Picking Right Keywords
How many keywords need to be placed on each page of your site and how to choose them?
If there is a single concept that stimulates the growth of the Internet over the past decade and brings Google to an annual income of $ 25 billion, then this is the concept of keywords. Keywords are those words that we enter in the search box when we are looking for products, services and answers to our questions, i.e. perform an action that, according to research company ComScore, only in April 2010, the Americans repeated 15.5 billion times.
Companies optimize their web pages for search engines by placing certain keywords on them. Choosing the right keywords allows for significant results. It is they who are the main component of success when it comes to contextual advertising or pay-per-click (PPC). They also play a role in website rankings for organic search engines.
But keywords are not only important for SEO. They are based on a marketing campaign conducted by representatives of a certain company, and the keywords are used at the most basic level of its development. Do buyers love our product because it acts fast or because it lasts a long time? Our product is the cheapest or the best? If you find it difficult to immediately identify the key words and phrases needed to describe the company, then you can hardly effectively sell your products and services to the target audience. This article covers 5 ideas that you need to keep in mind when choosing key keywords for internet marketing.
1. Choosing keywords for SEO: focus on relevant phrases
In the field of search marketing, there is no other as out of place and outdated term as “keyword”. In my opinion, it should be officially replaced by the more accurate term “key phrase”, but for the time being I have to use a term that is not quite relevant. I don’t like it, as it’s assumed that a keyword should be one that rarely reflects the realities of the keyword selection strategy used by us for PPC and SEO.
Often people unnecessarily complicate the basics of the concept of selecting keywords; The choice of keywords should begin with the answer to the question “What products or services do you sell?” If you sell dog food on the Internet, the words “dog” and “food” taken separately are completely inappropriate for the role of keywords, because none of them does not describe your item. Despite the obvious illustrative nature of this example, we often have to contend with the desire to use keywords, not phrases.
2. Choosing keywords for SEO: avoid “competitive” keywords
Now let’s look at a more “cunning” example, when a keyword with a general meaning is not quite suitable for promoting a product being sold. Let’s say I own an online store that sells various types of jewelry. Perhaps my main marketing goal will be to take a high position in search results for the query “jewelry”. And yet, most likely, this keyword will not attract relevant traffic to my site. This is because from the point of view of organic promotion, your website is unlikely to occupy a high position in search results, if it is not a highly authoritative resource or if you are not the owner of Jewelry.com, who knows that Google highly appreciates the keywords that match the domain name.
In our example, it is better to focus on keywords with a more specific meaning, For example, such as “jewelry made of gold,” “silver necklace,” or women’s Rolex watches. ” Competition for these keywords will be less fierce, and in terms of SEO and PPC, conversion will be higher when using keywords with a more specific meaning, which will lead to more purchases on your site.
Sometimes we call keywords with a more general meaning “competitive”, because by performing a search on one of them, you can quickly determine the site that occupies a leading position in search results. However, our experience shows that in almost every case, search marketing is more likely to pay off if we focus on hundreds or even thousands of keywords with a more specific meaning that better characterize the services, products, brands and establishments you promote.
3. Choosing keywords for SEO: use the Google Wonder Wheel tool
I believe that Google Wonder Wheel is the best “secret” tool of everyone’s favorite search engine. It was released about a year ago, but is used less frequently than the famous search tools from Google. Wonder Wheel can be found through a search engine, if you select the filter “Wonder Wheel” on the left in the navigation pane.
This tool helps you visualize how Google groups keywords (indirectly, you can also figure out how users do it). Based on the result, you can further select keywords for PPC and SEO.
First, I explored the key phrase “dog food” with this tool and identified keywords with more specific meanings, such as “dog food reviews”, “comparison of dog food” and “brands of dog food”, which can be additionally indicated and utilized later. Then, by clicking on the “dog food brands” link, I got an even more specific set of keywords, including such elements as “dog nutro food”, “Purina dog food”, etc.
At Wpromote, we use this tool to develop common content strategies. Returning to the dog food example, let us note that ultimately the ratings and comparisons of dog food, as well as reviews of them, were directly related to the keyword dog food, since it was assumed that people looking for dog food were interested in dog food comparisons and reviews about them. Therefore, in terms of content strategy, it was effective to focus on consumer ratings, reviews, and product comparisons to help customers make purchasing decisions for a particular dog food on our website.
4. Choosing keywords for SEO: remember the value of repetitions
We often hear discussions about whether or not to repeat key words. In other words, it discusses whether we should use completely different keywords (“dog food”, “puppy food” and “Purina”) or partially repetitive keywords (“dog food reviews”, “comparison of dog food” and “ratings dog food ”). In short, we can say that repeating keywords is worth it if the context in which they are used varies considerably. In other words, the phrases “dog food” and “dog food online” are synonymous and are used in approximately the same context. However, the context related to the phrases “dog food reviews” and “comparison of dog food” is different, and therefore these keywords can be used together.
It should be borne in mind that you need to choose such keywords that most closely overlap with the content of a web page or website; if the site does not have a dog food comparison table, do not use keywords with a comparison value, because this is how you are confusing users, but not Google. Therefore, ideally, the site should have a section on product comparison, a reviews section and a rating section, and they should be placed on different pages of your site and include relevant keywords. Accordingly, your marketing strategy for promotion in search engines and contextual advertising should assume the presence of key phrases with the word “review” in the texts on the feedback page, etc.
5. Choosing keywords for SEO: direct your content strategy correctly
All your content strategy should be built on keywords. In the previous paragraphs, we mentioned this several times, but it is important to re-emphasize their primary role.
Usually, our thoughts about content and keywords flow linearly: first we develop a website, and then we launch marketing campaigns within search engine optimization in order to draw users’ attention to our content. This approach is somewhat limited. When we think strategy in Wpromote, we see it as a cyclical process; since we select keywords based on what users are searching for and how search engines (especially Google) rank websites by keywords; Keywords are considered the basis of our content strategy.
In other words, in order to become very successful, we do not strive to create static content and “squeeze” the maximum result out of it; instead, we identify customer needs and use this knowledge to create the most effective user experience with the site. This, in turn, allows us to bring the site to higher positions in search results, attract more traffic to it and get a higher ROI.