SEO Rankings 101: Using Keywords Like a Pro

If you are interested in conquering the digital marketing realm, then it is necessary that you equip yourself with the right compass.

Truth be told, the success of any digital marketing campaign lies on how well you make the most of your online resources and how strongly you relate to your market.

These are some of the things that keywords can help you with. Only if you targeting the right ones, however.

For instance, search engine optimization (SEO) relies heavily on the use of targeted keywords. So having a winning SEO campaign would mean integrating keywords whose volume, relevance, and buyer intent are carefully planned and well-researched.

Let’s take link building as an example.

Keywords are constantly used in various ways and in different aspects in link building.

Targeted keywords assume the role of anchored texts in helping pages rank well in search engine results page (SERP). To do this, relevant keywords are needed in building backlinks to your on-page contents.

Creating link-worthy content also involves the use of targeted keywords and proper keyword placement.

But, there’s a catch.

More often than not, the big companies are already ahead in using popular keywords used by the customers. With the seemingly endless resources they have for their SEO campaigns, this is a fight that you cannot win if you are a startup or a mid-sized company.

The answer? You might want to consider moving to the next keywords you have on your list — outsmarting your competition by curating long-tail keywords (which are more specific and focuses on a particular audience) could be the key to success.

Long-Tail Keywords, Anyone?

Long-tail keywords are similar to your seed keywords, which are basically your main keywords.

Unlike the seed keywords, however, long-tail keywords are longer.

Let’s use an example to better illustrate this. Say your e-commerce website is selling anti-theft bags. Now, you’ve decided that your seed keywords will be anti-theft bag accessories.

It sounds too generic, right?

Worse, more than 10 million pages are using the same keywords for their online content.  Good luck shooting ahead of them!

Using long-tail keywords gives you another way of outmaneuvering your 10 million rivals and reaching a more specific market.

Instead of going with anti-theft bag accessories, you can opt for waterproof, anti-theft bag with built-in powerbank accessories. These keywords have more variation and explicitly target people who are looking for such product.

This time, you only have to compete with 300,000+ pages to rank on top.

It may still be a lot, but your chances of leveling the competition are way, way better than using “anti-theft bags accessories” as your keywords.

As Square 2 Marketing puts it, everyone’s a winner in using long-tail keywords.

Google is definitely a winner here. Because of the organic traffic, your e-commerce website gets from those keywords, your company is a winner, too!– and so are the visitors who find a website that offers what they’re looking for.

How Long-Tail Keywords Help Your Goal

By now, you should have a good picture of how optimizing long-tail keywords in your content can boost your return on investment (ROI).

Aside from delivering a more targeted search results, there’s also less competition when using long-tail keywords. A higher click-through rate (CTR) is also possible with long-tail keywords. As a matter of fact, single word keywords have a 30 percent click-through rate compared to a long-tail keywords’ 56 percent. On the other hand, long-tail keywords consisting of at least four words have higher CTRs than keywords with only 1, 2, or 3 words.

Strategies in Determining Long-Tail Keywords

Believe it or not, looking for the right long-tail keywords for your company is simple and pretty straightforward.

Thanks to the Internet, there are numerous tools and platforms that you can count on for FREE long-tail keyword suggestions.

Ubersuggest is a great example. What’s good about this platform is that all you have to do is type your keywords in the search bar without the need for signing up for an account.

Let’s have the keywords neck pillow as an example.

The search results showed 777 possible keyword ideas for neck pillow.

Just a word of advice: When choosing long-tail keywords, opt for those with competitiveness ranking of less than 0.4. Usually, these are keywords under the low-medium competition scope.

Positioning Your Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords placement is just as important as its competitiveness ranking.

You may have the keywords that yield the highest CTR and conversion rate, but if your keywords are in the wrong places, they won’t give you the optimum results.

Do not put all your eggs in one basket. All pages in your website should be optimized with your long-tail keywords for better chances of ranking on top. In doing so, distribute your long-tail keywords in your meta titles, meta description, headers, and in the usual parts of your content.

And since we’re talking about content, your keywords must be strategically positioned and planned out both in the content and in the page itself.

Lastly, take into consideration your page’s performance if you are serious about your SEO ranking.

Focus more on the things that contribute to the user experience, particularly on the speed of your website. Not only is that crucial in your SEO ranking, but your website speed also influences your site’s conversion rate.

There are simple techniques you can implement to ensure that your visitors stay on your page. These include compressing your images, removing excess characters in your codes, using a CDN, and using performance analysis tools.

Conclusion

Now that you know what to do with long-tail keywords, you just have to put together all these ideas and make the most of them.

Sure enough, these long, conversational phrases will help you outplay your rivals, draw organic traffic, and most import, improve your SEO ranking.

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk on Visual hunt / CC BY-NC