How to Choose the Best Keywords in SEO

The content on a website determines how Google ranks it on their search engine result pages (SERP). Imagine a homepage of a website running with a “Welcome” header — when Google examines this, it doesn’t automatically assume that your website intends to welcome people but will determine that your website deals with hospitality, tourism and reception.

There are many things that affect the turnout of SEO efforts, and one of them is the use of common keywords splashed around the internet. Expected SEO results from choosing the right keywords will be addressed in this article.

How To Find Keywords for SEO

The first pitfall to avoid in the world of SEO is related to the use of mismatched SEO keywords. It is not enough for a keyword to sound attractive and appealing to the target audience, because our SEO efforts are very much dependent on Google and other search engines.

For this reason, it is important to always write keywords that are in tandem with your topic. Because in determining what the content on a page is referencing, Google and other search engines employ automatic topic detection systems.

These topic detection systems usually comb the content on a page to figure out what the page is about. One of those important elements on your website is your website’s headline.

Top Keywords for SEO: What Makes Up a Competitive Keyword?

A keyword is described as competitive when it attracts numerous searches every month i.e. it has a good search volume.

For example – a page setup for a local solar panel company that wants to provide transparency in regards to price listings, should not use “solar panel price listing” as a keyword but should consider the headline such as “solar panel cost“.

What is the major difference between both headers?

The “solar panel cost” records approximately 27,100 searches on Google per month. When compared with the other keyword “solar panel price listing”, the figure pales significantly with only about 20 searches monthly.

The Google Keyword Tool returns these results when you try to examine the reach of each of these keywords:

• solar panel cost: 27,100 searches monthly
• solar panel price listing: 20 searches monthly

These figures indicate the variations in the search volumes of both keywords and rightly suggests a better keyword to use in the headline on the website. A keyword with a low search volume is regarded as a non-competitive keyword and is a bad choice for any website’s page headline because it will not help drive traffic to the website.

A keyword with high returns on search inquiries is however a potential traffic magnet and a viable tool to attract more visitors to the website.

How To Choose Keywords for SEO

The “solar panel price listing” keyword has the potential to only attract 20 people to your website when you use it as a keyword. But the “solar panel cost” has the potential to be displayed to 27,100 every month — if you can make it to the higher ranks of Google of course.

A keyword with huge search inquiries falls into the category of highly competitive keywords such as “solar panel“ (165,000 search/mo), “solar energy” (40,500 search/mo). However, you might not have the to rank that high with pages using these keywords due to high competition.

It will also pit you in direct competition with the likes of Forbes or Times Magazine. Such keywords will not boost your presence on Google’s search results pages and will not make any significant change to your SEO rankings. These kinds of keywords or tags are called “Power Keywords” in information retrieval.

It is best to leave the choice of SEO keywords for your website to SEO agencies, but you should have them provide an SEO audit, which will include:

Highly competitive Keywords (Power Keywords)
If your website centers on “solar panels” for instance, the SEO audit should help you avoid highly competitive keywords that will not make your page get lost in the shuffle on search results. Your chances of competing in the market with such general and high competitive keywords are usually very low.

Vague Keywords
Vague keywords are better known as keywords who do not have any special descriptive value. They are best left to the user’s interpretation and do not communicate any intent. These are keywords such as “awesome”, “Look at this”, “Surprised?” which do not really describe the topic. A professional SEO will help you avoid such keywords on your website.

Low Search Volume Keywords
The keyword examples above explains this in detail. The use of “solar panel cost” over “solar panel price listing” holds significant benefits, which your SEO agency must spell out to you correctly.

How To Do Keyword Research for SEO

An SEO audit with proper “Keyword Research” will determine the correct kind of keyword to use so that your SEO efforts will not end up useless. You should always be looking at your analytics to see what pages are rising in clicks, impressions, sessions, or any other metric you value most.

For example, if you see pages with a high bounce-rate but a lot of impressions, you can dig into better keyword targets to drive better qualified traffic to the article. The process of keyword research for SEO is always ongoing, and cannot be completed with one single report.

Besides, an SEO audit should never be a one-time deliverable, and the same applies to keyword research. The volume of articles and pages on your website may make the process of performing the SEO audit a long one, but fresh content in the long term with constantly newly researched keywords is the only pathway to a successful SEO campaign.