We all know Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and paid search are important, but not everybody knows the tricks to attain a high ranking on your keywords that will optimize your SEO. The import thing to remember is there is no possible way to rank for every keyword.
If you Google the word “marketplace,” only major sites such as American Public Media, Firefox, NPR, Second Life, Magento, Amazon and Atlassian show up on the first page of your search. There is no mention of the marketplace you have worked so hard to optimize.
As you can see from the screenshots above with such a high search volume and difficulty level being so high this single word can be next to impossible to rank for. That’s where long tailed keywords can be invaluable for assisting with your SEO. Just by adding a slightly longer tail, I was able to make this keyword optimized for the first page on searches.
It is important not to just randomly select keywords. Best practices is to think of the keywords that will be relevant for your website’s content. This will help people find what they are searching for on your site when they use these specific words. Then you can guarantee that the keywords you choose are helpful to those visiting your site. The keywords should also bring in traffic that will result in very achievable organizational goals. For example I researched keywords for this article and as you can see below, both marketplace SEO services and professional SEO services are very optimized, so I made sure to include them in the copy, title and this SEO blog metatag.
By incorporating deeper, more industry-specific keywords and phrases into your strategy you will get much better results. The better Google favors your long tail keywords, the more traffic you’ll get, and the better chance you’ll have at ranking for your primary keywords. The more times that you can use your keywords within your content the better, but it needs to be written naturally so the content flows naturally.
We are fortunate enough to be able to use Hubspot to manage everything, but it is very important that you utilize all the resources out there to holistically develop your keyword strategy. You can go here to check out a great article on the metrics displayed for your keywords. It goes over each of those metrics and explains how we define them (difficulty, visits, CPC, etc.).
I use the Google keyword planner to assist in my research. The Google Adwords Planner will allow you to enter a keyword, and then Google will show you if there are similar keywords to that which are being searched for more often. For example, you may want to use the word “marketplace”, but Google will show you that more users search for the word “marketplace” per month and assists you in determining if there is a more appropriate keyword to use to try to rank your website higher.
I then take the Google keywords and plug them into our Hubspot enterprise and compare them to the hundreds of optimized keywords I am already tracking for our company. Hubspot put together this article on keyword tips which goes over best practices for putting together a good list of keywords for your site. I also track what keywords are working good for competitors. Be sure to check out this great blog post which goes into detail about how to research your keywords and get the most out of your keywords in general to help you attain top search engine rank.
Everybody has their own system, the key is to find the system that works for you, using these processes. It can also be very helpful to develop your long-tail keyword strategy around terms that your target market is searching for. For example instead of just using “marketplace” you can utilize the following long-tail keyword examples to raise your ranking. Any keyword with a ranking below 50 can be beneficial.
There is not a one all for one tool to select your keywords. It takes common sense and these kinds of tools to optimize your SEO. Best practices are to ask yourself what your target audience may be looking for and use the tools to analyze those keywords and get more optimized examples. Your keyword research can go a long way in your content mapping and planning your SEO. We have actually increased our organic search ranking by over 400 percent since I implemented our analytics and keywords strategy.
If you put in the time and research the same can happen to you. It can help you refine your writing, or even discover new ideas to write about. It is crucial that before you publish your exciting new blog, article or landing page, you take the time to research, evaluate and refine your long-tail keyword strategy. I have faith that you can become a SEO guru.
Good luck and feel free to reach out anytime with any thoughts or questions!
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