We’re sure you’re already aware that keywords are fundamental to your website’s copy. They are the terms that people use to find your products and services, so you need to make sure that these words and variations of these words feature within the content on relevant pages of your site, otherwise you risk not getting the targeted traffic that you’re after.
The days of keyword stuffing are far behind us, and Google is now much more clued up to the quality of the content we’re creating, so whilst it’s all well and good simply saying that you need to include keywords in your copy, the problem is where to start, and how to implement them properly, without affecting the quality of any existing content you have.
The trick to getting the most out of keywords is to be clever and original, whilst still focusing on ultimately answering a customer query. If you’re not a confident writer, we highly recommend getting the help of an SEO copywriter to ensure you’re left with super-optimised content which will help get more traffic to your site.
Start at The Beginning with Keyword Research
First thing that any successful SEO agency will tell you, is that you need to define your keywords. A good place to start is the Google Keyword Planner tool in AdWords, this will give you a reasonably accurate idea of what search volume sits behind each keyword. If you don’t have a Google ads account you can still access the tool, but the search volume data will be a little vaguer, for example 100-200 instead of 160. It will also show you plenty of related keywords based on your input, so you can get a good idea of which keywords are the ones to target.
Other paid tools we use for keyword data include Ahrefs and SEMrush, but there are some free ones available too, such as Wordtracker, Answer the Public, Keyword Tool Dominator and Google Trends. Just remember with free tools you may be limited to the number of searches per day.
If you’re not entirely sure on where to start, think about specific keywords that are relevant to your industry, your business and the specific products and services that you sell. The most searched for keywords are usually the most competitive, so the Holy Grail is to find high ranking keywords that don’t have a great deal of competition. These keywords are great to target as you’re most likely to see results faster – assuming you get the content right of course. You can also use Google Analytics to explore what existing keywords are driving the most traffic to your site, so you can target these too. The key takeaway here is that it most certainly pays to do your research.
Types of Keywords to Use
There are a variety of keywords that you can use, however the more specific the better, especially for pages deep within your site, e.g. a specific product or service that you offer.
- Root keyword – This is the main keyword that your aiming for, e.g. flights, computers, garden tools.
- Qualifier keywords – These are added word(s) to your root keyword. This usually revolves around an adjective (e.g. cheap), a brand (e.g. British Airways), location (e.g. Spain), in addition to application, product type, or product feature.
- Modifiers – These are keywords that are similar but are slightly modified, e.g. cheap, cheaper, cheapest.
- Synonyms – Usually people won’t always search for the same keyword, e.g. car insurance, motor insurance.
- Singular/Plural – Some searches will include pluralised words as well as singular ones, e.g. garden tool, garden tools.
This process of finding variants around your root keyword is called keywords stemming, and is a very useful way to create lots of variations that can be included into your web content. And don’t worry, Google is clever enough to pick up on the fact that these words all essentially mean the same thing, so you can still optimise your text without having to agonise over making keywords fit exactly as they appear in search data into your sentences.
Another little tip when it comes to using keywords is that you don’t want to focus on the same keyword or keyword group across more than one page. If this happens, pages may start to compete with one another as Google isn’t sure which is the best one to rank. For example, if you had 3 pages all heavily targeted to ‘men’s sports hoodie’, you may lose out on ranking positions as opposed to if one page was properly optimised for that term. So, it’s quite important to have a clear structure of which pages are targeting which keywords.
Where to Use Your Keywords
Once you’ve established the keywords to use for each specific page, you now need to implement these within your website copy. As a general rule, for the Home page and all top-level pages you need to aim for shorter keywords, these would be your root keywords, plus qualifiers and modifiers. As you get to deeper pages, so that’s specific products or services, then you’ll want to use more long tail keywords which are really specific to what people would be searching for, e.g. ladies’ patterned gym leggings.
When writing your content for each specific page, try to use as many variations as possible, so don’t forget about using synonyms as well as singular and plural keywords. The variety of keywords will help you avoid the issue of keyword stuffing (which Google hates) and will help you ensure your content actually makes sense. The last thing you want are clunky paragraphs of content where the keywords don’t flow with the rest of the copy. Try and write naturally, adding keywords and keyword variants where they make sense. This should put you on track to create great quality content, which is relevant, hits the intended keywords and helps your customers to understand your products.
Some Final Keyword Tips
Using keywords is a fundamental part of any SEO Copywriting; however, your copy needs to be written carefully with the aim of improving conversions. Don’t overuse keywords and make sure you target the right words for the right pages.
The main benefit of utilising relevant keywords is that you’ll be targeting specific users and as such your Click through Rate (CTR) for that specific term should increase. With a higher CTR for specific keywords, you’ll have greater authority for those words and as such you’ll start to rank higher for said keywords.
Search engines like to give credit where credit is due and if your site is driving traffic for a specific keyword, you’ll be rewarded. From here the best copy will help turn that traffic into conversions, so make sure your copy is compelling and engaging. Good luck and happy writing.
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