How to Choose Keywords for SEO

You’re not the only website using certain targeted keywords out there. That’s another reason why it’s important that you know how to find the right keywords for SEO. Any particular keyword is probably in use by someone else on the most popular search engines and your job is to determine who that is, how they are using it, and the rankings of those businesses online using it in their content.

Knowing this information can give you an edge on your competitors by learning how those sites are implementing your same targeted keywords, their rankings, the level of authority in their content, and the length of time these competitors’ sites have been active online. Once you know this information you can create content that will help your website get noticed quicker and stand tall among your competition.

When you research SEO keywords, sharpening your focus on search intent helps in choosing keywords that cater to the reasons why certain users are searching online. These can be broken down into three types of searches: informational, commercial, and navigational.

Informational searches are those conducted by users who are researching a certain topic. Commercial searches are those conducted by users who are looking to make a purchase. Navigational searches are those conducted by users who are searching for another website or page.

Choosing keywords for your website should address all types of intent through high value content that users are going to want to read. Consider what your users may be seeking as you develop your keywords and that can be a very powerful method for driving traffic to your site.

Keywords may sound similar, but they can be positioned for better success depending on the intent of the search. For example: a search query like ‘low cost car insurance’ is very different from a search query like ‘car insurance laws by state’. The first is a commercial keyword phrase, the second would be considered an informational keyword phrase.

The goal is to create content that meets the needs of all three types of search intent as your keywords will target different pages that relate to specific search queries. As always, be sure that your content is unique and valuable, especially for pages ranking in informational search queries. Competition can be fierce, particularly for keywords that are targeted towards commercial and navigational searches.

Search engine rankings are extremely specific. Google, in particular, ranks content based on relevance to a user’s search intent. Therefore, the content on your site will only rank if a certain keyword is relevant to a user’s unique query. But the ranking determination doesn’t end there, your content must also meet Google’s high standards of value for that specific query. If they decide your content is the most valuable online, only then will your content rank for the keyword. If another site has a higher level of value, their content will rank higher instead.

The objective of SEO keyword research is to find the ideal keyword to drive traffic to your site. However, if you’ve chosen a keyword that gets you optimal search rankings but is rarely found in search queries then what’s the point? Monthly search volume refers to how often a particular keyword is employed in user queries during any given month.

This does not mean you should always choose the most popular keywords either. There is an important distinction between volume and popularity. The first is more important than the latter because of relevance. A popular keyword may not be relevant to your website or search intent and some keywords are just too popular, making them too competitive.

How and where you place SEO keywords inside your content matters. Remember, content is king and so it must be unique and informative but also well-written. But sometimes, certain keywords and phrases can be very difficult to incorporate into your content without committing grammatical errors. Optimizing SEO keywords for certain types of content can be a challenge as you want the material to sound authentic but you also want the keywords to rank properly.

You may not be able to fit a specific keyword or phrase into your content. Try to place that keyword inside of the image file name on your web page. You can still enjoy the benefit of favorable search engine rankings even if the user does not actually see the keyword on the page.

These keywords are helpful for companies to get their name in the public discourse. However, a company can have some difficulty ranking high in search engine results pages using their brand name. That could be due to the name sounding very generic or the name is used in other content that has ranked higher for a third party. Competitors may also be bidding on the same brand name for search queries. So use this type of keyword carefully when it relates to your own goods and services.