Introduction
Keywords are the most essential part of search engine optimization. If you want your website to rank on Google, you must ensure it has the right keywords in place. This article will help you identify a long list of powerful keywords for your website so that you can start ranking on Google and other search engines as soon as possible!
Keyword Research Tools
There are many keyword research tools available to help you get started. This section reviews some of the most popular ones and explains how they work.
- Google Keyword Planner: This free tool is available in AdWords and allows you to search for keywords with high search volume and low competition (meaning there aren’t too many other people bidding on those terms). You can also see which keywords have been used recently by others who advertise with Google AdWords campaigns.
- Google Trends: This tool lets you see what types of searches are trending at any given time or location based on recent trends worldwide! It helps find out if there is any recent buzz surrounding specific topics so that you know whether or not it would be worthwhile to research them further before deciding which ones might make sense as good topics for your site(s).
Long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are specific search terms with lower search volume than broad ones. They’re more specific, easier to rank for, more likely to convert, and easier to rank for.
Long-tail keywords are the most important thing you can do on your site.
Keyword difficulty
- Keyword difficulty is how hard it is to rank for a keyword.
- How do you find keyword difficulty? There are a few ways, but the most important thing is to use the right tool for the job. Google’s Keyword Planner, SEMRush, and Ahrefs are all excellent options that will give you some insight into how hard it’ll be to rank for your chosen keywords.
- What’s a good keyword difficulty score? That depends on your industry and what kind of traffic/conversions you’re looking for. Anything under 40% is generally considered low difficulty (and therefore easier), while anything above 55% would be considered high difficulty (and therefore harder). The sweet spot tends to fall somewhere around 50%.
- How does keyword difficulty affect rankings? If there’s too much competition surrounding one specific term or phrase, then Google may ignore it because they think no one would want search results explicitly related to those words anyway! However, if there isn’t enough competition within those same parameters, then there might not be any reason why someone wouldn’t click through–so keep this balance in mind while deciding which phrases best describe what exactly needs doing next time.”
Search volume
Next, you’ll want to determine how many people search for a keyword. This will help you identify keywords with enough traffic potential but aren’t so competitive that they’ll be difficult to rank for.
There are two main ways of finding search volume: Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush (a paid tool). If you have an AdWords account, the Google Keyword Planner is built right into it, so there is no need to download anything extra! If not, then SEMrush has a free trial period where you can get started by creating an account and downloading their software onto your computer or mobile device (Android/iOS).
Competitor analysis
Competitor analysis is looking at your competitor’s websites to find out what keywords they are using, how they are using them, and how you can use them better.
You can do this by using a tool like SpyFu or SEMrush that will show you the keywords searched by each website in your industry. Just enter your competitor’s URL and see what comes up!
If you see that they have a lot of long-tail keywords (e.g., “how to build an online store” instead of just “online store”), then it means those long-tail phrases are getting traffic from people who don’t know exactly what they want yet but might be interested in learning more about building an online store once they’ve learned more about it from their search query results page (SERP).
Keyword optimization
Keyword optimization is using keywords to make your website more appealing to search engines. Keywords are essential to search engine optimization and should be used throughout your website.
Keyword stuffing is when you use too many keywords on one page or you unnaturally put them (for example: “Buy Cheap Shoes Online”). This will make Google think that the content on that page isn’t very useful for humans and won’t rank as highly for those searches (because Google wants to show people relevant results).
Keyword density
Keyword density is the percentage of times a word or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. For example, if you have an article with 1,000 words and there are 10 instances of your keyword in that article, it has a keyword density of 1%.
Keyword density is one factor that search engines use as part of their ranking algorithms for determining how well a site ranks in search engine results. A high keyword density can give you better visibility in organic searches because it shows that people want to read about what you’re writing about (and might even be searching for). But don’t overdo it–if you stuff too many keywords into your content just because they rank well now, those pages may no longer rank well later when Google adjusts its algorithm again!
The best way to determine what’s appropriate for any given piece is by looking at other similar pieces online: if most sites have 2%-10% keyword usage and yours falls outside this range (or looks like spam), then try adjusting accordingly.
Keyword mapping
Keyword mapping is creating a keyword matrix, essentially a list of all the keywords you want to target. The matrix should include columns for each keyword and rows for each page on your site.
This step aims to identify which pages on your site are most relevant for each keyword so that when Google crawls them, they’ll know exactly what they’re looking at and rank them accordingly. This will help boost your overall search engine rankings and individual pages’ rankings–it’s like getting two birds with one stone!
Keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing is when you repeat the same keyword over and over again. For example, if you’re trying to rank for “best weight loss diet” on Google, your headline might look something like this:
- Best Weight Loss Diet – The Only Way You’ll Ever Lose Weight!
- Best Weight Loss Diet – Your Complete Guide To Losing 5 Pounds In 10 Days!
In this case, we’ve stuffed two “weight loss” instances into our headlines (and one more in our subheadline). This isn’t necessarily bad practice if it’s done well–you don’t want your content to be downright boring! But keyword stuffing can quickly become spammy if done incorrectly or excessively. It also doesn’t help that Google has clarified that they’re no longer as focused on keywords as they used to be; instead, they prefer quality over quantity when determining which websites should appear first in search results.
