Keywords can make or break the online presence of a business. Choosing the right keywords helps drive organic traffic to the website, enhances its visibility and connects businesses to potential customers.
But how do you recognise which keywords are right for SEO? Well, you’ve come to the right place because in this blog post we discuss why keywords matter and explain how to generate SEO-friendly keywords.
What are keywords and why are they important?
When people look for something on search engines, they use certain words and phrases called keywords.
These keywords are the bridge that connects your content to the people who are searching for it.
Proper keyword selection can help you outrank competitors on search results and increase the chances of users clicking on your page.
This is because including relevant keywords in your content signals to Google that your content is related to the user's query.
Ranking well for specific keywords attracts a targeted audience interested in your subject matter and this organic, higher-quality traffic includes users who are more likely to convert into customers.
Now that we've established the importance of keywords, let's explore the process of selecting the right ones for your website.
How to choose the right keywords?
There is a lot of research that goes into finding the right keywords for your website but it’s worth it because it helps you create evergreen content that attracts constant organic search traffic.
Taking the time to understand your target audience and what they’re searching for will help set you up for SEO success and enhance your online visibility.
The main components included in the keyword research process are checking search demand, assessing business and traffic potential, matching searchers’ intent, determining ranking difficulty and generating seed keywords.
Come up with a list of seed keywords
To improve your website's visibility, use keyword research tools to discover what people are searching for in your niche. Simply enter a relevant topic related to your business, and the tool generates a list of relevant keyword ideas. These keywords, also known as seed keywords, are broad terms related to your niche that you could use in your content.
Check search demand
Keyword research tools can also show you the average monthly searches for each keyword. Higher search volume indicates more potential traffic. Targeting keywords with high search demand can help you reach a broader audience.
Assess traffic potential
Traffic potential is a more valuable metric than search volume because not all searches result in clicks and ultimately, the goal is to drive traffic to your site. To determine the traffic potential, it's best to examine the top-ranking pages and check the amount of traffic they receive. You can easily do this by utilising free SERP checker tools.
Identify keywords with business value
Choose keywords and topics that have value to your business. Topics where you can naturally recommend your products hold the highest business value. For example, if you’re selling home workout equipment then the keyword ‘home workout tips’ has strong business value because you can offer a solution and pitch your products naturally without seeming pushy.
Match searchers’ intent
Search intent is the reason why people conduct an online search and it’s usually one of three - they either want to learn something, buy something or find a specific website. When choosing keywords to target, you should only opt for keywords for which you’re able to produce content that aligns with the searchers’ intent. For example, if people are searching for the keyword ‘how to work out at home’ then they’re looking to learn so to rank for this keyword you’d need to create a blog post on this topic. If the intent is less obvious then it’s best to check search results to find out what type of content to produce for this specific keyword.
Determine ranking difficulty
Highly competitive keywords can be difficult to rank for, so it’s important to understand who you’ll be up against before you target a keyword. Most SEO tools give you a keyword difficulty score so you know how difficult it’s going to be to rank for specific keywords. Generally speaking, you should be competing with pages that are in the same domain rating range and are equally topically authoritative and relevant as your website.
If you want to know more about the right keywords for your site and how digital PR can help, please get in touch.