If SEO is the heart of an optimised website, the keywords are the arteries that supply the audience to boost the SEO mechanism.
Hence, choosing the right keywords is an important aspect of your SEO strategy, as it can increase your website’s visibility. Choosing the wrong keyword can lead to low traffic, wasted efforts, and missed opportunities. A strategic approach to keyword selection can help your website rise in the rankings and connect with the right audience, ultimately boosting conversions and business growth.
So, how do you find the right keyword for your business? Keep reading this blog to find your answer.
Steps to Choose the Right SEO Keywords for Your Website
Choosing the right keywords is one of the most critical aspects of a successful SEO strategy. The right keywords are the ones that cater to your audience and help you rank higher. Remember that keywords that are right for some other business won’t be right for your business and vice versa. Let’s dive into a detailed guide on how to choose the right keywords for your website:
1. Understand Your Audience
Before starting SEO keyword research, you need to understand your audience and what they are looking for. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and think about the questions they might ask, the problems they are trying to solve, and the type of content they are searching for. Once you understand your audience’s behaviour, you can brainstorm potential keywords based on these insights. To understand the user behaviour, consider factors like:
- What specific issues does your product or service address?
- What are the most common questions potential customers ask?
- How do they search for information related to your industry or niche?
2. Analyse Search Intent
Search intent or user intent refers to the user’s main goal when searching for a query. There are four types of keywords based on the search intent:
- Informational Keywords: These keywords provide information about users’ queries. If your website focuses on providing services, choose informational keywords that fit user queries. Some good examples of these keywords are ” How can I make my website SEO friendly?” or “What is digital marketing?”
- Navigational Keyword: These keywords convey the specific website/page the user is searching for, such as “Google login” or “Hubspots blog.” these keywords go well on description and tags and website’s title.
- Transactional Keyword: These keywords indicate that the user is ready to move to take action and buy the product. If the main aim of your website is to sell products, you should focus on transactional keywords. For example, “buy premium version of Ahref tool” or “best laptop deals.”
3. Use Free SEO Keyword Search Tools
Once you understand your audience’s needs, the next step is to find relevant and popular keywords. Earlier, this required a lot of research, but now we have a free SEO keyword search tool. These tools help you identify keywords that users are actively searching for. They also provide important metrics such as search volume and competition levels. Some of the popular free tools that we love using include:
- Google Keyword Planner: This tool provides data directly from Google, showing search volumes and competition for specific keywords. It’s an excellent tool if you want to discover new keywords related to your business.
- Ahref: Offers keyword ideas, search volume, and SEO difficulty ratings for each keyword, helping you find the best options.
- Moz: This tool helps you categorise, prioritise, and compare keywords and phrases to fine-tune your keyword strategy.
- Use AI-Powered Keyword Tools: AI-powered assistants can generate keyword clusters, analyze SERPs, and predict trends. Don’t just collect a list map keywords to your customer journey
To use the above-mentioned tools, you need only to enter a few words related to your business into the tool, which will generate a list of related keywords. These suggestions will expand your initial list and give you insights into the most relevant keywords for your site.
4. Analyse Keyword Competition
Your website cannot rank for all the keywords available. Keywords like short-tail keywords (e.g., “SEO” or “real estate”) are highly competitive, which means many websites are in the race to rank higher with these keywords. Competing with established websites can be challenging for new or smaller sites. Therefore, it’s important to analyse the competition level for each keyword before targeting it. Instead of focusing on short-tail keywords, you can focus on:
- Long-Tail Keywords: Long-tail keywords tend to have lower search volume but higher conversion rates because they target users with specific intent.
- Less competitive keywords: Low-competition keywords offer an opportunity for websites, especially new or smaller ones, to rank well on search engines. Since these keywords have less competition, it’s easy to rank higher with them.
5. Evaluate Search Volume and Conversion Potential
More traffic doesn’t necessarily mean more conversions. Even though high-search-volume keywords bring more traffic, it’s not always the best strategy. Instead of focusing solely on volume, prioritise keywords that are more likely to convert visitors into customers. Here are some examples that can be considered:
- Buyer-Intent Keywords: Keywords like “buy,” “best,” or “affordable” indicate a transactional search. These keywords often convert better than broad, informational queries.
- Relevant Traffic: Ensure the keywords you choose to bring in users who are genuinely interested in your products or services. Irrelevant traffic, even in large numbers, won’t contribute to your website’s success.
6. Organise and Group Your Keywords
Once the process of choosing the keywords is completed, it is organisation time. Group keywords according to the categories. These sets can later be targeted across different pages of your website. For instance, if you run a digital marketing agency, you can create keyword groups for various service categories such as “content creation,” “social media marketing,” and “SEO.” Each set can create focused, relevant content targeting the audience’s needs. This approach ensures that each page on your website is optimised for different keywords, improving your chances of ranking for a wider range of search terms.
7. Optimise Your SEO Content
Once the right keywords are selected and organised, the next step is to use them naturally in your SEO content. When you use the right keyword in the right content, the search engines recognise the relevance of your page with the user queries. This improves your website’s ranking and brings in more traffic. You can use the chosen keywords in:
- Page Titles and Headings: The highest ranking keyword, i.e., the primary keyword, has to be included in the page title and at least one heading, most preferably in the H1 tag.
- Meta Descriptions: You can use keywords in the meta description too. Keywords in meta descriptions improve click-through rates in search engine results.
- Body Text: The body text is the primary section where most of the keywords are added. This doesn’t mean you overstuff this section with keywords. The best practice is distributing the keywords evenly throughout the content. You must also ensure they fit naturally and maintain readability.
Types Of Keywords
There are different types of SEO keywords:
1. Short-Tail Keywords
Short-tail keywords include only one to two words. They are short, highly competitive, broad and most popular. For example, “keywords” or “SEO” are short-tail keywords. These keywords aren’t specific. Hence, they’re not enough to convert visitors into customers.
2. Long Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords usually include three or more words. They are more specific but less competitive. An example would be “SEO content calendar for beginners.” These keywords are more likely to lead to conversions as they target users with a clear intent.
3. Medium-Tail Keywords
Medium-tail keywords usually include three words. They are a combination of short-tail and long-tail keywords. They are moderately specific and less competitive. A good example would be “best SEO practices.” Even though these keywords are less competitive, they are more likely to improve conversions compared to long-tail keywords.
4. LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) Keywords
LSI keywords are related terms that add context to your primary keywords. These keywords are designed to help users and search engines to understand your SEO content. For instance, if your main keyword is “SEO,” LSI keywords might include “SEO fundamentals” or “content marketing.”
5. Branded Keywords
These keywords include the name of a specific brand or product. They are very specific, which makes them highly competitive. A great example of such a keyword is “free SemRush tools for SEO audit.”
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing SEO Keywords
Avoiding common mistakes that hurt the ranking and visibility of your websites is as important as choosing the right keywords for the success of your SEO strategy. We have listed down some of the common mistakes that could happen while selecting the keyword and tips on how you can avoid them:
1. Keyword Stuffing
When you overuse a keyword multiple times in the content in an attempt to rank it higher, it’s referred to as keyword stuffing. This is the most common mistake when creating content. This practice could work in the work, but now Google penalises such practice. It makes your content sound unnatural, harming the user experience and leading to lower rankings.
How to avoid it: Use keywords naturally and strategically. Incorporate the keywords naturally and strategically. When the audience goes through your content, it shouldn’t feel that the keywords have been used without any purpose. Rather than overstuffing keywords, you can focus on creating high-quality content that provides value to your readers.
2. Focusing Only on Short-Tail Keywords
Many businesses focus only on short-tail keywords because they’re highly competitive. Even though these keywords have search volumes, you cannot rely on them to rank higher. These keywords may attract visitors, but there’s no guarantee they will be converted to customers solely through them.
How to avoid it: The best solution to prevent such a mistake is to balance short-tail keywords with long-tail keywords. Together, they can attract audiences who are more likely to convert.
3. Ignoring Search Intent
Simply choosing a keyword without considering the intent of the user behind it can lead to traffic that is not relevant to your business. If the keywords in your content don’t match the user’s intent, visitors are likely to leave your website quickly. This is not healthy for your website as it increases your bounce rate and hurts your rankings.
How to avoid it: Always choose keywords that align with your audience’s goals. This can be done by analysing the search intent behind a keyword. Determine whether the user is looking for information (informational intent), a specific website (navigational intent), or is ready to make a purchase (transactional intent).
4. Ignoring Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are often more effective in attracting a targeted audience. Many businesses neglect long-tail keywords because they have lower search volumes. But that is not the case; these keywords actually drive higher-quality traffic and can be ranked easily.
How to avoid it: Use long-tail keywords in your SEO strategy. These keywords are more specific, reflect a clearer intent, and can help you capture your target audience.
5. Choosing Keywords That Are Too Competitive
High-competition keywords are often dominated by big brands that have large, established websites. This makes it difficult for smaller or newer sites to rank. You could struggle to gain visibility if you target highly competitive keywords without considering your site’s current authority and ranking potential.
How to avoid it: Assess the competitiveness of keywords using free SEO keyword search tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush. There should be a balance between search volume and competition. Focus on low-to-medium competition keywords, especially if your website is new.
6. Not Updating Your Keyword Strategy
You cannot follow the same keyword strategy every time, as keywords that were relevant months or years ago may no longer be effective. Since SEO trends keep changing, it becomes a necessity to change the keyword strategy, too. Updating the keyword strategy according to changing trends boosts your business’s visibility.
How to avoid it: Make use of SEO agency services, through which you can regularly audit your keyword strategy. SEO agencies use tools like Google Search Console to track which keywords are bringing traffic to your site. They also update your strategy based on performance data and industry changes.
7. Ignoring Local SEO
Local SEO keywords are important if you want to attract customers in your area. Without them, you may miss out on valuable local traffic.
How to avoid it: Include location-specific keywords in your strategy, especially if you operate a local business. For example, instead of targeting “SEO,” use “SEO in Dubai” or “best SEO agency near me.” Optimising for local SEO helps ensure your business appears in relevant local search results.
8. Targeting Irrelevant Keywords
Sometimes, businesses target keywords just for the sake of targeting them. These keywords may look like they’re relevant, but they don’t match the products or services provided. This can happen when you select keywords based solely on search volume or trends without considering the true nature of your business.
How to avoid it: Make sure that the keywords you choose directly relate to what you offer. Before choosing the keyword, always ask yourself whether the keywords align with what you’re providing and whether they’ll attract the right audience.
Conclusion
Choosing the right keywords isn’t a complicated process, but it requires you to understand your audience’s needs and organise the keywords accordingly. Following the steps above, you can choose the keywords to boost your website’s SEO and connect with your target audience. Additionally, utilising tools like free SEO keyword search will set you on the right path. In conclusion, the formula for choosing the right keyword is simple: Keyword potential(includes relevancy, competition, and search volume) x search intent = Winning keyword.