All about Keywords

We live in a generation where, if your business doesn't shows up on the first page of Google, then you are gone Man!

So, How does Google rank a website?

Google has crawlers, which crawls over your website and indexes the keywords you are using in. From this context you get an idea of what a keyword is.

Yes, Keywords are strategic words which helps to target your website’s content, and lure customers straight to your content/website, it also satisfies Search Engines which look up on Keywords to Index.

So,

• Keywords target your customers and engage them
• Keywords engage with search engine to rank better.

Then comes this question, How do you choose your keywords?

KEYWORD RESEARCH

Keyword research lies in better understanding your target market and how they are searching for your content, services, or products.

Keyword research provides you with specific search data that can help you answer questions like:

• What are people searching for?
• How many people are searching for it?
• In what format do they want that information?

Before getting into keyword Research, we must know about the nature of the business, who are their customers, what do they actually look far, how are their competitors performing? Too many people tend to ignore this step because it takes and time why spend the time when you already know what you want to rank for?

But, the answer is that what you want to rank for and what your audience actually wants are often two different things. Focusing on your audience and then using keyword data to get those insights will make successful campaigns than focusing on general keywords.

What terms people look for?

You have a way of describing your business, but what does your customer search for is the deal in the business now. Here, begins the process of exploring keywords.

DISCOVERING KEYWORDS

Start by brainstorming, you are likely to have few keywords in your mind into which your business are actually in. Start from those, collect a set of relevant keywords and enter those keywords in a keywords research tool. (Google Keywords, UberSuggests are quite famous keyword planners). These tools will throw out lot of keywords based on millions of searches over internet. It comes up with pile of keywords listing from highly searched to low volume keywords. Both high- and low-competition keywords can be good for your website, learning more about search volume can help you gain strategic advantage.

UNCOVERING SEARCH VOLUME

The higher the search volume for a given keyword , the more work needs to be done to achieve higher rankings. Big brands often take up the top 10 results for high-volume keywords, so if you’re just starting out on the web and you go after the same high volume keywords, you may take years to get ranked better.Go too low, though, and you risk not drawing any searchers to your site. In most cases, it may be advantageous to target highly specific, lower competition search terms. We call those as long-tail keywords. Strategically, you must have combination of both high and low volume keywords understanding to the context of the business.

UNDERSTANDING THE LONG TAIL

This is a favorite example of my Professor. Look keywords are general like pizza, book, beer, pub and these words may have millions of searches. But do they get converted into any transaction? Simply, No. The conversion rate is too less. Long tail keywords are keywords which are more specific in nature ex. Women Red Running shoe, Men black wallet, Unisex Gyms. They are more contextual in nature and has more probability of getting converted. Long Tail keywords expresses the buyer's intention in closing a deal. So, try to get hold the various long tail keywords in search and add up to your content.

KEYWORDS BY COMPETITORS

Know your competitors and get to know the keywords they are using in. Prioritizing high-volume keywords that your competitors are not currently ranking for could be a good idea and you could also see which keywords from your list your competitors are already ranking for and prioritize those. The first strategy could be great when you want to take advantage of your competitors missed opportunities, while the second one is an aggressive strategy that sets you up could be competing for keywords that your competitors are using already and performing well for.

Keywords on Searcher's Intent

Informational queries: The searcher needs information, such as the name of a hotel or the the products of an company.

 Navigational queries: The searcher wants to go to a particular place on the Internet, such as Facebook or the homepage of the NFL.(Gmail-login, Linkedin-Careers)

Transactional queries: The searcher wants to do something, such as buy a mobile or watch a movie.

Comparitive investigation: The searcher wants to compare products and find the best one for their specific needs. (Compare iphoneX vs iphone Xs)

Google changes its SEO algorithm almost 500-600 times per year. So, there is no specific strategy for Keyword planning. You should be watching out the space constantly and update yours to stay relevant.

Credits to Moz for their insightful article, https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research

Check this out, for more detailed study about Keyword research.