As the search engine evolves and keeps launching new algorithms, the world of SEO growing more complex than ever. One vital element of a successful SEO campaign is to have effective keywords for your content.
Keyword optimization is done to create a solid strategy and get your web page to show up right in front of the target audience. That is why you need to take some action in making your keywords more relevant to what people search for.
In this article, we would like to give you some tips to optimize your keywords successfully
What Is Keyword Optimization?
Keyword optimization is an effort to make your keyword list more relevant to searchers’ intent so that it can rank high on the SERP. The main goal of keyword optimization is to make the target keyword effective enough to get potential traffic. That is why the keyword should be clear enough for search engines to read.
As users type different terms to search for the same thing and Google keep evolving on reading it, your keyword should appear on the scene for all related terms. When you optimize the keywords following this evolution, then It increases your potential to catch wider queries.
How to Do Keyword Optimization?
The search engine algorithm changes constantly and is more effective in displaying the search results. This demands you to have a more rigorous optimization. Below are some tips you can take to have a successful keyword optimization
Understand the User's Search Intent
The first thing you have to do is understand users' search intent through their keywords. You have to admit that the user's search intent is the reason behind the search. If you cannot serve the right content regarding their intent, then the search engines will not serve your content. It is that important so you have to learn all intent.
Try to understand which keywords belong to these common search intents:
Informational: used to learn more about something. For example, "what is..." "how to..."
Navigational: used when users want to go to a specific page such as "login", "quora", etc.
Transactional: used when users want to purchase something or to complete a specific action.
Commercial: use for research before making a purchase. For example, "the best meat shop"
Those four intents have different types of content. Make sure you serve the right content for your targetted keywords. If not, it will be hard for your site to rank on the SERP since Google tends to show the most relevant results only for users. No matter how good your content is, if it is not fit the searcher's intent it will not rank.
Mapping the Keywords Based on the Stages
The stage we meant is the buying journey of the readers. Every stage of the reader’s journey needs a different type of keywords and content, so, you cannot make it one-for-all content if you want an optimized approach.
Not all your visitors start their buying journey with ease, you need to help them to find what they want through your content. The keywords should guide them to the right content for your website. Here is the buying journey.
Awareness: at this stage, the readers are trying to find a solution to their problem. commonly, the intent of the keywords is information such as "what tool suits my SEO needs" or other informational types of keywords. To map out this keyword, you need to create content that answers general questions related to your product or service. Tell the reader that you can be the solution.
Consideration: in this stage, the audience is looking for a specific solution and evaluating the options you served. Use keywords that represent your value to build trust and convince them that you are the right solution.
Decision: It is clear that in this final stage, users want to make a purchase, so the keywords used are commercial ones. You can create high-quality content that can capture those commercial keywords.
Find Keywords that Suit Your Site
The above action could not be done if you don’t perform comprehensive keyword research beforehand. In this matter, you have to understand that keyword optimization should include deep research for better results.
Understand the keyword metrics and analyze the data deeply. You will need a helping tool to carry out this SEO task on a regular basis. Use Sequence Stats to automate the keyword research activity for your SEO project.
Sequence Stats keyword research feature contains two modules, keyword suggestions, and keyword ideas. The keyword suggestion is available for free and provided by the system based on your tracked keyword using Sequence.
While Keyword Ideas provide more complete data for your keyword research such as the search volume, the difficulty, and the competition. You can then add it to the keyword rank tracker to monitor its performance daily.
Picture 1: Keyword Suggestion
Picture 2: Keyword Ideas page
Audit The Keyword Use
The last tip on keyword optimization is to audit the keyword use in your content. Using the right amount of keywords in the right place will help the search engine to understand your content better. Here are some checkpoints where you need to place your keywords:
Title Tags: These directly tell Google and users what your page is about. Make sure it's unique and represents the whole content. The ideal length is between 50 to 60 characters containing keywords.
Meta Description: the short description between 70 to 160 characters is shown below your title on the SERP. Tell the readers the site's content with the targeted keyword.
URL: to have an ideal URL structure, it should be short and simple. You can use the keywords in the URL that tells the page's content.
Heading: Make sure your page has well-structured headings (H1, H2, H3, and so on). Putting your keywords on the headings shows content relevancy and Google will weigh it specially.
The whole content: audit the whole content whether it uses enough keywords or not. The content length should have enough keywords to avoid keyword stuffing that can be detected as spam. Check it using the word counter tool to know the keyword density.
Images: You might need images to enhance your content, so here you can put your keyword as well. Make sure the image title and the alt tag contain enough keywords to optimize it in the Google images.
Once you have audited the keyword used in the content, you can apply some content optimization to capture more chances to rank high on the search engine.
Wrapping Up
Those are the keyword optimization you can do to get a better rank on the SERP. Keyword optimization cannot go far from conducting careful keyword research. To do these rightfully. You can use Sequence Stats Keywords Research Tool as your all-in-one SEO tool.
Go register yourself and experience fast, data-driven keyword research with ease. Have a free trial!