How to Choose Keywords for SEO

More than half of consumers turn to Google to explore products before making a purchase.

Google uses these search terms, or keywords, to display relevant content. If your site isn’t on the first page, chances are you’re missing out on significant traffic.

So, what’s the secret to picking keywords that bring in traffic that’s likely to convert?

Which keywords are the perfect fit for your business? How can you make sure? Is it possible to handle it by yourself?

This guide delves into the process of selecting the ideal keywords for SEO and when it might be wise to seek assistance from an SEO agency.

You’ll gain insights into different types of keywords and learn how to identify the most impactful ones. Following that, you’ll learn how to fine-tune these terms and integrate them into your landing pages effectively.

The goal is to attract more focused traffic to your website. Interested in learning how? Follow our seven key strategies for identifying the most suitable keywords.

1. Understanding Search Intent

Understanding the motive behind searches is crucial for choosing the right keywords. Search intentions can be categorized into three types:

Navigational

The user is trying to locate a specific webpage.

Informational

The user is gathering information on a topic.

Commercial

The user has an intention to buy.

To pick the most effective keywords, you need to adopt the perspective of your potential customers.

Searches such as ‘purchase affordable water heater’ differ significantly from ‘issues with water heater’. The former indicates a commercial intent, while the latter is informational.

Your aim should be to create content that addresses all three types of search intent, ultimately leading to your desired call-to-action (CTA). Your chosen keywords should guide users to various landing pages or sections of your website tailored to those specific search queries.

For informational queries, it’s beneficial to provide unique content related to the search term.

Blogs are particularly useful for informational searches and can encompass a variety of keywords. It’s important to connect this content with your product offerings or contact details.

Focusing on commercial or transactional intents might seem straightforward but comes with its own set of challenges due to high competition. This is where enlisting the services of an SEO Agency can be advantageous, ensuring your content is aligned with your keywords when Google indexes your site.

2. Understanding Keyword Types

Before you start your keyword quest, it’s important to grasp the three main categories:

Head Keywords

Head keywords are brief, often just one or two words, leading to a vast number of search results. For example, searching for ‘birthday cards’ might yield over a billion pages on Google.

Body Keywords

Body keywords extend a bit further, typically spanning two to three words. A search like ‘mother birthday cards’ narrows down the results to around 3 million.

Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords, which are four or more words long, provide more specific outcomes. Many searchers use these longer phrases to find exactly what they’re looking for.

While ranking for head keywords can be daunting due to their broadness, targeting long tail keywords is often more feasible and rewarding.

3. Keyword Planner Tools

One crucial step in selecting the right keywords is knowing where to start your research. Google’s Keyword Planner is a handy, free tool that offers insights into effective keywords and their performance.

Accessible through the Google Ads interface, this tool doesn’t require you to run a PPC campaign. Just set up an account and input your keywords to see historical search data and suggestions for related terms, along with their search volumes.

This information can be pivotal in shaping your SEO strategy, allowing you to curate a list of relevant keywords.

For those seeking alternatives to Google’s tool, Moz Explorer is worth exploring. By simply entering a keyword or a URL, you can unlock insights into search volumes and the competitiveness of specific phrases, even with a free account limited to 10 searches. The report includes SERP analysis and potential click-through rates, providing a comprehensive view of your keyword landscape.

If the jargon seems overwhelming, partnering with a proficient SEO agency can streamline the process, sparing you the complexity of SEO terminologies and focusing on achieving tangible results.

4. Refine Your Keywords with LSI

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is essentially about the relationship between words.

Google employs LSI to deliver relevant search results by understanding the context of your keywords. When you start typing in Google, the suggestions change as your query becomes more specific, showing related terms and phrases.

Incorporate these related words into your keyword list, as Google deems them significant, which can enhance your SEO efforts.

Aspect	Details
Search Intent	Align keywords with user goals: navigational, informational, or commercial.
Keyword Types	Head, body, and long-tail, with a focus on long-tail for specificity.
Tools	Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or Moz for research and insights.
LSI Keywords	Incorporate related terms to enhance context and relevance.
Competition Analysis	Study competitors’ keywords to identify gaps and opportunities.
Content Match	Ensure keywords align with content and media for coherence.
Landing Page Optimization	Integrate keywords in page titles, headings, and alt tags for relevance.

5. Analyze the Competition

Exploring your competitors’ websites is a valuable strategy for uncovering effective keywords. Tools like SEMRush offer insights into website traffic and rankings, which can inform your SEO strategy. While SEMRush is not free, partnering with an SEO agency can provide access to such tools and expertise, simplifying the research process.

6. Keywords and Matching Media

Integrating keywords into your content requires finesse to avoid overstuffing, which Google penalizes. The balance between keyword usage and relevant media, such as images, can significantly influence your rankings. Quality content that combines well-chosen keywords and media is central to effective SEO strategies.

7. Link With the Landing Page

Your landing pages must be optimized to correspond with your selected keywords, incorporating them into titles, headings, and image alt tags. A well-optimized landing page not only improves your Google ranking but also serves as a pivotal point for conversions.

Choosing the Right Keywords With an SEO Agency

Selecting the most impactful keywords is crucial for your website’s ranking. While some research can be conducted independently, the expertise of a seasoned SEO agency can be invaluable. MXD Marketing offers professional SEO services, focusing on custom strategies rather than automated keyword selection, ensuring transparency and tangible results visible through your analytics.

Evaluating Keyword Difficulty and Competition

Understanding the competitive landscape of your chosen keywords is a crucial step towards a successful SEO strategy. Keyword difficulty refers to how challenging it is to rank for a particular keyword based on the strength of the competition on search engine results pages (SERPs).

But how do you measure this difficulty? Various SEO tools offer a ‘Keyword Difficulty’ score, which combines factors like domain authority, page authority, and the number of backlinks to the ranking pages. A higher score typically indicates a more competitive keyword.

To start, select a tool that aligns with your SEO needs – options include Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz. Enter your potential keywords into the tool to receive a difficulty score for each. Keywords with lower scores may be easier to rank for but could have lower search volumes, while those with higher scores could be more challenging but potentially more rewarding in terms of traffic.

Additionally, manually reviewing the top-ranking pages for your target keywords can provide insights into the type of content that performs well and the level of optimization required. Pay attention to:

• The quality and depth of the content on ranking pages
• The presence and quality of backlinks to these pages
• The domain authority of the websites
• How well the content matches search intent

By combining quantitative data from SEO tools with qualitative analysis of the SERPs, you can better understand the competitive landscape and select keywords that strike the right balance between difficulty and opportunity.

Remember, while it’s tempting to target keywords with the highest search volumes, focusing on less competitive keywords that are more aligned with your content and business offerings can lead to quicker wins and more relevant traffic.