If you are a new business then you must have come across this question – ‘How to find the keywords for your website.’ Picking the right keywords and phrases is one of the essential steps in successful SEO. This activity aims to increase the traffic to your website and attract the right audience. Choosing the most relevant keywords to connect with your target audience needs time and research. Still, the final results will be worth it.
If you wish to learn about a keyword and how that helps, you can read ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Keyword Research.’ In this blog, you can learn to narrow down your list of relevant keywords and plan your content strategy.
Step 1. Use Google Keyword Planner to cut down your keyword list
With the Google Keyword Planner, you can acquire search volume and traffic estimates for the keywords you’re planning to use. You can summarize this information and apply Google Trends to fill gaps.
Use your Keyword Planner to remove keywords from your list with a very low search volume. You can also flag keywords that won’t aid in maintaining an appropriate keyword mix. However, before deleting something, look up their trend timeline and projections in Google Trends. You can decide if those low-volume keywords may prove beneficial in the long run.
Perhaps you’re reading a keyword list that is way too complicated, and you need to find a way to simplify it. Google Trends will allow you to determine what terms are trending upward and thus worthy of your attention now.
Step 2: Prioritize low-hanging fruit
We are referring to the priority of low-hanging fruits means that you should prioritize the keywords you stand a chance of getting ranked for due to your website’s authority.
Large businesses usually target high-search volume keywords. And since they are established in the market, Google typically rewards them with the authority they have over a wide range of subjects. There are also keywords with a low amount of competition. Keywords that don’t have multiple articles competing for the top spot could give you the top position.
Step 3. Review your monthly volume of searches (MSV) for your selected keywords
You’re trying to create content based on the things people are searching for on Google. Checking MSV can assist you in doing exactly that.
Monthly search volume refers to the number of times a keyword or query is used by search engines every month. Tools such as searchvolume.io and Google Trends can help you identify the most popular keywords and related keyword clusters for no cost.
Step 4: Factor in SERP features as you find keywords for your website
Many SERPs feature short snippets of content, and Google highlights specific content if it’s highly relevant and authoritative. Finding these features is simple; just type in the keywords you want to search for and see the result. We’ll explain what they’re about in this article for a brief overview of the different types of SERP snippets featured. There are many innovative SERP features by Google, but we will discuss the top few here.
Image Packs
Images are results of a search displayed in a horizontal row of images. If you’re part of an image pack, it’s best to create a post with many images to ensure it’s placed in it. This is an example of an image carousel created by Google to cover the Ukraine-Russia war.
Featured Snippets
The featured snippets or paragraph snippets are short pieces of text which appear in the uppermost part of Google search results. They provide short answers to the most common search questions. These snippets help readers quickly get the answer to their question rather than going through a complete article. Understanding the user intent and providing clear, concise content can help secure this position. If you want to find the keywords for your website, especially for snippets, then user intent is crucial.
List Snippets
Listicles, also known as list snippets, are text snippets that explain steps needed to accomplish things from beginning to end. They are usually used for “How to” search results. Writing posts that include clear, concise instructions and clear formatting can help secure this spot.
Video Snippets
Video snippets are video clips that Google will show on top SERP for a search query instead of short text snippets. Uploading a video to video channels like YouTube or your website can help you achieve this position. Your uploaded video should be tagged with the relevant terms people are looking for.
Step 5: Examine for the presence of head terms and long-tail keywords in the buckets
Head terms are key phrases that are typically smaller and more generic, and they are usually three or more words long, depending on the person you’re talking with. On the contrary, long-tail keywords are more extensive and typically contain three or more words.
It’s crucial to ensure that you’re using a mixture of long-tail keywords and head terms, as it will offer you an effective keyword strategy. It will help balance long-term goals and short-term gains. Head terms are typically searched more frequently and are often (not necessarily, but usually) very difficult to get a position for when compared to long-tail keywords.
Consider this: Without ever looking up the search volume or keyword difficulty, which of the following topics are more difficult than others to get ranked?
- how to write a fantastic blog post
- blogging
If you answered ‘blogging,’ you’re on the right track. Although head terms typically have the highest search volume (which means they have the great potential to send you traffic), the traffic you’ll see from “how you can write a fantastic blog post” is more intent-driven.
Why?
Because someone searching for something specific is probably a more qualified user of the knowledge you offer than someone looking for something generic. Since long-tail keywords tend to be specific, it’s simpler to determine the searcher’s intent. However, those who search for the word “blogging” might be searching it for all sorts of reasons unrelated to your company.
Check your list of keywords to make sure you can mix the terms you use for head and long-tail keywords. You can surely hope for some quick gains that long-tail keywords can provide. However, you should strive to tackle the more challenging head phrases over the long run.
Step 6. Check the way that competitors rank for these terms
Simply because your competitor has done something does not mean that you should do it; the same applies to keywords. Simply because a term is important to your competitor doesn’t necessarily mean it’s crucial to you. Knowing the terms that your competition is trying to be ranked for is a good way to present your keywords list for another look.
If your competition ranks for specific keywords on your list, it is logical to boost your rankings for those keywords. Don’t forget those keywords that your competitors don’t seem interested in. It could also be an excellent chance to gain market share in important areas.
Understanding the balance of search terms that might be quite difficult due to competition versus those quite realistic terms will help you maintain an equal balance that the mix of long-tail and head terms allow. Keep in mind that the aim is to create an array of keywords that can provide instant wins and allow you to advance towards larger and more difficult SEO objectives.
How can you find out the keywords your competitors rank for? Apart from searching manually for keywords inside an incognito browser, and observing which places your competitors are on, Arel=” noopener” target=”_blank” hrefs will help you get free reports on the top keywords to enter to search. This is an easy method to determine the kinds of keywords your competitors rank for. Many software like SpyFu can also help understand the competitor’s keyword strategy by listing their ranked keywords.
Best Keywords for SEO
Know that there aren’t any “best” keywords frequently used by your target audience. When you consider this, it’s your job to develop a plan that can assist you in ranking your websites and increasing visitors.
The most effective keywords to use in your SEO strategy will be determined by relevancy, authority, and search volume. You should look for the most popular keywords to compete based on:
- The amount of competition.
- The ability to create high-quality content that surpasses what’s currently being ranked
and you’ve got the right keywords to help your website SEO
Now you have a keyword list that will help you concentrate on the most relevant subjects for your website and provide you with both long-term and short-term advantages.
You should review the keywords you’re using every couple of months. Once a quarter is a good time; however, some companies prefer to review their keywords more frequently than this. As you build up credibility in the SERPs, you’ll discover that you can add increasing numbers of keywords to your list of keywords. This will help you maintain your current position and expand into new areas. By now you must have had a fair idea of how to find the keywords for your website. You can visit our ‘Beginner’s Guide to SEO in 2022’ to learn how to put these keywords to great use for on-page optimization SEO techniques.