The best route to great SEO are great keywords. Choosing the right keywords can make or break your site. Selecting the right keywords help your site rank in SEO, attract attention, and even increases email opens. Creating valuable content on your website, your emails, and your content marketing with the right keywords provide an opening to greater ranking and a bigger audience.

Choosing the right keywords can make or break your site.

Why Keyword Research

Keyword research helps you understand the intent of the searcher who uses them. It’s important to know why keyword research is necessary for your company. Here are the most important reasons:

1. Identify the Searchers’ Intent – Assume that you own an online eyewear business, and you want to attract customers while improving your conversion rates. After taking our advice and conducting keyword research on your business model, you finally come up with the following keywords: (1) eyeglasses (2) discount sunglasses frames for summer. The latter, which is a long-tail keyword, gives us an accurate picture of what people want or their ‘intent.’ You can then incorporate this knowledge into your website and attract the right kind of visitors.
2. Facilitates Adaptability – The preferences and needs of consumers are constantly changing. Taking the previous example of eyewear, web searchers can easily shift their intent to ‘discount eyeglasses frames.’ By conducting keyword research, you’ll be able to predict the shifts in demand and respond appropriately by offering what people are actively seeking. In a nutshell, keyword research is how we keep tabs on the audience.
3. Helps Cement your Identity – What is your company/business known for? How does the content of your website align with the target audience? How can you build your brand image and authority? These are all questions that can be answered through keyword research. By identifying and using the right keywords, you’ll know the content to market, how to market it, where to market it, and how to outclass the competition as you ‘mark your territory.’ This translates directly to better Google Ranking.

How it helps you rank in Google

Transitioning the knowledge of keywords to it’s application towards your business is key! Your company has to be seen by Google to be able to be listed and seen by your customers. Keywords make that happen. Listed are the three main ways it helps you rank in Google.

• Makes you Easier to Find – If my personal habits are anything to go by, most of us give up on the third page of ‘Google results,’ or even the first page depending on the topic. Therefore, it would be a shame if you have a superior offering, but you end up on the fifth page. So, how can you make your site rank higher? Two words: Keyword Research. In order to make to make it easier for people to find you, you need to know HOW people are looking for information, services, or the products you’re offering.
• Content as an SEO Ranking Factor – Google uses numerous algorithms to determine which site pop up higher in the search results. One of these factors is the content of your website. If Google understands what your content entails, you will rank higher in response to a search – it’s as simple as that. And this is all made possible by conducting keyword research and placing the right terms in your site.
• Competitors and Keyword difficulty – Keyword research is not just about finding popular keywords (search volume) and blasting them all over your website. It includes identifying the sites that already rank for your keywords and determining the keyword difficulty. For example, if you enter your keywords and big brands dominate the first page of ‘Google results,’ it will be tough to achieve higher rankings. Keyword research will help you find related phrases with lower difficulty and consequently improve your Google ranking.

*Bonus Tip– As much as having the right keywords is crucial, ensure you optimize the content and the site itself around the keyword phrases.

Where do we get all of this knowledge about keyword demand and keyword referrals? From research sources like these:

• Moz Keyword Explorer
• Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool
• Google Trends
• Microsoft Bing Ads Intelligence
• Wordtracker’s Free Basic Keyword Demand

Utilizing these keyword resources you can create valuable content that will include the keywords that your demographic is searching for. Always start with Google Trends to make sure whatever keywords you are using are being consistently searched up within the more recent months. Use these free tools and optimize your keywords continually!

With the right keywords, your website can be on the top of the search results with the right content.

Which keywords are the best for you to rank for?

Ranking is extremely important when it comes to SEO. With the right keywords, your website can be on the top of the search results with the right content. Sadly, it’s not as easy as that. Competition is a very relevant thing when it comes to keyword ranking. Sadly, you can’t decide on a keyword and rank first for something like “best dog food.” You man have found some great relevant keywords for your topic and brand, but you now have to see which ones you can rank in. Here are some questions to ask yourself when choosing the best keywords for your site.

• How high is the competition?
• What are people currently searching for when it comes to my business/product?
• Which keywords are more practical for me to rank for?
• Should I use long tail, or short tail keywords?
  • Long tail being a specific phrase “orange iPhone 7 clear case” versus a short tail phrase “iphone case.”

Keywords are utilized even through the phone. Callback Tracker shows which keywords were used before your web visitor decided to request a callback. This will help you understand which keywords are turning into conversions. Make sure you are utilizing keywords to convert your visitors with a “call-to-action”, covered in the next blog.

When it comes to choosing your keywords, it’s important to keep all of these questions in mind. Developing a list of keywords (through keyword research) should be the first, and arguably the most important step of search engine optimization – that is, if you want to attract a bigger audience, improve conversion, and rank higher in Google.