Keywords are highly specific words or phrases that pertain to your industry or niche. They are essential to successfully optimize your search campaigns for particular keywords and not just broad or popular terms that are difficult to rank for.
If you are new to the world of internet marketing, it can be challenging to predict the impact of a new search engine optimization campaign, or determine an attack plan for your industry niche. In this article, we will discuss a proven and tested attack plan — the process of incorporating keywords into a successful SEO campaign.
Step 1: Use a Keyword Research Tool
Before you get started, you need to discover your niche. Let’s say you’ve decided to build a website offering vegan-friendly “meat” products. Regardless of how knowledgeable you are about veganism, it can still be challenging to determine which keywords are going to prove profitable.
So, how exactly do you choose the right keywords for your business? We certainly don’t recommend guessing. Instead, keyword research tools will help you identify a wide range of potential keyword opportunities, including less obvious terms that could also drive traffic and sales.
There will also be times when you think you know which keywords to target, but fact-check your instincts. Don’t settle for one keyword research tool; use and test several before finalizing your choice. In general, you don’t want to target a keyword with low relative search volume if there’s an equivalent word or phrase that is much more popular. Although your primary concern includes choosing a keyword with good volume, avoid choosing one that puts you in a place where you have to compete with several other websites.
For instance, there are usually over twice as many searches for “vegan recipes” versus “vegan meals.” However, don’t always automatically go for the keyword with the highest volume. Some keywords are too competitive and not worth your time.
Another major factor to consider when searching for keywords is location-based searches. When people scour the internet for products or service providers, they usually include their location in the search. So, “vegan restaurants” becomes “vegan restaurants in Phoenix, Arizona.” So don’t hesitate to include your area, and don’t forget to list your business in local directories.
Step 2: Determine How Competitive Your Keywords Are
Keyword competition is the measure of how difficult it will be to rank for a particular word or phrase. Before using a keyword, conduct your research on Google and a few other search engines to see what your competition is already using. Pay particular attention to:
- The titles: How many websites on the first page are using the same keyword in their titles and meta tags?
- The domains and URLs: Does every URL in the top 10 include your targeted keyword?
- The type of content: Is the keyword used in articles, landing pages, or videos?
- The types of businesses: Are they massive brands or small businesses? (Take note of who you are competing with)
- Authoritative websites: You can use a plugin to examine a site’s age, the size of their link profiles, and so forth.
Remember, your goal is to look for ways to differentiate yourself from the competition. You need to exert double the amount of effort and study their moves. Ideally, you should be doing more and doing it so much better.
Step 3: Conceptualize the Content
Next, you need to determine what kind of content you’re going to create and incorporate your chosen keyword. There are many ways to rank for a keyword, including but not limited to:
- Articles
- Blog posts
- Landing pages
- Directory of links to other pages
- Infographic or images with alt texts
- Videos
A few things to keep in mind as you conceptualize the strategy behind your content are: how long will it take to create it? Who will create it? Will you be doing everything in-house or will you consider outsourcing? Do you have the resources to implement your content strategy? What about the budget? Make sure to plan every step and seek answers to every question that pops along the way.
Step 4: Execute and Hit Publish
Here’s when the rubber finally meets the road. Execute your plan. You should never rush any of these steps, but taking your time is particularly important during the execution stage. As time passes and search engines continue to grow more sophisticated, they prioritize high-quality content that benefits the search engine users — not keyword-stuffed spam or web pages plastered with ads. If you prefer to buy traffic than put in the effort to earn free, organic search traffic, Pay Per Click is another option to consider.
Step 5: Analyze
The work doesn’t end once you hit publish. You need to know if your efforts are bearing any fruit. The internet is a living medium, and it’s never too late improve your content optimization efforts. There are many means to check your keyword performance with either free rank checking tools or paid ones. If you’re still not ranking for the right keywords after a couple of weeks, you need to retrace your steps, see what you did wrong, and determine what you can improve on. Make sure that your content is optimized, high quality, and visible. Google Analytics is also an excellent tool to track any significant traffic changes.
This five-way step is the process we follow at PrimeView. We strive to help our clients rank for hundreds of keywords related to their niche. Whatever your business or industry is, you can make the same process work for you. So go ahead and get started!
Need help with SEO keyword usage?
Sometimes, it’s possible that the keyword you chose is too competitive and you need to scale back your ambition. If you need help targeting less competitive keywords until you’ve built up more authority, or need assistance in researching and adding keywords to your content, call us at 480-993-0907 or complete our online form.
