which keywords are best to target in seo Archives

Which keywords are best to target in SEO? SEO is Search Engine Optimisation or the process of optimising your website for traffic; specifically that traffic which comes from the search engines. So if you’re focused on using paid traffic, and not bothered about getting any search engine traffic, SEO won’t have much bearing in your business. But if you want your traffic to come from the search engines, you’ll want to make sure you’re doing everything right to optimise that traffic.

One way of optimising search engine traffic is through blogging. Bloggers find content which they can both find free traffic for, and which attracts their target audience. There’s no point in writing content which attracts the wrong audience; since that traffic won’t convert into buying customers. Similarly, some keywords are far too competitive to gain any traction from the search engines for free. So spending too much time creating that content might also be wasteful! So what’s the answer? Find low competition long tail keywords which also attract the right kind of customers.

Which Keywords Are Best To Target In SEO?

The good thing about low competition keywords is that they generally have several keywords in them. Long tail keyword phrases offer better chance of getting a free listing on the first page of Google, and therefore getting free traffic. A long tail keyword has three or more keywords in it. Shorter tail phrases are notoriously harder to rank for simply because there’s so much competition on the search engines for them. So writing content for 2-3 word keywords might not work that well for getting free traffic.

The other main benefit of writing content for long tail phrases in your niche is that those searches are generally much more specific. When someone types a longer tail phrase into Google, they have a much clearer idea of what they’re looking for.

Example

A search for “dunlop sp sport maxx gt runflat” gets 90 searches a month. A search for “car tyre” gets 74,000 monthly searches.

So if you’re selling Dunlop SP Sport Maxx Gt Runflat’s, what would you rather have on your site? The answer is the keyword which relates to that product.

You might say you’d get more traffic from the other basic search for “car tyre”, but you’d be wrong because “car tyre” search results brings up many more thousands of results. Take a look at the number underneath both of these Google search results.

which keywords are best to target in seo

For “car tyre” you see 383,000,000 as the number for the search results. For the “dunlop sp sport maxx gt runflat” you see only 79! Which do you think you are more likely to rank your website for and get found on the search results pages?

Which Keywords Are Best To Target In SEO?

The search intent behind long tail keywords is generally much more specific. While someone who finds your site for “car tyre”, might browse and click away, (not finding what they want), someone searching for and finding “dunlop sp sport maxx gt runflat” is much more likely to buy if you give them exactly that!

When you’re targeting keywords with your content you don’t just want traffic, you want buyer traffic. So by finding low competition keywords which are super relevant to your website, products and/or service, you are providing the best information for those who actually want what you have! If you also target long tail keywords with low SEO competition, you’re going to be doing both at the same time! Win Win!

So how can you do this? Start with your product and work outwards. Type your main keyword, or the name of your product/service into Google’s keyword planner. Look for long tail derivatives which match your criteria:

Low competition on the SERPS – Search Engine Results Pages
Targeted towards buyer traffic – super relative to your product/service

How Google Rates Your Website

Google uses thousands of factors to determine how to rank content on the SERPS. Here’s just a few of the main ones:

Domain authority
Back link profile – how many and where from
Your site’s relevancy
Social media presence and back links
Domain age
Interaction of visitors on your content
Time of visitors on your site
Content

The relevancy of your site for the query is an important factor when it comes to creating content. You don’t just want anyone finding your site, you want super relevant visitors who you can help with your content. What happens if someone finds your site, but you’re not the answer they want? They click away, affecting your potential ranking score with Google. If people who come to your site stay and absorb your content, it’s a great signal to Google that they have sent someone to the right content. Hence they’ll increase your authority for that particular search. If your visitors interact with your site, signing up to your email list or making a purchase, it’s an even better signal.

So while you want more visitors to your website, you also want more of the right visitors too; that means targeted buyer visitors who will become customers.

Google’s Keyword Planner & Target Market

You can find long tail keywords which match your criteria by using your main keyword and typing it into Google’s keyword planner. Look for long tail derivatives which have a good buyer intent behind them and which are suitable and targeted for your business.

One of the quickest ways to find long tail keywords with low SEO difficulty is to click on the Avg. monthly searches tab at the top of the results when using Google’s keyword planner. Click on the tab until the monthly search volume drops and that will give you the longer term phrases which have lower monthly search volume.

Despite there being lower monthly search for these kinds of keywords, there’s also far less competition in the SERPS. So you’ve much more chance of getting your content ranked and getting found in the results pages.

Summary

So, which keywords are best to target in SEO? While you should have content for your main keywords on your site, you typically won’t rank on Google for them because of the competition. By finding longer tail derivatives of your main keywords, you can find very targeted visitors who are searching for something specific which you can provide.

Long tail keywords which both have low competition in the search results pages and which are super relevant to what you offer are what you should go for! Long tail keywords are generally super targeted too. So by finding those particular “gold nuggets” which give you free targeted traffic, you’re going to find more traffic and more customers.

Google’s keyword planner tool is great for SEO if you’re a content creator. You can use the tool to find keywords which you want to target with your content. With the right keywords on your site, and the right content, you can attract the right customers and make more sales.

Google’s keyword planner tool is a free tool too! You just need a Google Adwords account in order to access it. The tool can give you a bunch of ideas which you can create content for. Write some quality content for your chosen keywords and you can also potentially rank your content for free in the search engines.

You won’t rank your content at the top of Google for every keyword of your choice of course. There’s so many other competing websites and content in pretty much every niche that it would be impossible for everyone to have a top ranking. But you can “cook the books” in your favour by choosing those long tail keywords which have lower competition than the rest.

Keyword Planner Tool SEO

It would be great if you could pick your main keyword, write an article and it magically appear at the top of the search results! But that’s just not going to happen. Most of the shorter keyword phrases (which get the most traffic) are far too competitive for anyone without huge website authority to rank for. Those top places which rank for shorter keyword phrases are very old domain names with many thousands of high authority back links. They have been around for a long time and have huge authority with Google. That’s why they rank top for many shorter keyword phrases.

keyword tool - Google's keyword planner tool

If you’re not one of the those, (and you’re most likely not), you’ll need to work a bit smarter to get your keywords ranking on Google, and the other search engines. There’s no guarantees of a ranking of course, in any case. But by choosing low competition long tail keywords, you’ll have a much better chance of ranking your content in the SERPS (search engine results pages). If not on Google, then you’ve also a chance of ranking on the other search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, Duckduckgo etc.

This means free traffic if you get there, and that’s worth a lot for most businesses because it means free customers! If you’re going to go for it, be prepared for the long haul. It takes time and some dedication to rank your content, according to your particular niche and the domain authority you already have.

Keyword Planner Tool SEO – Finding Keyword Phrases

The first thing to do is type your main “seed” keyword into the planner. This is the main keyword for your site. The planner will then give you a bunch of derivatives of this main keyword. Some of them with be a couple of words long and others will be several words long. The difference between short tail and long tail keywords is your ability to rank for them and get free traffic!

With a short tail keyword of say 2-3 words, you will have a much harder time getting free traffic from the searches. There’s a lot of competition for these kinds of keywords. But longer term phrases of 4 words and above are easier to rank for. That’s not to say it’s a certainty that you’ll rank for them, but it’s far easier so these are the ones to go for in your content writing strategy.

To find the long tail keywords, you can scroll down in the monthly search volume tab by clicking on it until the search volume drops. In the image above you can see the tab called “Avg. monthly searches” – (average monthly searches). By clicking on it the numbers will change. You want to find the long tail keywords with less SEO difficulty. These keywords typically have a lower search volume but less competition on the SERPS.

Although you won’t get flooded with visitors overnight using these kinds of keywords, a little of something is worth more than nothing of a lot! A small chance of free search traffic from long tail keywords is better than no chance of free traffic from targeting those keywords where you stand absolutely no chance of ranking!

Keyword Planner Tool SEO – Comparing Search Competition

Once you find a good long tail keyword which you would like to create some content for, you can roughly compare the search competition with a quick Google search. Use a basic Google search and a “phrase match” search (with the phase in quotes) to give you an estimated comparison. Google should show you a number at the top of the page which gives you an idea of the number of web pages which rank for this term.

Large numbers mean more competition, smaller numbers mean less! Typically I like to aim for articles with numbers of less than 10 million for a search and less than 10,000 for a phrase match search. This one fits the bill!

Once You’ve Found Your Keyword

Once you have found a good keyword you can get to work on creating some content around it. A good SEO plugin can help you write your content and optimise it for the search engines. I use Yoast SEO which gives you indicators as to your keyword density in your copy and reminds you to place keywords throughout your article.

You can also check the top ranked article for your target keyword to see what competition is ranked most highly. This can give you an idea about what you’re up against and the quality you need to out perform in order to get a ranking for your article.

Generally speaking the more you write the better, but I try and write at least 1000 words per article.

Once you have done this once, you can keep finding new keywords to create more and more content for. Over time, this will help boost your traffic through SEO, but it’s not some overnight strategy. It takes time to generate traffic like this and you’ll need to promote your content as much as possible to help with this. See also best free blogger plugins for WordPress.