Use these timeless keyword research tips to get on the first page of Google
If you’re struggling with SEO at the moment then you’re in for a treat, because in this post I’ll be sharing 6 keyword research tips that will surely help you to boost your website rankings.
Quite frankly, I’m tired of seeing other marketers spreading nonsense like, “SEO is dead”, “SEO is too slow” or “if you want traffic then you need to pay for it.” Something is always dying or on life support in the world of internet marketing.
Baloney, it’s not because a couple of wannabee marketers fail miserably that something is dead. Trust me, SEO ain’t going anywhere as long as Google and Bing are around.
Getting ranked organically by optimizing your content with the right keywords remains one of the best ways of getting free traffic to your websites. It all boils down to finding good keywords.
Although the keyword research tips in this post are just the tip of the iceberg, don’t take them for granted, because they do matter. You can learn more about them by searching on Google or YouTube.
Most importantly, you must know what matters if you want to stand a chance of ranking your blog posts.
If you’re still in doubt whether you want to build an authority website or a micro niche website, then you might want to check out this post.
Anyway, lets crack on…here’s how to improve your Google rankings
Required Tools
Every marketer worth his salt will tell you how important it is to have a good keyword research tool. This tool will help you to understand what people are actually searching for.
Depending on the tool’s functions, you’ll be able to sort the keywords by search, word count, and so on. To mine for keywords that people are actively searching for, you must have a reliable keyword research tool.
Keyword research is not a guessing game, and the overused Google keyword planner yields limited results. If you’d like to see any profits from your website then you’ll need to invest in a decent keyword research tool.
Long Tail Pro, AHREFS and Jaaxy are among the most popular paid keyword tools on the market and they are used daily by thousands of online marketers.
Of course you can start out with free tools such as Ubersuggest and Answer Socrates. But keep in mind that free usually also equals severe limitations.
Keyword intent
Knowing what keyword intent is can help you determine whether or not to target it.
Some keywords are E-commerce keywords. If you did a Google search for them, all the results would be E-commerce websites. Even if you tried targeting your niche site for them, Google would not display you on the first page.
For example, if you searched for “Buy Puma Shoes,” you’d only get shoe retailers as results. This is a product specific keyword and ranking for it with a niche website is nearly impossible.
However, if you added a modifier and searched for “Best Puma Shoes,” you’d definitely get lots of review sites and niche sites as results.
It’s important to have a rough idea if the keywords are for products or people looking for free information. Don’t lose your time and energy focusing on the wrong keywords.
Long tail keywords
Long tail keywords contain at least 3 words. “Vegetarian recipes for budget conscious moms” would be a perfect example of a long tail keyword. You’d be found in the search results more easily if you wrote a blog post that targeted this keyword.
It would be next to impossible to get on the first page of Google if you went for a broad term like ‘Vegetarian recipes’. Don’t be put of by a keyword that only has 50 searches a month.
If you targeted 100 such keywords, that would be 5000 searches a month that your website gets ranked for. The key to get stellar results as a smaller marketer is to go for the low hanging fruit.
Sure, you’ll need to pick a lot more of this low hanging fruit, but as time goes by you’ll be rewarded with an avalanche of traffic.
Refrain from keyword stuffing
In the past you could easily rank your blog posts by stuffing your keyword multiple times in one paragraph. These days are long gone.
Nowadays Google will notice it immediately when your trying to rank by overusing the same keyword in your post.
Instead of ranking your post you’ll get a slap on the wrist and you’ll be lucky if they don’t condemn your whole website to the Google dungeons.
You need to modestly sprinkle your keyword and the variations of it throughout your post. Make a collection of similar keywords and use them in the same post.
To top things of, throw in a few LSI keywords as this will increase the relevancy of your post.
Use links sparingly
When you use links in your post, whether it be affiliate or regular links, avoid using the same anchor text for multiple links. One link for the keyword you’re targeting should be more than enough.
If you want to have another link you could use an anchor text such as ‘read more’, ‘click here’ or ‘more info’.
Your post should look like you’re not even trying to rank. Keep a low profile because the Google spiders are scrutinizing every single letter that goes onto your site.
Less is more. So remember, make sure you don’t do anything suspicious or try too hard to rank.
Look at your competition
Regardless what keyword tool you use, always return to Google search before targeting any keyword. What does that mean?
For example, if your keyword research tool suggests that the keyword ‘most energy efficient water kettle’ is a good one to target, don’t just follow it blindly and create a blog post around it. You’ll need to do some extra research.
Go to Google and type in the suggested keyword. Study the first 5 results that show up. What types of websites are they? Are they websites with a high domain authority? How long are the posts? How many times did they use the keyword?
These are all indicators of whether you have an opportunity to rank for the keyword that you’re targeting. After researching the competition, you can make a well informed decision and see if the juice is worth the squeeze.
You might want to install Keyword Surfer which is a free Chrome extension. Keyword surfer will help you gather useful information about your competitors such as traffic volume, word count and keyword count.
If you really want to kick it up a notch then you need to install the Moz Bar. Moz Bar will give you the domain authority, the page authority and the amount of back-links of your competitors websites.
To wrap things up, keyword research is one of the most mundane of tasks when building a niche site, but it’s probably the most important task if you wish to rank well.
Give it the time and respect it deserves, and when you get tons of free organic traffic from search results, you’ll be glad you took the time for proper keyword research.
Use these keyword research tips for every post on your niche site and I’m pretty sure you’ll get outstanding results. I wish you all the success.
