1. Use Google Trends to find topics that are widely searched.
As the leading search engine, Google provides tools for business owners and content creators to help with finding the best keywords. Google Trends is a free website that tracks trending topics online. If you’re wondering how to add keywords to a website, this is the first place to start.
- Open up Google Trends.
- Type in your industry. (Ex. plumbing)
- Click your state.
- Scroll down to “Related topics” and “Related queries.”
- Write down a few of the relevant queries. (Ex. emergency plumbers)
This is a great first step to determine what people are actually searching for when it comes to your industry.
2. Leverage tools to determine popular keyphrases.
Finding the best keywords and keyphrases involves strategy and data. If you’re trying to generate website traffic, there are hundreds of other similar sites that you must beat out in order to reach that sought after #1 slot. First, differentiate your list of keywords into two categories: educational and transactional. Educational keywords are used when a reader simply wants to learn more about a subject. For example, I might search for “how to re-pot an orchid.” I’m not looking for plant companies. I’m simply looking for a DIY article. On the flipside, transactional keywords indicate a user’s desire to connect with a product or service and take an action. For example, I might search for “plant stores in Little Rock, Arkansas.” This is very specific and indicates interest in taking action, in this case, going to a plant store. Transactional keywords are usually the best keywords for your site, as they are more likely to lead to conversions.
There are amazing, free tools out there that will help you research the best keywords and keyphrases for your list of topics that you found in Step 1.
- Ubersuggest – We use Ubersuggest all the time for keyword research.
- Open Ubersuggest.
- Type in your chosen topic.
- Scroll down to “Keyword Ideas.”
- Jot down the keywords that resonate with your business.
- Google Search – You can use Google search to analyze what keywords your competitors are using.
- Open Google.
- Type in a service or product.
- Look at the meta titles for the top results. (Can you spot the keywords?)
- Analyze the autofill suggestions as well. Google is basically telling you what people are searching for.
3. Analyze keyword competition and search volume.
In order to improve SEO and generate traffic, you need to focus on keywords with a high search volume and low competition. This means that a lot of people are searching for that keyphrase and there aren’t a ton of other businesses fighting for that keyword. Let’s go back to Ubersuggest. Under the “Keyword Ideas” section, you’ll see a chart of numbers. “Volume” is the number of searches for that keyword in one month. Higher numbers are best. “SD” stands for “SEO Difficulty,” which tells you what the competition is for that keyword. Ubersuggest even helps you by highlighting the keywords green, yellow, and red depending on the level of competition. Of course, you want to stick with the green keywords.
“Longtail” keywords are those keyphrases that are more than three words. This hones in on a specific target audience and reduces the competition. For example, “plumbers in Kansas City” is a longtail keyword. It is more specific than just saying “plumbers,” and it lowers the amount of competition. However, because you’re getting so detailed, you’ll also see the volume drop. It’s all about balance.
4. Determine best keyword placement on your website.
Now that you have your list of keywords and keyphrases, it’s time to add them into your website content. Google crawlers look for keywords that flow naturally into your content. Don’t fall into the trap of “keyword stuffing” to try and trick Google into ranking you higher. That will actually hurt your reputation with Google.
You can have multiple keywords for one page of your website, but we recommend having one “focus keyword” that gets the spotlight.
For the best keyword placement, include your focus keyword in your H1 and H2 tags and in the first 100 words of your content. This will help improve website rankings and generate more traffic. Try to include your focus keyword organically throughout your content at least three times.
5. Write quality content on every page to improve SEO.
SEO and keywords help bring visitors to your site, so it’s vital to have great content that helps convert them into customers. Google values quality content and so do your website visitors. Great content keeps the viewer on the website, which also helps boost SEO. So make sure that your topics are well-researched and helpful to your readers.
As you discover how to find the right keywords for SEO, you can track your performance on Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Now that you’ve learned all about keyword placement, can you guess what our focus keyword was for this blog? If you guessed “keyword placement,” you got it!
