The backbone to a sensational SEO strategy is strong keyword research. And while research might be the last thing to get your blood pumping, you’ll be thanking yourself when Google repays you mightily.
Last week we explored how to kick off the keyword hunt. This week, we’re going to analyse these keywords to determine the most beneficial of the bunch to target in your SEO strategy.
If you’ve stumbled upon this post fresh off the bat, you might find our first instalment a handy gateway into what we’re about to discuss. You can check it out here.
Now that we’ve got bountiful supply of killer keywords to work with, it’s time to weed out the weak.
Before You Begin
Alright, before we pin-drop into the thrills of analytics, let’s make sure you’re fully equipped with some handy tools. The first thing you need is your bucketful of keywords relevant to your business. We’re not fussed on how niche or strong these are just yet – we’ll sort that out soon.
Next – the saving grace to this process is going to be your keyword research tools. We touched on this in part one, but essentially these are applications that apply meaning to your jumble of phrases.
There’s no shortage of keyword research systems on the market, but here are a few favourites to start you off:
- Google Keyword Planner
- Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
- Semrush Keyword Magic Tool
- Keyword Generator
- Keyword Surfer
How To Do Keyword Research: Analysing Keywords
Keyword research applications take in your abundant keywords and then spit out informed statistics on their performance. It can be overwhelming when suddenly faced with a barrage of numbers staring back at you.
So, let’s narrow it down to the most important figures to consider.
Volume
Search volume refers to the number of times a word or phrase is plugged into Google. It seems simple enough – target the words that are being search tens of thousands of times a day, right? Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple.
Basically, the higher the search volume, the greater competition there is for that keyword, and hence the harder it is to score organic ranking success. At the other end of the scale, too low a search volume provides negligible traffic to your site.
When discussing volume, you may stumble upon the terms fat-head vs longtail keywords.
The graphic below helps put these seemingly derogatory phrases into context.
Much like the 1% of the population that hold 99% of the wealth, on Google there is a handful of search queries that dominate majority of the search volume. These are referred to as fat-head keywords.
If your business is a Richmond vegan café, examples of fathead keywords could include:
- Coffee
- Vegan
- Café
Targeting fat head keywords is unlikely to produce tangible results for your SEO since the competition is so high. Plus, there is little likelihood that your content will meet the specific intent of each user searching such broad phrases.
Fortunately, long-tail keywords offer a more attainable solution. Although their search volumes are lower, they often convert better. This is due to a more specific intent behind the users search.
Long tail keywords examples for a vegan café in Richmond could include:
- Vegan cafes in Richmond
- Best vegan café in Richmond
- Vegan waffle café Richmond
Clicks
Search volume is great for highlighting how many people are Googling a topic, but it’s not so great at tracking conversion. That’s where click rate is useful. It’s a measurement of the average number of clicks a result for that phrase generates each month.
Since google added that handy little snippet box at the top of some searches, many simplistic phrases now generate negligible clicks.
This metric is super helpful to weed out terms that will render SEO practices redundant.
Traffic Potential
Traffic potential looks at how your keyword ranking could branch out into other similar results. For instance, if you rank for the phrase ‘best lawn mowers for long grass’, your will likely also rank for ‘how to find a lawn mower for long grass’ and ‘type of mower to use on long grass’.
Instead of narrowing your volume and click potential down to a specific phrase, it measures the total search traffic potential of the topic.
Understanding Intent Behind Keywords
What is this ‘intent’ we keep alluding to?
A major evolution in SEO over recent years has been the emergence of user intent as a determining factor for ranking. It’s no longer good enough to have your content regurgitate the exact phrase entered into google. It’s must also meet the objective of what the user was seeking.
Are we going in circles here?
For example, a Google search for ‘lawn mower’ could carry the intent of a lawn mower as a service, or a lawn mower as a tangible product. It’s important that your keyword research captures the intent behind what each search phrase is looking for.
If you are a lawn mowing service, its important to ensure you don’t get caught out targeting keywords which are entered with the intent of purchasing a brand-new ride-on mower.
It’s no mean feat to construct a SEO strategy that competes with the billions of websites online. Wordly have nailed down a pretty winning formula for doing just that though. Want to speak to the pros about elevating your online presence? You know where to find us.
