In the world of search engines, there are keywords, which are essential tools for getting higher ranking positions. In this era, when even a five-year-old boy is able to perform a query in Google, it has become critical to be in the top 5 in the SERP, as it gives your website more clicks, and subsequently increases organic traffic. Website owners are permanently seeking ways to make their site more visible for users, and that is where keywords come in handy, as one of the most effective and widespread methods to raise visibility in the search.
By reading this informative guide, you will discover some ways to find keywords for a website, and how to use them in order to improve content creation for SEO using services such as SE Ranking. Thanks to keyword research, which is the process of analyzing the total scope of terms that people most frequently look for, you get a list of appropriate keywords specifically for your website. So, let’s take a closer look at how to find and use them.
Keywords: What Are They?
When someone wants to perform a query in Google, they type some words or phrases into a search bar, then search engines crawl all the websites that have such keywords and rank them according to Google algorithms.
- A keyword is a word or a phrase that 1) people put in search engines to find the required content; 2) informs search engines of what information your website provides.
If the content on your website includes the right keywords, it will be easier for Google to find a connection between a performed search query and the information you offer, your website will be ranked higher in the SERP, and more users of Google will turn into your visitors, which will definitely increase free organic traffic. This is an endless loop for SEOs that helps to increase page rankings, so it is obvious how important choosing the right keywords is!
The picture below shows how it is essential to use keywords not only within your content but also in the titles, meta tags, meta description, alt tags, etc. By doing so, you have much greater chances of your website being first in the SERP.
Keywords Metrics for Analysis
When conducting keyword research, the main metrics we get are search volume, keyword difficulty, and current rankings. Let’s examine each of them:
Search volume
A vital and widely used metric of the SE Ranking Keyword Tool is search volume, which tells us how many searches were made for certain keywords per month so you can figure out whether it is worth continuing to fill your content with them. Moreover, there is a possibility to obtain information about how the number of searches has changed during the last couple of months to obtain a complete picture of the metric.
Keyword difficulty
This metric shows how much effort you should make to rank first in the SERP by targeting some specific keywords. It depends on websites that have already placed in the top 10 for these keywords. The SE Ranking Keyword Tool will estimate the difficulty in a split second. Oftentimes, keywords used by websites with high domain authority will have the highest difficulty score.
Current rankings
Current rankings demonstrate how your target keywords increase or decrease in ranking. It is easy for you to analyze all the results and decide on what keywords are preferable at a given time using rank tracker by SE Ranking.
All these metrics can be given on the SE Ranking Platform that helps you research and track keywords and choose the most effective and widely searched ones.
Easy Steps of Finding Your Top Organic Keywords to Focus on
Finding keywords that will result in higher ranking positions and better traffic appears to be the main task entrusted to SEOs. Let’s think about how exactly we can reach that goal:
1. Make a list of potential keywords
To start with work on keyword research, you should make a list of potential keywords first. For this step, you are encouraged to use a special tool that automatically does it for you, for instance, Search Console. This tool shows the average ranking position for your targeted keywords.
Moreover, the result will show what your audience usually looks for and what keywords mainly drive traffic to your site. Only afterward is it possible to do further keyword research for better search engine optimization and improve the website’s content around those keywords?
In addition, the SE Ranking Keyword Suggestion Tool provides an opportunity to build a new keyword list from scratch after adding your project to SE Ranking, presenting you with data on the most important factors of keywords metrics such as search volume, competition, difficulty, etc. You can expand this list manually at any time, just by clicking on the project’s settings.
2. Analyze your keyword rankings in combination with target URLs
Upon adding a new project to SE Ranking, you can go to the Summary sections and get a full picture of the SEO including a keywords analysis. The data you will receive includes the number of pages that rank in the top 10 in various search engines and the whole scope of keywords the pages are ranked for, etc.
Moreover, it is possible to find out a website’s position for each keyword. To reduce the list of features and to opt for required ones, use filters. You can filter the ranking table by URLs and discover what keywords they are ranking for. In addition, set a chosen URL for a specific keyword to avoid several pages ranking for the same keywords and overshadowing each other.
3. Analyze added keywords to find the most promising ones
With the help of SE Ranking, you are able to track main metrics all the time including search volume, traffic forecast, competition, SERP features, etc. Thanks to SE Ranking, you will always be aware of how many searches your chosen keywords have per month, how strong your competitors are in various search engines, what the predicted traffic is according to those keywords, and any other data you need.
It is important to track all these metrics so that you know exactly which keywords greatly affect the ranking position and which ones are not worth using in the content of your website. Thus, your SEO will be at the highest level.
4. Determine relevant pages
Setting URLs for specific keywords greatly facilitates the process of on-page optimization and, in turn, makes a specific page more visible to users. You just need to choose the right keywords for the exact page on your website and fill the content with them.
Using the SE Ranking platform, setting URLs for specific keywords turns into a much more automated and easier process. Just hover over a keyword in the ranking table; once the list of additional options appears, you should click on the “Target URL” and put the target URL into the gap.
There is a possibility to choose several keywords for a particular page. In this case, you should select several keywords from the list in the ranking table by ticking and then click on the Target URL button above the table.
5. Group keywords by clusters
The first step to more efficient management of work is to bucket similar keywords into groups. There are two options to do this using the SE Ranking Platform:
- Create a new group and add keywords by manually entering them in a row or pasting them in a column from any text editor.
- Add keywords from the ranking table ticking the words or phrases you want to group together, then click on the Add To Folder button above the table and choose a group you want to add them to.
Discovering the main search intents that bring a visitor to your website will help you to organize all of the keywords by groups, and then you can attribute a group to a specific page so that it will be easier for you to manage the on-page SEO.
6. Find weak spots of targeted keywords to improve rankings
Knowing all your weak spots of targeted keywords opens up the possibility of correcting them and improving the general situation. It provides you with the full picture of what to pay attention to, what to change, and so on. So, how to find them?
Firstly, you should check your content for the relevance of chosen keywords to user intent whether the content entirely fulfills user needs; whether it is concise and informative enough so as not to waste users’ time; and, of course, whether the right targeted keywords are used in a natural way so that the content is not overstuffed with them.
Secondly, you should analyze the top 3 pages that Google offers to users when they type your selected keywords. Look through the content of those pages and try to guess why Google has chosen them for the highest-ranking positions, how they use keywords throughout the text, how they organize the content, and why they stand out among others. Pay the most attention to the keywords!
Finally, the most common weak spot occurs when there is keyword cannibalization, which is when the same keywords are repeated various times throughout the content and it negatively affects the ranking position. When this happens, Google does not perceive your page as informative and high-quality.
7. Tracking progress
By working hard on improvements in the on-page SEO, we seek to know how things are going. Thanks to the keyword rank tracker by SE Ranking, we are able to monitor any changes in ranking that appear over days, months, etc…
Historical Data gives you a possibility to compare the results of keyword research that was made, for example, two weeks ago and now. Thus, using the rank tracking tool, you will see the dynamic, which you can comment on by adding notes to all the changes.
Conclusion
Simply put, keywords are the words or phrases that people type into a search engine when they’re looking for something related to your business. When it comes to SEO, picking the right keywords is essential; if your site isn’t optimized around the right phrases, you’ll be buried in search results pages and miss out on valuable traffic.
A few easy steps to find the right keywords for your content were mentioned above. They can greatly come in handy in improving content creation for search engine optimization and increasing your ranking position in SERP. So, use every step we have mentioned above, and you will make sure that finding the right keywords is not a problem anymore when you know how to determine them correctly.