Keywords Give You Topics for Your Content<\/strong>. The topics of your pages or posts should be based on keywords. That allows you to have appropriate topics to write about, and ties the post together. It also helps you place keywords naturally in the text.<\/p>\n Keywords Help Your Audience Find What They\u2019re Looking For<\/strong>. Often, searchers who click into your site will skim the information presented. When they see the keywords that they searched for in prominent places (the first paragraph, headings, subheadings, etc.), they know they\u2019ve landed on the page they wanted.<\/p>\n Well-Chosen Keywords Help PPC Search Ad Campaigns<\/strong>. When you use the right keywords in your PPC ad campaigns, your ads will show up in relevant searches. You want your ads to appear in the right places, so finding relevant keywords is essential to the success of your ad campaign.<\/p>\n So, how can you find the keywords that work for SEO and PPC?<\/p>\n The first step in finding the right keywords is defining both who you\u2019re targeting, and what you want them to do.<\/p>\n What kind of people do you want to come to your site? Perhaps you\u2019re marketing a product or service that is specific to a certain type of person. Or, maybe your website is narrowed down to people from a certain location.<\/p>\n When you narrow down the people you\u2019re targeting, you\u2019ll also be narrowing down certain group-specific keywords. For example, if your audience is mainly based in the UK, you\u2019ll want to make sure your keywords include UK English spelling.<\/p>\n Also, it will be easier to find the type of speech that appeals to this group, thus giving your more narrowed keywords.<\/p>\n To define your keywords, you also want to keep in mind your goals. With PPC ad campaigns, think about the lead page you\u2019re promoting on search engines. What is the action that you want visitors to take? What part of the marketing funnel are you targeting with this campaign?<\/p>\n The same is true with on-page SEO. What is the goal of that particular page or post? How do you want visitors to convert? Finding your goals will help you define specific keywords that are appropriate for the conversion you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re building a list of appropriate keywords for your pages or PPC campaigns, there are a number of steps that you\u2019ll need to go through. Profitable keywords often include one or two main words that define the purpose of the page or business. Then, they join additional words to support primary keywords.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s see how we can find your primary keywords.<\/p>\n Look to your conversion goals above. If you\u2019re trying to get visitors to purchase a product or service, then a good place to start would be words that describe that product or service.<\/p>\n For example, if you\u2019re trying to sell hiking boots (or if you\u2019re referring sales as an affiliate<\/a>), then hiking boots would be a good primary keyword.<\/p>\n This same principle can apply to SEO within a blog post. What is the main topic of your post? Keywords such as budget travel, vegan food, Samsung tablets, etc., are all good places to start.<\/p>\n If your brand is already somewhat recognized across the internet, using brand keywords will draw people in to your business. Using these keywords with both SEO and PPC is good because it ensures that the people who are specifically searching for your business can find you!<\/p>\n Drawing in these kinds of visitors to your site is an excellent way to increase ROI. These searchers are already looking for your brand, which means they\u2019re probably at the very bottom of the marketing funnel. If they can find your website easily after searching for brand keywords, they are the more likely to make a purchase.<\/p>\n Of course, this method will only see ROI if your business name or brand is known to users. If your business is still somewhat unknown to readers, these brand keywords are not worthwhile.<\/p>\n If your business is based in a physical location, it is highly recommended to use location-based keywords. Including your country or region is a good start. However, you could even narrow these keywords down to your specific state, city, or neighborhood, if appropriate.<\/p>\n This makes it much easier for those searching in a specific area to find your business. Also, you\u2019ll be weeding out competition that is not in your area from search results, getting you closer to the top.<\/p>\n Even if your website or business is not tied to a physical location, you can still target certain areas with location-specific keywords.<\/p>\n For example, freelancers who work entirely online capitalize on the area where they live and include location-specific keywords. They might use location-specific keywords on their website, such as copywriter in Dallas, graphic designer in Washington, etc.<\/p>\n In this way, they\u2019re targeting a specific audience and will probably find it easier to rank well in search engines.<\/p>\n Now we\u2019ve discussed some ideas for your primary keywords. Once we have a seed list of potential keywords, we need to make sure that they are actually profitable.<\/p>\n Here are three free tools that I use to test and develop primary keywords.<\/p>\n This free tool is part of the Google AdWords program. However, it is useful whether you\u2019re looking for PPC keywords or SEO keywords. You will need to create an account, but you won\u2019t need to pay anything to use the tool.<\/p>\n The Google Keyword Planner<\/a> allows you type in the product or service that you\u2019re trying to sell (or market as an affiliate<\/a>), a landing page URL, and other keyword filters and targeting parameters. If you don\u2019t have a landing page set up, find a competing website and use that URL.<\/p>\n The Keyword Planner will then spit out an incredible list of keywords related to your topic. This gives you a great starting point for primary and secondary keywords, and also lets you see the search volume for each.<\/p>\n The key with using this free tool is finding keywords that have a mid-range search volume. While high search is good, it means high competition. On the other hand, keywords with a very low search volume may be easier to rank for, but they won\u2019t bring you much ROI. So, find keywords that seem to take the middle range for your topic.<\/p>\n Once you develop that list of primary and secondary keywords, it\u2019s time to test the trends.<\/p>\n This is an amazing and often-overlooked tool that I use regularly to find profitable keywords.<\/p>\n The primary use of this tool is to check the popularity over time of any given keyword. You can see seasonal drops in interest, daily interest points, or whether the keyword is increasing or decreasing in popularity over a long period of time. You can also target these results to a specific country or area.<\/p>\n Using this tool, you can take advantage of keywords that are rising in popularity, giving your site the SEO boost it needs to really take off!<\/p>\n Also, Google Trends<\/a> allows you to compare the popularity of different keywords. The graphics and charts are easy to understand, and allow you to see which of your keywords are more valuable.<\/p>\n After scrolling down, you\u2019ll also see specific areas of the world where this topic has greater popularity. Along with that, you\u2019ll see a chart of related keywords that are rising in popularity.<\/p>\n This keyword research tool gives you a fantastic overall view of the general online interest in your keywords, and shows you which keywords are truly valuable.<\/p>\n This is a browser plugin that I\u2019ve used recently. The Keywords Everywhere tool allows you to see the monthly search volume of any Google search that you do.<\/p>\n This is useful when researching topics and primary keywords, as it helps you to see how many searches are appearing on a regular basis with the keywords that you\u2019re interested in using.<\/p>\n Also, since this plugin works directly with Google searches, you\u2019ll be able to see which websites are currently ranking well for the keywords that you\u2019re searching, along with the search volume for those keywords.<\/p>\n After you\u2019ve found your primary and secondary keywords, it\u2019s time to turn them into long-tail keywords.<\/p>\n You probably have quite a few broad terms on your list of potential keywords. For example, we mentioned copywriter in Dallas, vegan food, etc. While these have already been narrowed slightly to your industry, they\u2019re still quite broad.<\/p>\n Long-tail keywords take those broad, primary keywords and narrow them down even more. It\u2019s as if you want those keywords to point directly to you.<\/p>\n Creating long-tail keywords is done by placing additional words in your keywords, sometimes up to four or five. For example, instead of using the broad keyword ‘vegan food’, we might try ‘vegan food for diabetics’, ‘vegan food list for beginners’, etc.<\/p>\n These longer keywords are great for SEO because they draw in more targeted traffic. The people who search for these terms are looking for something very specific. If your website ranks well, they\u2019ll be turning to you to find answers to their questions or solutions to their problems.<\/p>\n Also, these specific visitors are likely closer to the end of the marketing funnel than those searching for general terms. Thus, it\u2019s more likely that these visitors will turn into leads.<\/p>\n An additional benefit of long-tail keywords is that they are much easier to rank for than broader keywords. You\u2019ll find that the search volume is much lower, but so is the competition. That means you can rank better in search engine results pages and get more traffic to your website.<\/p>\n So now that we know why we need long-tail keywords, how do we find them? Here are even more free tools to find appropriate keywords.<\/p>\n Google itself is one of the best tools you can use to find long-tail keywords. There are several ways to use Google searches to find keywords that are more specific to your business or website.<\/p>\n First, at the end of every search results page you will find a box that suggests related search keywords. Within this box, you\u2019ll find long-tail keywords that are relevant to your topic.<\/p>\n For example, I searched \u2018vegan foods\u2019 and found these results suggested to me:<\/p>\n You can use these suggestions as ideas for long-tail keywords. Also, see those numbers on the side? That\u2019s another nifty feature of the Keywords Everywhere tool I mentioned above. It tells you the search volume on these suggested keywords as well!<\/p>\n Another way to use Google searches to find long-tail keywords are the suggestions that come up when you start typing into the search bar.<\/p>\n Since many searches are questions, try starting your query with a question word. You\u2019ll get all kinds of long-tail keyword suggestions in the form of questions. These long-tail keywords are fantastic for blog post SEO.<\/p>\n Latent semantic indexing, or LSI, keywords are important to consider when collecting relevant keywords. Both in SEO and PPC, LSI keywords are essential to completing the package. (Could we fit more abbreviations into that sentence?)<\/p>\n Basically, these are keywords that use synonymous or very related words to the ones you\u2019re already using. So, for example, used clothing would have LSI keywords like secondhand clothing, pre-worn clothing, etc.<\/p>\n Using synonyms to find LSI keywords is very important when doing keyword research. Why? Because you may find that an LSI keyword has better search volume than your main keyword.<\/p>\n Using our example above, imagine that you\u2019re trying to rank for used clothing. You could put a lot of effort into optimizing your pages for that keyword, only to find out later that secondhand clothing was actually a more profitable keyword to use.<\/p>\n By searching for synonyms and LSI keywords beforehand, you can check to see which have better search volume results.<\/p>\n A fantastic tool that I use is LSI Graph<\/a>, which automatically generates LSI keywords from your main keyword.<\/p>\n Even if you don\u2019t find LSI keywords that are more valuable, keep a list of these related keywords for future reference. We\u2019ll talk more about what to do with them below.<\/p>\n By now, you probably have a rather long list of keywords that you are ready to use. So how can you use these keywords to your advantage?<\/p>\n Let\u2019s discuss keyword usage for both SEO and PPC, and see how to get the most out of these worthy keywords.<\/p>\n Before you start trying to rank for an individual keyword, it\u2019s good to check the competition. I always do this before starting a new blog post.<\/p>\n If you want to rank well in search engines, your post or page must be better than the competition. So check out what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n When you search for your main long-tail keyword, what websites come up first? What kind of posts do you find? How extensive is the information?<\/p>\n For example, let\u2019s say I want to write a post about the best vegan food substitutes. When I search my long-tail keyword, I\u2019ll skim through the first few results to check out the competition. Are the articles well put together? Do they answer the question or provide a solution to a problem? Is the information comprehensive? Are there grammatical or spelling errors?<\/p>\n Remember, on page SEO is not just about keywords. It takes into account the value of the content itself for readers. So if the competition’s content is lacking in value, you can make your post or page better.<\/p>\n We all know this point, but it\u2019s amazing how much we need to emphasize it. When you stuff keywords unnaturally into sentences where they don\u2019t fit, this is not good for SEO. You may trick the search engine bots for a while, but soon they\u2019ll find that your content isn\u2019t actually valuable to readers.<\/p>\n Balancing keywords with actual content value is the key to maintaining a good SEO strategy. So, find places within your sentences where the keywords fit naturally. If your keywords really fit into the topic that you\u2019re discussing, this should be easy enough to do.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important to make sure your keywords are truly relevant to the topic. When you do this, you know people are finding your website from the right search terms, and it\u2019s easier to place keywords in your posts and pages.<\/p>\n Remember that list of LSI keywords I told you to keep above? This is where it becomes useful. When the search engine bots crawl your site, there are certain things that they want to see. It starts with your main keywords, which lead to the correct understanding of what your site is about.<\/p>\n However, once these bots find your main keywords, they also want to see contextual or LSI keywords within your posts. These semantically-related words are relevant to the topic, and thus the bots know that they should be present in your post.<\/p>\n When bots find posts and pages that contain main keywords supported by LSI keywords, your website will earn a better ranking.<\/p>\n These three areas are very important for SEO. When search engine bots find your main keywords in these places, it will give your ranking a huge boost.<\/p>\n Headlines<\/strong>. Your headlines need to capture the essence of your post. If you\u2019ve chosen keywords that capture the main ideas you want to convey, then it should be fairly easy to craft an attractive headline out of them. Along with boosting SEO, this will help readers to understand better what the post is about.<\/p>\n Metadata<\/strong>. Title tags and meta descriptions are good places<\/a> to insert your main keywords. Your meta description is the content that appears under the headline when your post shows up in a search query. It looks a little bit like this:<\/p>\n As you can see, below the title of the page you\u2019ll see the URL, and then a short description of what is on the page. A well-written meta description helps searchers to know what your site is about, and thus highly affects your click-through rate. When your click-through rate improves, your site\u2019s ranking will also improve.<\/p>\nDefine Your Audience and Your Goals<\/h2>\n
Your Audience<\/h3>\n
Conversion Goals<\/h3>\n
Finding Primary Keywords<\/h2>\n
Keywords that Describe Your Product or Service<\/h3>\n
Brand Keywords<\/h3>\n
Location Keywords<\/h3>\n
Free Tools to Research Primary and Secondary Keywords<\/h2>\n
1. Google Keyword Planner<\/h3>\n
2. Google Trends<\/h3>\n
3. Keywords Everywhere<\/h3>\n
What are Long-Tail Keywords?<\/h2>\n
How to Find Long-Tail Keywords<\/h2>\n
Google Search<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Googlesuggest.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nLSI Keywords and Synonyms<\/h3>\n
Using Your Keywords<\/h2>\n
On Page SEO Usage<\/h3>\n
\u00b7 Check the Competition<\/h4>\n
\u00b7 Place, Don\u2019t Stuff<\/h4>\n
\u00b7 Include Contextual Keywords<\/h4>\n
\u00b7 Keywords in Headlines, Metadata, and Media Alt Tags<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/metadescriptioninsearch.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPPC Usage<\/h3>\n
\u00b7 Mid-Tail Keyword Success<\/h4>\n