Researching keywords isn’t usually considered one of the most exciting things to be done in SEO, but understanding your keywords and putting them to use is simply something you can’t expect to get far without.
Why Do I Need To Do Keyword Research?
Realistically with each page you produce on your website you are going to want to target 1 or 2 keywords that the page should rank for. Since we can only realistically target 1 or 2 keyword terms with a single page it’s important for us to really take some care in selecting the right keywords for the right reasons.
One benefit that you can look forward to when you sit down and make keyword research part of your content creation process is that you’ll never forget to include your keywords in your content! It’s not as rare as you would imagine that website content is written about something, but simply never include the keyword terms that they wanted to rank for in the first place.
Bottom line: While keyword research may not be all that glamorous it is simply a necessity to make sure that the content you produce gets found online and remains directly on topic.
How Do I Start Keyword Research-ing?
It all really starts with an idea of what you want to write about and understanding who you’re writing for. One rule of thumb is to write about what you know because that is simply a prerequisite to writing the exceptional piece of content that will accomplish your goals.
Here’s a quick run through to get a feel for the process:
- You have a list of ideas for content;
- Applying your knowledge of your market you rank them on immediacy;
- Looking at the resorted list one (probably near the top) stands out to you;
- Write a list of possible search queries that you can imagine your target marketing entering that would be appropriate for the result you’re going to create.
- Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
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Enter your list of Keywords and Search:
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Analyze the Keyword Searches and Look over the Keyword Ideas
- Pick 1 or 2 keyword terms that perfectly suit your motivation that also have a reasonable amount of motivation and traffic behind them.
- Write your content to suit your motivation with the selected keyword(s) in mind.
- Cover the “usual” places for your keywords to maximize your on page SEO potential.
- Publish!
While this may round out to about 10 steps, it’s actually something that flows altogether as a logical process to produce something that is thoughtful, on point, and optimized for the keywords that you want to rank for.
Some Keywords Are Better For Some than Others
If you consider how different businesses simply have a different approach to the market, it’s important that you accept the idea that you target keywords that are appropriate to your business’s offering.
Take for instance a plumbing website exists for a small business, two things stand out:
- Small Business
- Plumbing
Since the site represents a local plumbing business it doesn’t care to invest the time, money, and energy it would take to rank for “plumbing” as much as it would like to rank for “24-hour plumber” or “Saint Paul plumbers.”
Reason for this being is that every search term and keyword search is actually in its own way a question, a motivation to seek an answer. You as a business or a website are an answer and keyword research is really finding the best questions that you are the answer to!
While ranking #1 for “plumbing” might get you a lot of traffic the reality is that only so much of that traffic will really be traffic you can do something with because much of that traffic won’t have to appropriate motivation. Plus it would take an enormous and expensive effort to rank for something like “plumbing.”
Keyword Research Makes Quality Content Pop!
Surely you’ve been in the position many times where you don’t know anything except the question you have and the solution you’re seeking. That’s a moment that you cannot become too familiar with as in many cases your business and your website want to be the answer on their own way under that scenario.
When you’re at a loss and are searching in every way that you can to find a fitting solution you’ll know what it’s like to be in your motivated prospects’ frame of mind. That is absolutely what you want to write to for many reasons, but specifically:
- Your answer is aimed at a highly motivated search query;
- The information and reasoning you provide puts the searcher at ease;
- Make life easier for someone else and they’ll gravitate in your direction;
It just stands to reason that when you provide the best answer to a motivated problem that needs a resolution that you’ve stacked the deck in your favor a great deal. The real question when it comes to writing the right content to fit the most appropriate keyword terms that pertain to your business is realizing where the need of your market are coming from.
If you really want to convert then spending time with the keywords, understanding the difference between a motivated query and general query can save you an incredible amount of time. If you wrote content based on random keywords you simply thought were viable you’re not setting yourself up to win, but rather a long road of mediocre content that dazzles nobody.
Fit the bill however and your prospect is either:
- Looking for the contact form;
- Dialing your number;
- Leaving a comment on your content;
- Sharing your content on social media;
- Linking back to your site/page as a quality resource;
All of these are steps that directly relate to the sales funnel and if you’ve planned accordingly you should know precisely how to address where each query stands, but first you need to take care of the basics.
The On-Page SEO Primer For Keywords
Keyword research is very well associated with making advances in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and I’m sure it would be in your best interest to get the lay of the web page and where you want your keywords to work their magic. So in the interest of those of you who haven’t had on page keyword placement laid out for you before, let’s take it from the top:
Optimizing Your Domain Name & URL
Touching back on the point that a lot of the optimization that can be done on the page itself (outside the quality and linkability of the content) has been exploited into an oblivion it’s my general rule of thumb is that what’s hidden away from plain site will usually have less weight (exception made for ALT tags).
Keywords in Your Domain Name
Your domain name isn’t something that you can set once and change at a whim later so there’s that certain element of commitment when optimizing your domain. In addition, your domain name has more visibility when you take into account that you most often mark and brand your site through your domain name.
Here’s an example of a search where exact matches still hold their weight, while there are ton of other factors that play into these rankings (for instance people willing to commit to a long tail exact match domain are more often than not committed to many facets of SEO) this is something you’ve probably encountered in your own searches.
Keyword Search: saint paul real estate blog
These were the top two results and the first one really appears to have their act together and is likely to be well optimized as a whole and certainly established. The second result is solid too but takes on a gambit of its own by incorporating the hyphens between every word of the domain name.
Often times when you see domains that hyphen out all the words you have a right to be apprehensive because with aggressive SEO these domains have the keywords in them and give the SEO savvy opportunist to just make something that really offers little and is more designed to capture and wholesale leads to businesses than to really provide anything for your benefit.
Here are some points I usually keep in mind when picking a domain that doesn’t provoke any fear of commitment from an SEO stand point:
- At most I’ll go with one hyphen, but I always do whatever I can to avoid using hyphens (think .info domains and the notoriety they’ve shored up);
- Shorter is better, the longer the domain name the more it stretches the distribution of weight given to each keyword (Think 1 or 2 keywords);
- Keywords are most desirable at the beginning, so bartendingexperts.com would be better than superstarbartending.com if you want to take a run at ranking for bartending.
- Does the keyword I’m committing to my domain going to match any of the content titles I plan pursuing? This is where proper keyword planning really pans out because the domain will be part of every piece of content you host on your site, never hurts to have that consistent match!
- Does the domain name make sense? (i.e. stirsticks.org?)
On my site (www.258web.co) I took the vanity route because more or less my SEO is betting on the content I offer and the work I do. To be on the safe side I also own www.258webco.com and forward it to my real domain so if somebody has to try and find me by memory often times the natural error is to add .com to make it (www.258webco.com).
When picking your domain name you’ll likely find yourself at odds between getting those 1 or 2 keywords in there, while at the same time trying to brand your presence, while trying to keep it short as possible, and most importantly available or affordable! Let keyword research bring you to a natural conclusion.
Remember last year when JCPenney.com gambled on black hat SEO their domain wasn’t an exact match for any of the other terms they wanted to rank for. But of course you don’t want to do black hat unless you’re a major corporation with stockholders that has no other choice.
Keywords in Your URL
After your domain name each page on your site will have its own specific address (example.com/how-to-write-clean-urls).
Most often these days websites are built on some sort of platform like Wordpress or Drupal where you will have the option (usually turned on by default, but not always) that provides a clean URL based on the title of the page.
If your site has addresses like example.com/node/18 or example.com/page.php?id=503129886 you should contact your webmaster, SEO, computer guy and have them enable clean URLs and setup 301 redirects. This is its own post, but as much as I am against hiring external SEOs this would be one of those things where it’s best done right the first time.
Assuming that your URLs are coming out clean like the first example you can take the benefits and factors of the title tag as going hand-in-hand.
You Metadata: Title Tags, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, and ALT Tags
Metadata is basically information that you put into your code that most users will never explicitly see on your page, but rather in other ways. In all forms you a really dealing with a limited amount of useful space to plug your meta-information and per the theme of this post you can be sure keywords play a vital role.
Title Tag – Judging a Book By Its Cover
Your title tag acts as the title for the select piece of content that you’ve generated. If you’ve made a post, page, or event you’ve given that chapter if you will a title that appears in:
- The title that shows up in the search engine;
- The title that shows up in the browser tab;
- The title that shows up in social media shares;
- The bookmark if somebody made a bookmark of your page;
SEO has been exploited into an oblivion and the shakeout is still underway as the title tag of your website is really only second to that of your domain name as far as keyword placement goes. Your domain name is the one that succinctly lets the world know what your site/page is all about, but exact match domain names can be taken or very expensive so you next best bet is to run with an optimized title tag.
While there are open graph tags and what not that can alter your title here and there, most often the meta title that you select will be the one used for these different areas of exposure. But just to give you a brief forewarning if you’re using a content management system (CMS) like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, Moveable Type, and the like… The title that appears from your content CAN be separated from the title that comes through in these different avenues.
Unfortunately Google seems to place undue importance on the title tag but maybe because they figure that it’s typically one of the most upfront and visible signals you can deliver to a user as an indicator.
Meta Description For Click Through
When you do a search in Google and you see the summary text beneath each result that is known as the Meta Description. Sometime ago placing keywords in this area used to have a positive influence on your rankings but has since been more or less retired because too many people were stuffing their meta descriptions with keywords only for the sake of higher rankings.
The main purpose of applying keywords to your meta description is to plant what would be considered “trigger words” that would ensure that the content is relevant. Of course you have that 1 or 2 keyword terms so this is the place to put it into context as a preview to the content. The meta description should be written for human readers not search engines.
ALT Tags: Information For Those Without Eyes
When you post video, audio, and images to your website there are two groups that can’t really appreciate them for what they are (using images for this explanation):
- Search Engines
- Blind Internet Users
A common comparison that is drawn by SEOs is that search engines are a lot like blind internet users who have to use screen readers (program that reads the content of the page out loud). The reason being is that the structure of the code is what dictates what order each block of content appears, but also that blind users and search engines can’t read pictures.
Pictures give the content added meaning so in order to shed light on what would otherwise be empty space, the ALT steps in to play the role of meta keywords that tell blind user and search engine what the image (video or audio) is.
Now to optimize these tags you need to add these sorts of non-text blocks of content to your page in the first place. The way search engines weigh appropriate ALT tags verse spammed ALT tags is by comparing the tags to the content immediately surrounding that ALT tagged block of content.
Here’s a short list to illustrate the proximity:
- Images are placed within content, so the content above and below counts (same can be said for Video, Audio, Flash, and cool interactive JavaScripts);
- Images often times are presented along with a caption;
- Videos and Audio can also be followed by a transcript which plays to the visitors’ preference of whether they’re a reader, watcher, or would rather not read and such listen. Plus you get that additional text content that can be indexed.
So being mindful of why these pieces of content are included, making sure it isn’t overly long, and that you aren’t blatantly stuffing keywords for the sake of stuffing keywords because the ALT text is also what shows up when that content fails to load or if you hover your mouse cursor above an image for a few seconds.
Tying Keywords Together In the Grand Scheme of Things
It’s important to be aware of the fact that you’re writing for humans and for search engines, but many make the mistake of writing simply for the search engines. In the world of SEO there’s a lot of changes being made, but links are still the name of the game, making sure that your page content is optimized is simply a prerequisite to get all the points you deserve.
Search engines rank on an algorithm so you want to make sure that consistency helps the equation do what it does, but I can’t stress enough that what will really pay off is quality content that is the perfect result to a search query. Keyword research identifies these opportunities for you to be the one that fulfills a need because internet searches are in essence motivated searches seeking some sort of relief.
Keyword Research is best developed through experience and getting used to a certain workflow, if you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comment section below! :)