12/11/2019
Even though the digital landscape of SEO and content marketing is changing rapidly, keywords still play an important role in optimising your blogs for search engines. Keeping that in mind, there’s some steps to follow and keyword tools you should use in order to maximise the potential of your blog content.
Keywords are topics and ideas that define the nature of your blogs. In SEO terms, they are the words that users enter to make search queries on Google and other search engines. As a business owner and content creator, you want all of your keywords on your website to be relevant to your products or services, and what people are searching for, so they have a better chance of finding you.
Keywords are important because they are the foundation between what users are searching for and the answers you are providing them to answer their questions. Your goal of ranking on Google and other search engines is to drive organic traffic to your website, and the keywords you use (together with other factors) will determine your position and what volume of traffic you will get. For example, if you run your own coffee shop in Hoxton, you might want to rank for “coffee shops in East London” which would be your focus keyword.
Keyword research is a core SEO activity that involves identifying popular keywords and key phrases that users search for. It gives marketers an understanding of how high the demand is for keywords, so they can compete for them in organic search results. However, it isn’t just about identifying and analysing how many searches a keyword has, it’s about exploring what ways people use different language and search terms to research a topic. As such, keyword research doesn’t just form part of effective SEO; it’s also a major element of effective blogging. This is because it can help you find the topic for your next blog post, gain a better understanding of the needs of your target market and stay up to date with the ever-changing digital landscape. Ultimately, by researching the words people search for and using the research to create targeted blog content, you can drive the right traffic to your website.
Keyword research is by no means just a one-off task. The foundations of your website is built on keywords and keyphrases, so what building blocks you use need maintenance. Search language constantly changes, new keywords form all the time, and your target markets’ needs grow and develop. This means that keyword research is a task that is worth doing whenever you are creating new content. This includes writing a new blog post, when you are deciding on whether to promote a particular service or product or if you are looking into getting a new website. By assessing the ways in which people search and by identifying not just the most popular queries but also the specific and changing ways that people search for content within your chosen industry, you can continue to create blogs that your target market will engage with.
Search intent is now one of the most influential factors that affect your ability to rank well on Google. Today, it’s a lot more important that your blog pages address the problem that a searcher intended to solve through a search query rather than just using a keyword(s) to get them to your blog. So, how does search intent affect keyword research? Well, because the intent behind a search query is so important to your ranking potential, you need to be careful when including the keywords, you want to target. For example, let’s say you are researching the phrase “how to write a blog” for a blog you want to create. The word “Blog” could mean a blogger’s website or an actual blog post, and what a user’s search intent behind that keyword influence the direction of your blog. Does the user want to learn about launching a website for the purpose of writing blogs? Or, do they want to learn how to write an engaging blog post? If your content and SEO strategy is only targeting one of the questions, you will need to make sure the intent of the keyword before you commit to using it. An easy way to verify what a user’s search intent is when entering a keyword is by simply entering the keyword into Google yourself to see what comes up.
There are many keyword tools that marketers use to understand what users are searching for. Popular tools such as SEMrush and Ahrefs provide average monthly search volumes as well as keyword suggestions. These keyword tools are able to access much more data than individual businesses have at their disposal.
SEMrush is an all-in-one digital marketing platform which has a myriad of tools that can help users improve their keyword research. Experimenting and researching different keywords can be extremely time-consuming but using a platform like SEMrush can make the process a lot quicker and easier.
Ahrefs is one of the most popular SEO and content marketing analysis tools used for URL ranking, SEO audit reports, backlink analysis, competitive analysis and much more. Apart from the SEO backlink analysis tool that Ahrefs is well known for in the digital marketing arena, it is also great for keyword research and analysis.
Google Keyword Planner is a free keyword research tool that must form part of your blogging arsenal. When you enter a keyword (or a group of keywords), you will be shown related keyword suggestions along with key SEO data about them, including search volume, competition levels and cost-per-click (CPC).
Ubersuggest is a free keyword research tool that was purchased by Neil Patel as an experiment. The leading digital marketer wanted to see if he could scale his business without content marketing, but instead by offering free tools. It has many different features that can help you with keyword ideas, data, and analysing your competitors. It’s a brilliant tool to have in your digital marketing arsenal, even if you are already paying for other premium tools.
You should concentrate your blog content on your ideal target market and attempt to solve their challenges. The easiest way of doing this is by considering their user personas. What is their biggest problem? How do your products or services offer them a solution? What solutions would they consider? Once you have the answers to them questions, eventually you will be able to create blogs and position your content as a solution. By considering user persona, you will be able to develop and implement a blogging strategy that covers topics that your target market truly care about. However, it’s important to note that you should never stop doing your keyword research and analysis. It’s an important activity to identify what topics are trending in your specific industry and gain inspiration for future blog posts. However, don’t just write a blog post because a certain topic is trending though. Instead, you should think about how the topic can be spun to create content that is relevant to your business objectives.
While it might seem tempting to stuff keywords into your blog posts, this can be a lot less helpful than you think. From a reader’s perspective, having the same word repeated in quick succession can negatively affect the experience. Not only can it make your blog content less interesting, but also disruptive. For example, if you are reading a book and see the word “marketing” 20 times on a single page, you’d have serious questions over the writing proficiency of the author. That’s why it is important to do keyword research. To optimise your blog posts and find the right balance of keywords, it doesn’t matter how many times you include keyword them as long as there are different terms that match the context of your focus keyword.
At Revive, we write captivating blogs to empower our clients’ SEO and overall digital marketing efforts. If you would like to find out how we can help you with your blogging strategy, then please get in touch with our expert team. Call us on 01702 619 139 or visit our contact page today!
