This is a guest contribution from Nick Rojas.
The world of web promotion and search engine optimization has never been a consistent one.
Constantly changing Google results algorithms compete with tricky marketers in what is essentially an arms race, with each side trying to gain a lasting advantage against the other. However, though the tools change constantly, the battleground stays the same.
We’re talking about keyword research. Every time a Google update levels the playing field again, it comes back to this: if you create high quality content that people read, you will gain prominence in Google results. And the best way to do this is with keyword research. We’ve got some great tips to help you make sure your blog has its keyword game in top form. Read on!
Make a list of the most important topics that you cover on your blog
One good way to conceptualize the idea of a keyword is to think backwards. What kind of people are you trying to attract? What is your ideal reader looking for?
Go back through your blog entries and mentally sort them into vague lists. If you use tags or categories, this can help a lot as well. Basically, you want to create large “content buckets” that you can fit most of your posts into.
Transform those content buckets into keyword lists
Once you’ve assembled some buckets that most of your posts fit into, you can identify keywords to fill those out. These are phrases that you’d like to rank highly on the search engine results page.
An example might be a blog about maternity fashion that provides some affiliate referral links to clothing stores where readers can buy the recommended clothes. This hypothetical maternity wear blog would want to rank highly on searches like “clothes to wear during pregnancy”, “maternity fashion”, and other searches like this.
This isn’t a be all, end all list of the keywords you’ll be using, but rather just to clear your mind of all the obvious ones.
Get a good mix of short tail and long tail keywords
Some keywords are easier (and cheaper) to rank on than others. The cheap, easy ones are long tail, and are associated with much less traffic than the short tail keywords, which are particularly popular and frequently searched. The web has tons of tools for all kinds of things, from business name generators to tools like the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, which is great for this sort of thing.
Use tools to get a great keyword spread
Other great tools for this are Topsy and Buzzsumo. Topsy helps you uncover the confusing and convoluted work of social media keywords. Topsy is essentially the Google Trends of social media, allowing you to page through the recent history of keywords on social media to identify trends in that medium.
Buzzsumo helps you make sure that your keyword list is as comprehensive as that of your competitors. It helps you analyze their sites directly, helping you to spot when a new trend in your industry or field is coming up and letting you stay on top of it.
Keywords: always relevant
No matter how many Google updates happen, it seems likely that keywords will remain just as relevant as they have always been. It’s how people actually think and actually search for things, so barring any major sea changes in how people interact with their computers, keywords are likely to be an extremely important way to organize search and rankings. It pays to stay on top of your keywords!
Nick Rojas is a business consultant and writer who lives in Los Angeles. He has consulted small and medium-sized enterprises for over twenty years. He has contributed articles to Visual.ly, Entrepreneur, and TechCrunch. You can follow him on Twitter @NickARojas, or you can reach him at [email protected].
Very informative post. I’m a new one in blogging world. When i was start writing i make some silly mistake like a post about without keyword. As a newbie Long tile keyword are effective for me. Also thanks for this awesome post
Hello, Salek
Now a days Long tail keywords are not only effective for you but also it’s play an important role to getting first page on search engines.
I am using Adwords, Google trends, Long tail pro to getting exact keywords what people searches.
Thanks Editor for your detailed article,
We can also use Meta Tags to optimize Blog. But content is the only thing through which we can gain traffic. Reader only like healthy and rich content. Thanks for sharing this article.
Thanks for the post Nick! Some good stuff and really got me thinking. I like what you say about thinking about the idea of a keyword and working backward. That’s an important point to consider when trying to target your audience.
You also mention to target long-tail keywords as well as short, competitive keywords. What percentage do you recommend splitting up your content creation around those two ideas? Would you recommend say 20% of content with short, competitive keywords with the remaining being 80%?
Great stuff, looking forward to finding more of your stuff!
I’m confused like always and not sure how to do the keyword research, and get ranking for that keyword.
How to boost that keyword in search results ?
The Google Keyword Planner is also a useful tool for keyword research which we can find in Google AdWords. I was unaware of Topsy and Buzzsumo tools. I have checked it. These are really great tools.
Now I understood the importance of long tail keywords. Thanks for giving such a important tips.
I use the Google Keyword Planner, keywordrevealer.com, kwfinder.com, but not yet use Topsy, Buzzsumo. I will try to use it. Thanks for your information about longtail keyword research.
Hey, i use the keyword for blogs. But i was not aware that there are also some good tools as you have mention that provide keywords. Thanks for the list of the tools, i will surely going to use them for my blog. Thanks for the post.
Thanks for this post. i am new in blogging world. i didnt knew about keywords. because of it i make some silly mistakes in my blogs. thanks again for share this post..
Great tips, I am using google keyword planner tool to choosing keywords
because its free and very good for beginner
thank’s sir for the best info sharing
it is true we drive good traffic form use keywords amazing Post really helpful to increase blog traffic Nice Sharing keep up it
Have a nice week Ahead
I like the reverse approach Nick. I do it sometimes to nail down keywords and blog post ideas. You can come to the table with a clear image of what you want, and then, work off of a set of keywords to bring in traffic, or you can spot trends and work off of those trends to get the best results. I for one do little SEO but am learning to spot patterns, to pick the right keywords that target my audience.
Ryan
Great tips, I alway using google search suggestion to find the best keyword for my blog. But i never notice about the long tail keyword. Thanks for sharing this, really very helpful.
Keyword is the most important aspect for the search ranking of a website and this article is really superb explaining the best ways to get right keywords.Hands up for you
Hey Nick,
Great tips here Nick! I actually have used Topsy and Buzzsumo. I use Topsy mainly to connect with influencers since that was the big thing to do a couple of years back. I never thought about using it to find keywords, but I will keep this in mind.
Buzzsumo is great to find out what your “competitors” are using as headlines and topics. I use this to create engaging headlines that pique interest to my audience. It has worked quite well this year each time I use it!
But in all, if you want to get better organic traffic then you definitely want to make sure you pick some keywords that your target market is using whenever they do research!
Thanks for sharing and I hope you have a great weekend!
For me, keywords research and using right keyword for my sites are always hard for me.Thanks for mentioning some useful tools.
Driving traffic to a newly created blog is very tough these days. As one have to keep in mind about search engines changes happened in past and also should nit try any short cut method which may be a problem for future.
Thanks for sharing such an excellent post. I enjoyed reading each and every line. Very informative article regarding use keywords to drive traffic.
Thanks for wonderful sharing.
Regards,
Muhammad Mairaj
A very informative article. I personally like using wild cards in Google search queries to get suggestions for searches. I find this a good tactic to find new topic ideas and keywords. I personally go for long tail keywords but of course you need to do your research before deploying the keywords.
Great tips to increase blog traffic….I think traffic is the most important thing in blogging.
Some very useful and doable tips here…looking forward to seeing how they affect my readership! Especially liked the long tail keywords…thinking I have not used keywords to my best advantage. Pressing on…
Thanks for this great post. I am a new blogger. I am choosing long tail keyword for my blog but i am little bit worried about keyword Competition. I am choosing Medium Competition keyword. Is there any problem?
This is a very useful post for all the bloggers. Nice way to get the traffic Keep posting valuable content like this. Thank you
Loved the guide.
You should have included Ubersuggest in the article.
This is a tool which can be used to find some of the best keywords to include as LSI keywords in the article.
So I am a completely new person, can someone tell me how to create a keyword for your site? For example I have a site about vegetables and fruits and I wrote an article about ginger that how healthy it is, how should and how much it should be used, how can be ginger helpful in a certain disease and all that. Now again if I want these to be my keywords these lines what should I do?