Users will always use Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines to find informative posts about topics of interest to them. Search engines allow businesses to focus their content on the keywords and key phrases they believe are strongly relevant to their content through keyword planning and advertisements.
Paying Google to prioritize your content when specific keywords and key phrases gives that page a significant boost. However, if you have insufficient keyword research, your investment might be all for naught. Here are five keyword research tips that can help improve your site’s visibility.
Consistent Auditing
This first tip might not be keyword-oriented, but it helps improve your page visibility.
A significant fraction of the world’s small businesses saw their rankings sink after Google introduced its update favoring mobile-oriented website designs AKA responsive designs. In fairness to Google, it warned everyone about such an event. This means the companies had failed to audit their site regularly.
The best way to deal with ever-changing search engine algorithms is to monitor your analytic information consistently. Plenty of service providers offering browser-based website monitoring software that can help you achieve this at affordable prices. You can also have an SEO professional update you on the latest and predicted trends on site optimization.
Compare all data you have collected from your monitoring software and check the data you have collected from a competing page. If you’re ahead, see which areas helped you beat the competition. If not, check to see what made your competitor favorable enough for search engines and audiences to consider it value-adding.
Topic Research
Your topic list is the stakes that hold up your tent. Now that you have the stakes, it’s time to put in the thread count in the form of keywords and key phrases.
Once again, put yourself in your consumers’ shoes and ask yourself the key phrases you think they would type on the search bar to find your product or service. Come up with at least eight for every topic you have.
Using Google Analytics, you can look for these particular keywords and key phrases and check how many users are searching for them. Other analytics tools allow you to see which pages from competing sites rank using the same keywords. You can view the content of competing sites and create content that will help surpass their rankings.
The best way to develop competitive content is to tackle the same topics and add more value, such as tangible and updated solutions. It is likely the ranking post has outdated data. You can conduct your own tests or solutions to beat the competition.
Buzz Terms
Google Analytics has a handy auto-suggest feature that allows you to see the common search terms relevant to your consumers’ search query. Some of these words and phrases could be topic-oriented “buzzwords.” For example, in 2015, the term “organic,” paired with an edible item, became a buzzword.
Buzzwords can be treated like tags and hashtags; only use them if your brand is relevant. Using the same example above, if your business is focused on food, you can create posts oriented towards “organic food” and use tags and hashtags that are trending to give it better visibility.
Some brands are capable of hijacking buzzwords and hashtags by using contradictions. For example, a drug company can say their products are not “organic,” but they make themselves relevant by claiming their products improve the breakdown of organic food. You can see from this example there is a certain risk of making things awkward, so use this only if you strongly believe your business can pull this off effectively.
Long-Tail Key Phrases
Long-tail key phrases are less popular than short or head-length keywords. Any search engine user knows you won’t find anything useful by typing in a long query. However, a user that searches a long-tail keyword is looking for something specific, indicating that your long-tail key phrase should be entirely relevant to your company’s brand and “flagship” content.
Review your topic and the keywords you use as with step one. A normal key phrase often has a topic, location, and verb. One example is “buy jewelry bags Atlanta.” Long-tail key phrases use a specific topic that lengthens it, such as “buy Mason Harlie jewelry bags Atlanta.”
The bottom line is, you can use your brand name and revolve your campaign around long-tail key phrases. The best time to use them is if your business has gained traction in other basic keywords and key phrases and as your “buy” keywords focused on your conversion-oriented landing page.
Competitors
As mentioned earlier, always check if your competition is beating you to the punch using website analysis tools. Check your competitors’ sites as regularly as you perform site and content auditing on your website. Evaluate their rankings in Google Trends. You must also look through the properties of your competitor’s content. Make sure to identify elements that give their visitors a positive experience. Use these as references to all efforts to improve your page.
Viewing your competitor’s performance is essential. You have a better chance of succeeding in high-competition keyword environments if you use your competitor’s best practices . However, make sure that you develop content centered on great-traffic keywords that add value. In addition, always strive create a positive experience for your audience. Evaluate the competition’s content quality regularly, too.
Conclusion
Keyword research is as vital as generating leads and social media marketing in your overall Internet marketing campaign. Knowing which keywords and phrases are relevant to your business is important. It helps give your pages a boost by having the correct audience receive your content. In turn, this produces a positive experience to readers.
However, keyword research can be time consuming for some companies bogged down by other responsibilities. It can help to have professionals investigate and provide solutions to improve search engine visibility for maximum ROI.