Keywords are essential for ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs). But what’s the best way to choose which words and phrases to use? How can you create a keyword strategy that will help you achieve your business goals?
In this blog, we’ll explore how to create a winning keyword strategy. We’ll discuss the importance of understanding your audience and using relevant keywords throughout your website and content. We’ll also provide some tips on tracking your progress and ensuring that your plan is working.
So if you’re ready to learn how to create a winning SEO keyword strategy, read on!
What Is an SEO Keyword Strategy?
What is a keyword strategy and why does it matter? A keyword strategy is a plan for choosing and using keywords throughout your website and content. It’s important to have a strategy because it can help you:
- Understand your audience’s needs and how they search for information
- Research and select relevant keywords
- Optimize your website and content for those keywords
- Monitor your progress and adjust your plan as needed
How To Develop a Keyword Strategy
You can’t just randomly pick keywords and use them everywhere on your website. That’s not going to help you rank or attract the right audience. Plus, you run the risk of cannibalizing your own keywords. Instead, you need to take a thoughtful and strategic approach to target keyword selection and use. Here are some tips to help you get started:
1. Define your goals.
What do you want to achieve with your website or blog? Are you looking to drive traffic to your site? Increase conversion rates? Rank higher on search engines? Once you know your goals, you can start to research and select relevant keywords.
2. Start keyword research.
There are a number of ways to do this, but some of the most effective include using keyword research tools like Google AdWords Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and Semrush. These tools can help you understand which keywords are most popular and how difficult they are to rank for.
3. Select relevant keywords.
After you’ve done your research, it’s time to select the ones that are most relevant to your business and create a list of keywords. Be sure to consider:
- The intent of the searcher: What are they trying to find?
- The competition: How hard will it be to rank for this keyword?
- The search volume: How many people are searching for this keyword?
4. Optimize your website and content.
Now it’s time to start optimizing your content using your list of keywords. This includes adding the keywords to your website’s title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, image tags, and throughout your website’s content.
5. Monitor your progress.
Tracking your strategy’s performance is essential to ensure that it’s working. Use Google Analytics and other tools to track your progress and make changes. These tools will help you measure traffic, conversion rates, and average position in SERPs.
6. Adjust your plan.
The results are not static, so you will want to keep an eye on your progress and adjust your keyword strategy from time to time, as needed. As you monitor your progress, you may find that you need to adjust your keyword strategy. This could include adding or removing keywords, changing your website’s optimization, or altering your content strategy.
7. Repeat what’s working.
If you find that certain keywords are working well for you, be sure to keep using them! Regularly monitoring and adjusting your keyword strategy is essential to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your SEO efforts.
Does your website need a fresh strategy? Get your free SEO audit from Markitors.
How To Monitor Wins and Losses
Once you’ve implemented your keyword strategy, it’s important to monitor your progress. This will help you determine whether your plan is working and make necessary adjustments. The elements that you watch out for when you conduct your initial research are typically the same metrics to track after you’ve set the plan in motion, such as:
- Traffic: Is organic search traffic to your website increasing?
- Rankings: Are you ranking higher in SERPs?
- Conversions: Are you seeing more conversions (sales, leads, etc.)?
If you’re not seeing the results you want, don’t hesitate to make changes to your keyword strategy. As we mentioned, your keyword strategy should be an ongoing process. This means that you should continuously review and update your plan.
5 Key Elements To Consider in Creating an SEO Keyword Strategy
We’ve discussed what it means to have a solid keyword strategy in place and why it’s important to track performance. The main metrics to consider to ensure success include:
1. Search intent
This is what the searcher is trying to accomplish with their search. There are four main types of search intent:
- Navigational: The user is looking for a specific website or page.
- Informational: The user is looking for information on a topic.
- Transactional: The user is looking to make a purchase.
- Commercial: The user is looking for a product or service to buy.
2. Keyword difficulty
This is how difficult it will be to rank for a particular keyword. If a keyword is too difficult, you may not be able to rank for it at all. On the other hand, if it’s too easy, you could find yourself buried on page 100 of the search results.
3. Search volume
Monthly search volume is the number of people searching for a particular keyword. The higher the search volume, the more people you’ll potentially reach with your content.
4. Competition
This is the number of other websites that are also trying to rank for the same keyword. If the competition is too high, it may be difficult to rank for the keyword, so you might want to take a different approach and use long-tail keywords or related keywords.
If competition is too low, there may not be enough people searching for the keyword, so you’re better off not using it in the meantime and targeting those that people type into search boxes.
5. Relevance
Are your keywords related to the products or services you offer? If you’re selling shoes, for example, you wouldn’t want to target the keyword “dresses.” If you’re a house cleaning service, you won’t want to mention pools and gardens in your content; otherwise, you might get calls from potential customers for services you don’t offer.
As your business grows and changes, so too will your keyword strategy. You can’t rest on your laurels in your SEO plan — you need to regularly review your keyword list and update it to ensure that it’s still relevant and can help achieve your desired results.
The Bottom Line
A keyword strategy is an essential part of any SEO plan. It helps you choose the right keywords to target, and it gives you guidance on how to optimize your website for those words and phrases. If you’re not sure where to start, contact Markitors for help in developing a keyword strategy that’s tailored to your business.
Markitors is a leading digital marketing agency for small businesses. We specialize in SEO, Pay-per-click (PPC), Social Media Marketing, Technical SEO, Digital PR, and more. If you’re looking for help with your keyword strategy or any other aspect of your digital marketing, talk to us.
Get your free SEO audit now, or schedule a free consultation.
