How do you choose the right SEO keywords?

The choice of targeted keywords for a website forms a major step during the implementation of an SEO strategy. To drive maximum traffic to a website during its launch, we try for example, to avoid overly competitive keywords and keywords with only a poor search volume.

To start, you need to identify and select keywords related to the business sector of your website. It is necessary to watch every keyword that has a real interest for your website with attractive ranking possibilities.

A Keyword’s value is defined by its popularity and generated traffic. The feasibility will mean that you have access to different levers allowing you to envisage a good ranking on targeted terms, within a reasonable time.

The Long tail

The principle of the long tail is represented by the graph below. The red part is called  the “head” of the long tail and represents the most popular keywords. The yellow part is the “tail” of the long tail and regroups all unpopular keywords. The unpopular keywords are always more numerous.

The fold is a phenomenon concerning the majority of websites and therefore requires special attention. In fact, the tail of the fold generates about 80% of a website traffic while the head of the fold generates only 20%. So it is interesting to develop the number of terms specified in its internal pages to position itself on the largest number of annex keywords. This phenomenon is particularly supported by the fact that Internet users lengthen their search terms with more keywords to get more targeted results .

How do you find your keywords?

Even before studying the interest and competitive level of a keyword, it is necessary to identify it. For this, several ways are available to you. First, you must clearly identify your theme.

Then, you can note keywords and terms that come naturally to mind. You can also ask your team for keywords that come to their mind when they are thinking about your website. 

Also, there are keyword generators that allow you to get a list of relevant keywords in connection with the theme of your website. Here are some tools that we recommend:

1. PPC platforms

Use keyword generators that search engines provide you with (Google AdWords Keyword Planner, Yahoo Search Marketing ). Their tools are very powerful and tell you the number of searches per month and its evolution.

2. Myposeo Keyword suggest tool

Myposeo proposes a powerful and intuitive keywords suggest tool that allows you to access a database of more that 30 million French keywords.

3. Tags of competition

Also remember to analyse the page titles and meta tags of your competitors to get an idea of keywords exploited by the players in your field. For a global view of this information, use a crawler-type screaming frog, which are easy to use .

4. Myposeo market analysis

You may have already heard about now our solution known for its ranking analysis. Myposeo also proposes a powerful market analysis tool combining SEO and SEA which will allow you to recover keywords ideas and to analyze their potential. Our SEM analysis tool is based on the monthly study of 15 million keywords and 10 million websites on the French market.

3 analysis systems are proposed:

• Domain: myposeo displays keywords positioned on the first page of Google from a URL.
• Keyword: from a keyword myposeo suggests similar keywords and connected phrases.
• Domain Versus Domain: allows you to compare keywords detected between two websites and their ranking.

For the most curious, I encourage you to consult the capacities of our market analysis tool.

How do you choose your keywords?

After drawing up a list of potential keywords that you want to position a website, it is necessary to study their desirability and feasibility.

Several parameters must be taken into account before you jump head-first into the deployment of your optimization strategy. Thus, search volume, number of competitors, goals, time and means that you are willing to devote to your website SEO will have been weighed in the decisional balance.

1. Search volumes:

Obviously, the higher the keyword’s search volume, the higher the competition is present. Make exist a website on a request in 50 or 100,,000 researches does not require the same investment. Therefore, Google Adwords seems to show everything to provide you with those volumes. We will not use this tool to launch an advertising campaign, but rather to know the volume of targeted keywords with its planning tool.

Google Adwords has the advantage of proposing a study on one or more keywords including:

• The number of global monthly searches
• The number of local searches
• Research trends (desktop/mobile, by geographic location etc …)

 

You should also think about Google Trends which reveals research trends on its engine. This is convenient for judging the reputation of a keyword in time. The tool offers the ability to compare keywords and apply several filters .

2. Competition 

The estimated number of competitors and knowledge of keywords they exploit will be decisive in the choice of yours, and in the appreciation of investments you will have to commit. Again, this is a matter of judgment based on objectives and capability of each. In terms of tools, Google Adwords indicates an estimate of competition: high, medium or low.

Once you have selected your first base selected queries, we advise you to audit those keywords to determine which are present actors and what are their performance. Myposeo will answer these questions through its SEO Audit, SEA Audit tools. From a list of keywords, those tools detect in real time present competitors on those keywords and give you their ranking.

Once all these elements are in hand, you will need to exercise judgment and reflection to develop relevant and realistic SEO strategy from those data streams. Competition is and will be increasingly fierce but one thing is for sure, with work you get there! Nothing is impossible in SEO … that you are smart, professional and patient.

Once your research has been defined, track their evolution!

Defined your targeted keywords and optimized your website? Great! However, do not forget to track your website’s ranking on the different chosen expressions for each page. According to this evolution, It will certainly be necessary to carry out technical modifications and/or content enrichment. Keep in mind that SEO is a continuous project that requires regular monitoring of your performance and adaptability to the updates of search engines.

To achieve this, I invite you to use myposeo that allows you to track daily, day after day, the evolution of your website’s ranking on each of its keywords.