Module 2 – What Do You Want to Rank For?
Step-by-step, this module will help you figure out what keywords to rank for. You'll first be looking at it from a broader perspective - Who are my customers? What is my niche? What do I sell? What is my unique point of differentiation? And then you'll take a more focused perspective - What problem does this specific product solve for my ideal customer? How would they search for an answer to this problem on Google? What problems am I uniquely qualified to help people solve? Why do people like me, my brand, my products?
⦁ Lesson 1: Who Do You Want to Attract?
⦁ Lesson 2: Learn How to Use Keywords Effectively
⦁ Lesson 3: Brainstorm Seed Keywords Related to Your Business
⦁ Lesson 4: Get Focused - Narrow Down Your Keywords
Lesson 1: Who Do You Want to Attract?
Before you can start brainstorming keywords to attract your target audience, you need to define your ideal customer.
If you already have an ideal customer profile (ICP), refer to that. Expand the ICP based on the specific product or service you are promoting and the business goals you have established for your SEO strategy.
For example, if you want to 'sell 200 units of product x', then dig deeper into your ICP to see which segment of your audience would buy that specific product and why.
Or, if you want to 'increase web traffic to your blog by 20%', look at your ICP and expand your research on your audience's problems and pain points. What topics would they be interested in? What kind of content could solve part of their problem and naturally lead them to a future purchase?
Keeping in mind the business goals you established for your SEO, further research your audience and ask yourself the following questions:
⦁ How do they search online?
⦁ What language do they use to search?
⦁ What are their unique pain points and problems?
⦁ How are you (or your product, service, lead magnet) uniquely qualified to solve their problems?
⦁ What skill or solution could move them beyond their current situation and prime them to purchase from you in the future?
There are two ways for you to gather intel on your ideal customers: direct or indirect research.
Indirect Data Collection
Indirect data is all the information you can gather about your target audience without communicating with them directly. Some ways you can research your target indirectly:
⦁ Research your followers on social media. Examine profiles of your top commenters and those who 'like' most of your posts. Look at some demographic information (location, education level, marital status etc.) and psychographic information (values, pain points, passions).
⦁ Check out the competition. Look at the social media pages of your competition or companies that offer a similar product or service. See who their customers are and identify their needs.
⦁ Review your web analytics. Monitor who is visiting your site, what pages they go to, where they are coming from. What kept them engaged and where did they bounce?
Direct Data Collection
Direct data is generated from direct interactions with your audience. Some ways you can directly research your audience, include:
⦁ Surveys or polls. Post surveys or polls on IG stories or Facebook. Find out how they found you, what content they are interested in, what unique problems did you, or your product, solve for them.
⦁ Interview people who could potentially be your ideal customer. Don't have enough followers yet? No problem. Interview people who would potentially be interested in your product or service. This could be friends, associates, followers on your personal accounts.
⦁ Focus groups. Instead of one-on-one interviews, conduct a focus group on Zoom to find out what makes your current or potential customers tick.
For either method of data collection, always keep in mind solutions and content as they relate to online searches and research. Focus on how people will find you.
Key Takeaways:
⦁ Before you can start brainstorming keywords, you need to define your ideal customer to understand how they search.
⦁ Build your ideal customer profile through indirect and direct research. Always keep in mind your business goals for SEO and how people will find you.
Action Steps:
⦁ Refer to your three SMART overall business goals for your SEO strategy and write them down. Keeping these goals top of mind, further research your target audience, creating an ideal customer profile for your SEO efforts. Use indirect and direct research methods to answer some or all of the following questions
⦁ How do they search online?
⦁ What language do they use when searching?
⦁ What are their unique pain points and problems?
⦁ How are you (or your product, service, lead magnet) uniquely qualified to solve their problems?
⦁ What skill or solution could move them beyond their current situation and prime them to purchase from you in the future?
⦁ Any other questions specific to your SEO strategy and goals that will help you come up with your keyword phrases.
Lesson 2: Learn How to Use Keywords Effectively
Keywords and SEO have changed significantly over the years. In the past, people focused on loading their content with keywords, often sacrificing readability and flow. They would settle on a word, or a couple of disjointed words, and then add these everywhere, resulting in something like:
"If you are looking for an Anyville career coach, then Dr. Coach is the only career coach in Anyville you need. For all of your Anyville career coaching needs, Dr. Coach is your top Anyville career coach."
As discussed earlier, with the rise of large websites 'owning' all the best keywords related to most industries, this kind of keyword placement is not only annoying, it's futile.
It is also no longer the way people search for things on Google. In the past, we would type in disjointed words, trying to keep the search engine chit chat to a minimum. Only necessary words, and don't ever type 'the' or 'and'.
With the rise of digital assistants like Alexa and Siri, people started using their voice to conduct searches. This soon crossed over into voice searches on Google or more 'conversational' typed searches. For example, people used to search 'Pizza restaurant Boston' and now they search 'What's the best pizza place near me?'.
This change in how searches are conducted has affected keywords too. The vast majority of online searches fall into the category of 'long-tail' keywords. Searchers now tend to enter four or more words when searching for content on the internet.
But long-tail isn't a reference to the number of words in the search phrase, instead, it comes from its position on the 'search demand' curve. If we plot all search queries that people have performed in Google in the course of a month and order them by their search volume, it'll look somewhat like this:
Search Demand Curve Low
⦁ Short-tail keywords: a select number of very popular general keywords with a high search volume
⦁ Mid-tail keywords: lots of search queries, with keywords that are more specific, with a decent monthly search volume
⦁ Long-tail keywords: billions of search queries (basically, any combination of words you can think of), very specific keywords, with very few monthly searches
Long-tail keywords are search queries that are longer and more specific. They get a smaller number of searches per month but usually have a higher conversion rate versus short-tail keywords, due to their specificity.
For example, the keyword "digital marketing", which, according to Ubersuggest gets 60,500 searches a month, is a short-tail keyword.
If you get more specific, and search "digital marketing services" this is a mid-tail keyword, with 5,400 searches a month.
Finally, if you search "free digital marketing plan template in Word", it only gets 50 searches a month and is therefore a long-tail keyword.
Keyword Intent
But it's not just about what people are entering in search engines (content). Another important element to consider is why people enter the keywords they do (intent). Understanding the intent behind people's searches can help you increase traffic and attract qualified leads.
The Four Types of Searches
Using the example of a career coaching business that targets creative freelancers, let's take a look at the four types of searches:
⦁ Informational - people are looking for an answer to a question (this will mostly apply to your blog content)
"time management tips for freelancers"
⦁ Navigational - people are looking for a specific website (this will include branded keywords, i.e. terms that include your brand name)
"Jane Doe coach for creative freelancers"
⦁ Commercial - people are researching brands or services (this will also include branded keywords and keywords related to your offerings)
"Group coaching for creative freelancers"
⦁ Transactional - people are trying to make a purchase (keywords usually used for paid advertising – so not relevant to this particular course but something you should research in the future)
"Reviews of top freelancer coach in [city]"
Understanding people's intent will help you choose keywords for different pages of your website. For example, in your blog, you'll incorporate informational keywords. On your services page, you'll use a commercial keyword phrase that incorporates branded keywords and those related to your offerings.
Each page, no matter what the intent, should have one keyword phrase associated with it.
For this course, choose 5-7 pages that you will optimize. Typically, people start with their Home page, About page, Services or Products page (depending on the type of business you have), and a few blog posts.
Key Takeaways:
⦁ The vast majority of online searches fall into the category of long-tail keywords – very specific, 4-5-word phrases that have a low search volume.
⦁ Understanding the intent behind people's searches can help you increase traffic and attract qualified leads. The four types of searches are informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional.
Action Steps:
1. Later on, you will research keywords using online tools, but for now, quickly write down some ideas based on your firsthand knowledge of your business, brand, product/service, and audience
⦁ 5 short-tail keywords related to your business
⦁ 5 mid-tail keywords related to your business
⦁ 5 long-tail keywords related to your business
Don't do extensive research at this point, go with your gut. You will return to your answers later in the course to see if your answers match up with the research.
⦁ Start filling in your Keyword Planner by choosing 5-7 key pages on your website that you will work on during this course. Then identify the search intent for each of these pages. For example, Blog Post X – informational; About Us page – commercial.
Lesson 3: Brainstorm Seed Keywords Related to Your Business
Now that you have defined your ICP, and understand a bit more about keyword structure, placement, and intent, it's time to brainstorm seed keyword ideas.
What is a Seed Keyword?
A seed keyword is a short-tail keyword, usually one or two words. As you learned in the previous lesson, short-tail keywords have high monthly search volumes and are very competitive.
Seed keywords will provide the basis (and inspiration) for your long-tail keywords. They will allow you to generate long-tail keywords that contain the original seed keyword. So, when you optimize for your long-tail keywords, you will automatically optimize it for the seed word, too.
For example, let's say you run a digital marketing services agency. One of your seed keywords will be "digital marketing". An example of a long-tail keyword that describes one of your services and contains a seed word relevant to your business is "digital marketing strategy development" or "digital marketing strategy template".
If you optimize a page for "digital marketing strategy development", Google will view this page as relevant for the long-tail keyword, as well as the seed keyword "digital marketing".
It is important to keep in mind that, although you are brainstorming keywords, Google places more weight on topical relevance, not so much the individual keywords. Google's algorithms have advanced far beyond keyword stuffing.
This doesn't mean that keywords are unnecessary, it just means that you also need the content to back them up. Your content has to actually address the question or problem that the person is searching for and provide valuable, relevant information, or better yet, a solution in the form of a product or service. Otherwise, they will click away and go somewhere else.
Your primary focus of your SEO strategy will be long-tail keywords, but before you jump right into longer keyword phrases, lay the foundation with seed keywords related to your business and build on them.
Generate Seed Keywords
Think about words related to your product, service, and/or business:
⦁ What industry are you in?
⦁ How would people search for your product/service/business if they wanted to find your website?
⦁ What problems does your product/service solve?
⦁ How would people describe your product or service? How have they described it in the past?
⦁ What are you known for? What is your business or brand known for?
Use tools like Google Search Console to see which search queries bring up your site and pages and how often people click through for those terms.
Also take time to look at your social media pages. What kind of questions do people ask (either in the comments or via DM)? What content is most popular? What seed keywords are related to these questions and content?
The purpose of this lesson isn't to come up with your final list of keywords. Right now, keep it incredibly broad. For example, if you were a dentist, at this stage you wouldn't jump to a specialty service you provide (safe, effective mercury filling removal) or a problem unique to your prospective clients (are my mercury fillings making me sick?). Start with the basics and build from there:
⦁ Dentist
⦁ Holistic Dentist
⦁ Filling removal
⦁ Mercury fillings
⦁ Toxic fillings
Key Takeaways:
⦁ A seed keyword is a short-tail keyword, usually one or two words. They have high a monthly search volume and are very competitive
⦁ Seed keywords should provide the foundation for your long-tail keywords, so that when you optimize for long-tail keywords, you will automatically optimize for the seed keyword, too
⦁ Keyword stuffing doesn't work: Google places more weight on topical relevance, not so much the individual keywords
Action Steps:
⦁ Brainstorm the seed keywords that will provide the foundation for your long-tail keywords by answering these questions:
⦁ What industry are you in?
⦁ How would people search for your product/service/business if they wanted to find your website?
⦁ What problems does your product/service solve?
⦁ How would people describe your product or service? How have they described it in the past?
⦁ What are you known for? What is your business or brand known for?
Lesson 4: Get Focused - Narrow Down Your Keywords
You have brainstormed seed keyword ideas related to your product, service, and business. Now it's time to get specific. Build long-tail keywords based on a select few seed keywords that are most likely to drive your target audience to specific pages, and your site overall.
Keep in mind the previous lessons when choosing your keywords:
⦁ Keyword intent: What people are searching for and where they should be directed e.g., Home (navigational keyword); Landing page (commercial keyword); Blog posts (informational keywords)
⦁ Search volume: the demand, how many times the keyword is searched
⦁ Keyword difficulty: ranking difficulty of a keyword rated between 0-100
The ideal keyword or keyword phrase is one that has high search volume without too much competition.
Tools to Help You Conduct Keyword Research
There are a number of online tools that can help you conduct keyword research. These tools will let you know if the keyword phrases you come up with will generate audience interest and keep them on your site.
Google Trends
Google Trends takes data from Google searches and provides users with helpful information about potential keywords and keyword phrases. You can find information all the way back to 2004 right up to the last 36 hours.
Google Trends is a free tool that can help you with keyword research in a variety of ways. You can get information on keyword search volume, identify seasonal trends, avoid 'trendy' keywords with time-limited popularity, find similar queries that will outrank the competition, and more.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest can help you generate keyword ideas. By simply entering the keyword/keyword phrase in the search window, you will learn about the keyword's search volume, SEO difficulty, and if, in the future, you want to try a paid Google ad strategy, Ubersuggest estimates the average cost per click. Limit your searches or upgrade to a paid membership – you only get three free searches per day.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is another free tool from Google that helps you keep tabs on your website's presence in their search results and troubleshoot if necessary.
Other valuable resources include AnswerThePublic, ideal for brainstorming informational keywords; Mangools Kwfinder; Keywords Everywhere, a great paid browser add-on for Firefox or Chrome, and free Chrome Extensions including Keyword Surfer and LiveKeyword by BiQ.
Key Takeaways:
⦁ The ideal keyword or keyword phrase is one that has high search volume without too much competition.
⦁ There are a number of online tools that can help you conduct keyword research.
Action Steps:
⦁ In your Keyword Planner, write down the seed keyword you identified for each of your pages.
⦁ Take the seed keywords and potential long-tail keywords you brainstormed in previous lessons and conduct keyword research and discovery using some of the suggested tools, plugins, or add-ons suggested in this lesson.
⦁ Once you have completed your keyword research and decided on a long-tail keyword phrase to rank for on each page, write it down in your Keyword Planner.
Go to Module 3
Step-by-step, this module will help you figure out what keywords to rank for. You'll first be looking at it from a broader perspective - Who are my customers? What is my niche? What do I sell? What is my unique point of differentiation? And then you'll take a more focused perspective - What problem does this specific product solve for my ideal customer? How would they search for an answer to this problem on Google? What problems am I uniquely qualified to help people solve? Why do people like me, my brand, my products?
⦁ Lesson 1: Who Do You Want to Attract?
⦁ Lesson 2: Learn How to Use Keywords Effectively
⦁ Lesson 3: Brainstorm Seed Keywords Related to Your Business
⦁ Lesson 4: Get Focused - Narrow Down Your Keywords
Lesson 1: Who Do You Want to Attract?
Before you can start brainstorming keywords to attract your target audience, you need to define your ideal customer.
If you already have an ideal customer profile (ICP), refer to that. Expand the ICP based on the specific product or service you are promoting and the business goals you have established for your SEO strategy.
For example, if you want to 'sell 200 units of product x', then dig deeper into your ICP to see which segment of your audience would buy that specific product and why.
Or, if you want to 'increase web traffic to your blog by 20%', look at your ICP and expand your research on your audience's problems and pain points. What topics would they be interested in? What kind of content could solve part of their problem and naturally lead them to a future purchase?
Keeping in mind the business goals you established for your SEO, further research your audience and ask yourself the following questions:
⦁ How do they search online?
⦁ What language do they use to search?
⦁ What are their unique pain points and problems?
⦁ How are you (or your product, service, lead magnet) uniquely qualified to solve their problems?
⦁ What skill or solution could move them beyond their current situation and prime them to purchase from you in the future?
There are two ways for you to gather intel on your ideal customers: direct or indirect research.
Indirect Data Collection
Indirect data is all the information you can gather about your target audience without communicating with them directly. Some ways you can research your target indirectly:
⦁ Research your followers on social media. Examine profiles of your top commenters and those who 'like' most of your posts. Look at some demographic information (location, education level, marital status etc.) and psychographic information (values, pain points, passions).
⦁ Check out the competition. Look at the social media pages of your competition or companies that offer a similar product or service. See who their customers are and identify their needs.
⦁ Review your web analytics. Monitor who is visiting your site, what pages they go to, where they are coming from. What kept them engaged and where did they bounce?
Direct Data Collection
Direct data is generated from direct interactions with your audience. Some ways you can directly research your audience, include:
⦁ Surveys or polls. Post surveys or polls on IG stories or Facebook. Find out how they found you, what content they are interested in, what unique problems did you, or your product, solve for them.
⦁ Interview people who could potentially be your ideal customer. Don't have enough followers yet? No problem. Interview people who would potentially be interested in your product or service. This could be friends, associates, followers on your personal accounts.
⦁ Focus groups. Instead of one-on-one interviews, conduct a focus group on Zoom to find out what makes your current or potential customers tick.
For either method of data collection, always keep in mind solutions and content as they relate to online searches and research. Focus on how people will find you.
Key Takeaways:
⦁ Before you can start brainstorming keywords, you need to define your ideal customer to understand how they search.
⦁ Build your ideal customer profile through indirect and direct research. Always keep in mind your business goals for SEO and how people will find you.
Action Steps:
⦁ Refer to your three SMART overall business goals for your SEO strategy and write them down. Keeping these goals top of mind, further research your target audience, creating an ideal customer profile for your SEO efforts. Use indirect and direct research methods to answer some or all of the following questions
⦁ How do they search online?
⦁ What language do they use when searching?
⦁ What are their unique pain points and problems?
⦁ How are you (or your product, service, lead magnet) uniquely qualified to solve their problems?
⦁ What skill or solution could move them beyond their current situation and prime them to purchase from you in the future?
⦁ Any other questions specific to your SEO strategy and goals that will help you come up with your keyword phrases.
Lesson 2: Learn How to Use Keywords Effectively
Keywords and SEO have changed significantly over the years. In the past, people focused on loading their content with keywords, often sacrificing readability and flow. They would settle on a word, or a couple of disjointed words, and then add these everywhere, resulting in something like:
"If you are looking for an Anyville career coach, then Dr. Coach is the only career coach in Anyville you need. For all of your Anyville career coaching needs, Dr. Coach is your top Anyville career coach."
As discussed earlier, with the rise of large websites 'owning' all the best keywords related to most industries, this kind of keyword placement is not only annoying, it's futile.
It is also no longer the way people search for things on Google. In the past, we would type in disjointed words, trying to keep the search engine chit chat to a minimum. Only necessary words, and don't ever type 'the' or 'and'.
With the rise of digital assistants like Alexa and Siri, people started using their voice to conduct searches. This soon crossed over into voice searches on Google or more 'conversational' typed searches. For example, people used to search 'Pizza restaurant Boston' and now they search 'What's the best pizza place near me?'.
This change in how searches are conducted has affected keywords too. The vast majority of online searches fall into the category of 'long-tail' keywords. Searchers now tend to enter four or more words when searching for content on the internet.
But long-tail isn't a reference to the number of words in the search phrase, instead, it comes from its position on the 'search demand' curve. If we plot all search queries that people have performed in Google in the course of a month and order them by their search volume, it'll look somewhat like this:
Search Demand Curve Low
⦁ Short-tail keywords: a select number of very popular general keywords with a high search volume
⦁ Mid-tail keywords: lots of search queries, with keywords that are more specific, with a decent monthly search volume
⦁ Long-tail keywords: billions of search queries (basically, any combination of words you can think of), very specific keywords, with very few monthly searches
Long-tail keywords are search queries that are longer and more specific. They get a smaller number of searches per month but usually have a higher conversion rate versus short-tail keywords, due to their specificity.
For example, the keyword "digital marketing", which, according to Ubersuggest gets 60,500 searches a month, is a short-tail keyword.
If you get more specific, and search "digital marketing services" this is a mid-tail keyword, with 5,400 searches a month.
Finally, if you search "free digital marketing plan template in Word", it only gets 50 searches a month and is therefore a long-tail keyword.
Keyword Intent
But it's not just about what people are entering in search engines (content). Another important element to consider is why people enter the keywords they do (intent). Understanding the intent behind people's searches can help you increase traffic and attract qualified leads.
The Four Types of Searches
Using the example of a career coaching business that targets creative freelancers, let's take a look at the four types of searches:
⦁ Informational - people are looking for an answer to a question (this will mostly apply to your blog content)
"time management tips for freelancers"
⦁ Navigational - people are looking for a specific website (this will include branded keywords, i.e. terms that include your brand name)
"Jane Doe coach for creative freelancers"
⦁ Commercial - people are researching brands or services (this will also include branded keywords and keywords related to your offerings)
"Group coaching for creative freelancers"
⦁ Transactional - people are trying to make a purchase (keywords usually used for paid advertising – so not relevant to this particular course but something you should research in the future)
"Reviews of top freelancer coach in [city]"
Understanding people's intent will help you choose keywords for different pages of your website. For example, in your blog, you'll incorporate informational keywords. On your services page, you'll use a commercial keyword phrase that incorporates branded keywords and those related to your offerings.
Each page, no matter what the intent, should have one keyword phrase associated with it.
For this course, choose 5-7 pages that you will optimize. Typically, people start with their Home page, About page, Services or Products page (depending on the type of business you have), and a few blog posts.
Key Takeaways:
⦁ The vast majority of online searches fall into the category of long-tail keywords – very specific, 4-5-word phrases that have a low search volume.
⦁ Understanding the intent behind people's searches can help you increase traffic and attract qualified leads. The four types of searches are informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional.
Action Steps:
1. Later on, you will research keywords using online tools, but for now, quickly write down some ideas based on your firsthand knowledge of your business, brand, product/service, and audience
⦁ 5 short-tail keywords related to your business
⦁ 5 mid-tail keywords related to your business
⦁ 5 long-tail keywords related to your business
Don't do extensive research at this point, go with your gut. You will return to your answers later in the course to see if your answers match up with the research.
⦁ Start filling in your Keyword Planner by choosing 5-7 key pages on your website that you will work on during this course. Then identify the search intent for each of these pages. For example, Blog Post X – informational; About Us page – commercial.
Lesson 3: Brainstorm Seed Keywords Related to Your Business
Now that you have defined your ICP, and understand a bit more about keyword structure, placement, and intent, it's time to brainstorm seed keyword ideas.
What is a Seed Keyword?
A seed keyword is a short-tail keyword, usually one or two words. As you learned in the previous lesson, short-tail keywords have high monthly search volumes and are very competitive.
Seed keywords will provide the basis (and inspiration) for your long-tail keywords. They will allow you to generate long-tail keywords that contain the original seed keyword. So, when you optimize for your long-tail keywords, you will automatically optimize it for the seed word, too.
For example, let's say you run a digital marketing services agency. One of your seed keywords will be "digital marketing". An example of a long-tail keyword that describes one of your services and contains a seed word relevant to your business is "digital marketing strategy development" or "digital marketing strategy template".
If you optimize a page for "digital marketing strategy development", Google will view this page as relevant for the long-tail keyword, as well as the seed keyword "digital marketing".
It is important to keep in mind that, although you are brainstorming keywords, Google places more weight on topical relevance, not so much the individual keywords. Google's algorithms have advanced far beyond keyword stuffing.
This doesn't mean that keywords are unnecessary, it just means that you also need the content to back them up. Your content has to actually address the question or problem that the person is searching for and provide valuable, relevant information, or better yet, a solution in the form of a product or service. Otherwise, they will click away and go somewhere else.
Your primary focus of your SEO strategy will be long-tail keywords, but before you jump right into longer keyword phrases, lay the foundation with seed keywords related to your business and build on them.
Generate Seed Keywords
Think about words related to your product, service, and/or business:
⦁ What industry are you in?
⦁ How would people search for your product/service/business if they wanted to find your website?
⦁ What problems does your product/service solve?
⦁ How would people describe your product or service? How have they described it in the past?
⦁ What are you known for? What is your business or brand known for?
Use tools like Google Search Console to see which search queries bring up your site and pages and how often people click through for those terms.
Also take time to look at your social media pages. What kind of questions do people ask (either in the comments or via DM)? What content is most popular? What seed keywords are related to these questions and content?
The purpose of this lesson isn't to come up with your final list of keywords. Right now, keep it incredibly broad. For example, if you were a dentist, at this stage you wouldn't jump to a specialty service you provide (safe, effective mercury filling removal) or a problem unique to your prospective clients (are my mercury fillings making me sick?). Start with the basics and build from there:
⦁ Dentist
⦁ Holistic Dentist
⦁ Filling removal
⦁ Mercury fillings
⦁ Toxic fillings
Key Takeaways:
⦁ A seed keyword is a short-tail keyword, usually one or two words. They have high a monthly search volume and are very competitive
⦁ Seed keywords should provide the foundation for your long-tail keywords, so that when you optimize for long-tail keywords, you will automatically optimize for the seed keyword, too
⦁ Keyword stuffing doesn't work: Google places more weight on topical relevance, not so much the individual keywords
Action Steps:
⦁ Brainstorm the seed keywords that will provide the foundation for your long-tail keywords by answering these questions:
⦁ What industry are you in?
⦁ How would people search for your product/service/business if they wanted to find your website?
⦁ What problems does your product/service solve?
⦁ How would people describe your product or service? How have they described it in the past?
⦁ What are you known for? What is your business or brand known for?
Lesson 4: Get Focused - Narrow Down Your Keywords
You have brainstormed seed keyword ideas related to your product, service, and business. Now it's time to get specific. Build long-tail keywords based on a select few seed keywords that are most likely to drive your target audience to specific pages, and your site overall.
Keep in mind the previous lessons when choosing your keywords:
⦁ Keyword intent: What people are searching for and where they should be directed e.g., Home (navigational keyword); Landing page (commercial keyword); Blog posts (informational keywords)
⦁ Search volume: the demand, how many times the keyword is searched
⦁ Keyword difficulty: ranking difficulty of a keyword rated between 0-100
The ideal keyword or keyword phrase is one that has high search volume without too much competition.
Tools to Help You Conduct Keyword Research
There are a number of online tools that can help you conduct keyword research. These tools will let you know if the keyword phrases you come up with will generate audience interest and keep them on your site.
Google Trends
Google Trends takes data from Google searches and provides users with helpful information about potential keywords and keyword phrases. You can find information all the way back to 2004 right up to the last 36 hours.
Google Trends is a free tool that can help you with keyword research in a variety of ways. You can get information on keyword search volume, identify seasonal trends, avoid 'trendy' keywords with time-limited popularity, find similar queries that will outrank the competition, and more.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest can help you generate keyword ideas. By simply entering the keyword/keyword phrase in the search window, you will learn about the keyword's search volume, SEO difficulty, and if, in the future, you want to try a paid Google ad strategy, Ubersuggest estimates the average cost per click. Limit your searches or upgrade to a paid membership – you only get three free searches per day.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is another free tool from Google that helps you keep tabs on your website's presence in their search results and troubleshoot if necessary.
Other valuable resources include AnswerThePublic, ideal for brainstorming informational keywords; Mangools Kwfinder; Keywords Everywhere, a great paid browser add-on for Firefox or Chrome, and free Chrome Extensions including Keyword Surfer and LiveKeyword by BiQ.
Key Takeaways:
⦁ The ideal keyword or keyword phrase is one that has high search volume without too much competition.
⦁ There are a number of online tools that can help you conduct keyword research.
Action Steps:
⦁ In your Keyword Planner, write down the seed keyword you identified for each of your pages.
⦁ Take the seed keywords and potential long-tail keywords you brainstormed in previous lessons and conduct keyword research and discovery using some of the suggested tools, plugins, or add-ons suggested in this lesson.
⦁ Once you have completed your keyword research and decided on a long-tail keyword phrase to rank for on each page, write it down in your Keyword Planner.
Go to Module 3
