Did you know that, on average, Google processes a mind-boggling 40,000 search queries per second? That translates to nearly 3.5 billion daily searches and 1.2 trillion searches yearly. Put simply, that’s a lot of search queries. As a result, many businesses do everything they can to appear on the first two pages when potential customers type in a keyword or search query related to them. Indeed, the only companies succeeding in this race to grab people’s attention are the ones that can master keyword optimization. By doing this, these organizations can stand out from their competition and monetize their website, too.
What is keyword optimization?
In a nutshell, keyword optimization refers to the process of improving the relevance of a specific search query within the content of a particular webpage. You do this so Google can rank your webpage high on the search engine result page (SERP). Search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo rank high on those web pages that look relevant and helpful. This article will teach you how to optimize existing and new content for a specific keyword.
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How do you pick the right keyword?
It is the most challenging step in the whole process. But if you get this step right, your content will rank high.
Here are some simple steps or tips that you can follow to cherry-pick the right keyword:
Focus keyword: Though you might think it’s best to concentrate on a single keyword for a webpage, bear in mind that Google and other search engines will also rank you high on different keywords for the same page if they find the content on a webpage is relevant to other search queries.
Volume: The next thing you should check is the volume of a keyword. So many tools can help you check the average monthly volume of a specific search query. You can use our search monetization tool to find this information. Some tools also offer other insights, such as the traffic potential, to help you decide which keyword might be more appropriate for your article.
Marketing funnel: Where does the keyword fit in the marketing funnel? Ask yourself this before going all-in on optimizing things according to certain search queries. Instead, check where the keyword fits in your marketing funnel. To see how they will bring value to your content, you should categorize these keywords. Some search queries are excellent for building awareness, while others assist potential customers in considering your product or services. There are, of course, even search queries that can help in decision-making – and then there are keywords that help with customer loyalty. Think things through carefully before you proceed.
Search difficulty: Some of the marketing tools help you as a marketer to identify keywords or search queries that can help you boost your ranking. To understand which keywords to use in your content, you should invest in them. Some of these tools will also provide a feature allowing you to check the search difficulty or keyword difficulty of a search query. If the score is high, it will make it difficult for your content to appear on a search engine’s top results. At the same time, if the score is low, your webpage has good potential to rank high if you build high-quality content.
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Understanding search intent
Search intent is the main reason a person uses a particular keyword on a search engine. To this extent, a person may type in a search query for various reasons. Their motives may range from researching something online to wanting to buy a product or a service, as well as looking for a specific website.
In keyword optimization, search intent is pivotal. This is because Google, like search engines, tries to match search queries with the content available on the internet so it can present the best results possible. After all, it’s their job to provide answers to search queries as quickly as possible.
As a result, website owners and publishers need to understand the search intent behind search phrases and build their content accordingly around those terms. To do so, however, you also need to gauge if a specific keyword adds much value to website content that’s already available. A non-e-commerce site, for example, may not fare well if they plan to incorporate a search query such as “children’s dresses.” This is because search engines only rank e-commerce websites with product pages that resonate with this phrase – hence, children’s dresses, as a key term, won’t help.
Build content around the search query
Google uses the “E-A-T” principle to rank a webpage in the search engine results page (SERP). E-A-T refers to a website’s “expertise,” “authority,” and “trustworthiness.” When considering whether a webpage should rank highly in search results, Google looks over these elements to display only high-quality web pages.
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Content type
Before you build content for a search query, you must check what content is showing up in the related search results and create content using the same format. This will ensure that a particular keyword has a high ranking.
Content type refers to the content that someone might search for online. Content types include articles or blog posts, product pages, landing pages, and/or category pages.
Make content easy to dissect and digest
So that people browsing online stay on your website—or even perform an action you’d like them to—you need to ensure your content is engaging and interesting.
Simple and straightforward
The first step is to examine whether your content is simple and easy to digest. Always remember: avoid using complex words and sentences difficult for searchers to understand. When you use too much industry jargon or complex phrases, people using Google and other engines will find it hard to know what you are trying to communicate. If things are too complicated, they may leave the website or end up not taking the action you want them to while on your web page.
Skimmable
People usually try to find answers to their questions quickly. So that searchers can find answers to their questions quickly, it is always best to use proper subheadings and summaries.
Use images
A picture is worth a thousand words, so if you want people to stay on your site longer, put some good pictures on your webpage. If a webpage contains only text and has no visuals, there’s a good chance the people visiting it might get bored.
On-page SEO helps
By now, the power of keyword optimization should be apparent, so here are some on-page SEO techniques you can incorporate that will boost your website’s performance.
Use keywords in different elements
Keyword optimization also requires integrating the search into several web page elements. From making sure it frequently appears in your content to including it in your URL and incorporating it in your title, using it at least once in your H2—not to mention the meta description!—these are all things to bear when fine-tuning your search engine presence.
Compelling meta descriptions
Don’t forget: in addition to integrating your key term into your meta description, the meta description itself has to be engaging so that people click through to your content when it turns up in search engines.
Featured snippets
Featured snippets also pique people’s interest. Haven’t you heard of them? You probably already know what they are. Simply put, snippets are small bits of content that search engines like Google use to answer specific search queries.
These valuable bits of information appear as a complete item within search engines so that people don’t have to visit web pages to find answers to their queries. Instead, search engines present the searchers with condensed answers and images on the search results page. Add a short code called schema markup to your website to enable this feature.
Conclusion
Every day, billions of searches take place on search engines. But just being online doesn’t mean your website will attract traffic. On the contrary, if website owners and publishers want their pages to achieve a high rank on search engines, they need to undertake keyword optimization.
As established, keyword optimization is the process that helps optimize a webpage for specific keywords or search phrases. When done correctly, it will help your webpage turn up at the top of people’s search results. Moreover, this article showed you how to achieve this, giving you some simple and easy tips to help your website get more traffic.
