywords
From the general keywords listed earlier, website owners can make another list of long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are keyword phrases of more than two words. Which are specific areas of interest under the general one word keywords. The importance of ranking for these keywords is their lower level of competition. Although people don’t search for them as much as the general keywords, one can rank them for easier and faster results.
Know the Keywords’ Search Frequency
When a list of long-tail keywords has been finalized, it is then time to know how many times each keyword is searched for. The traditional and most effective way of doing this is by using the Google AdWords keyword tool. This tool is free to use and has a lot of features that can help website owners. For example, one can determine certain details of keywords, such as their monthly search volume, advertising value, and search trends throughout a period.
Evaluate The Competition
It is very important to evaluate competing pages for a chosen keyword. Factors in the competition that have to be considered include the number of backlinks for each competing page. The quality of the backlinks, the page’s page rank, its age, as well as its on-site optimization. It is important to evaluate only the first page competition. Because this page is where website owners aim their webpages to reach. There are many free and paid tools website owners can use to determine all these details quickly and more effectively.
Remember That Numbers Do Not Mean Anything
A common misconception in keyword research is that website owners should steer clear of keywords that have plenty of competing pages. While the idea behind this is understandable. Website owners should remember that the only competing pages that matter are the ten top pages for each keyword. Remember that it is easier to rank for a keyword with millions of competing pages that are not fully optimized. Than ranking for a keyword with fewer competition that have highly optimized pages.
Buying Keywords Count
Many times, it is not enough to choose a keyword that meets all the criteria mentioned above. Many internet marketers have ranked successfully for their chosen sets of keywords. But what makes their campaigns fail is the profitability of those keywords.
A website can have many pages ranking for each of their keywords and have thousands of visitors a day. But the absence of buying keywords makes it very difficult to attract sales or conversions. When trying to profit from a website. Always think of keywords sure buyers search for in search engines rather than ordinary long-tail keywords.
List LSI Keywords
LSI or Latent Semantic Indexing is one of the most overlooked aspects in SEO. This is a broad and technical term but in the SEO community, it basically means using a list of related keywords in writing articles or content to improve keyword rankings. The most popular ways in getting a list of LSI keywords is by using the Google AdWords keyword tool.
