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Before learning how keywords strategy can accelerate your site SEO Growth, is let me explain first what digital marketers we mean by keywords.
If you are about just starting out your digital journey and you had no contact at all with digital strategies you will have to learn first what I call “the digital marketing language”.
Although I had marketing background it was very difficult for me too when I first started, and let me tell you that even though I have been in digital marketing for more than 7 years there is no day that I don’t have to search to understand a term or an abbreviation.
So here I will try to simple explain what are keywords.
If I try to define it in terms of SEO I would say: words and phrases used as a reference point and based on which the search engines respond to a “search query”
But this description would work only on an academic article. For someone that has no experience reading this definition will say:
Ok…… so what the hell is a “search engine”* and what is a “search query”**
Search engine is a software that is programmed to search for information on the World Wide Web. Most known search engines are: Google, Yahoo, Bing.
Search query* is called what a user does when they search for an information, a query that a user enters into a web search engine.
But in simple words the description of keywords is: what the searchers (people that are trying to find an information over the web) type into the search bar.
Let’s say I am in Cyprus and I am interested to find a digital marketing agency. I will go to Google and I will type “Digital Marketing Agency in Cyprus”.
If I will type into the search bar only “Digital Marketing Agency” most probably the results that I will get would be many links about digital marketing agency worldwide.
But if I will type specific “in Cyprus” then Google will try to match the best results that contain not only the words “Digital Marketing Agency” but also the word “Cyprus”.
When we create a website or a blog we want people to find them, so we have to create our products, services or articles pages in such a way so the people can find them.
And it all starts with the keywords. Because that’s the way people searches. And we talk about Google search, we talk about Google lens, Google Voice…etc
This is what digital marketers call “keywords strategy”.
Since we have explained why keywords are so important so you understand why you have to set your best strategy by choosing the best keywords.
And by this we mean the most relevant keywords to our business.
Selecting the right keywords requires in-depth keywords research taking into account many other parameters such as:
– Competition
– Volume of the search
– Cost of the acquisition
I remember one of my mentors saying that “selecting the right mix of keywords is more than just a science, it is an art”..I know that it may sound a bit theatrical but believe me it is not.
Many moons ago the selection of the keywords was simple a few steps, nowadays you need a careful analysis. Of course, there are many tools (with a paid subscription) which most professionals use to find the right keywords but for a beginner my opinion is that you must start from the basics to understand the concept and then move to advanced tools.
You will never understand the philosophy of a good strategy if you don’t research, test, analyse and again…research…test.. .
I will suggest a few simple steps:
#a. Start writing down what words or phrases someone will use to search for your products or services
#b. Google’s search bar or Google suggestions (for long tail keywords)
#c. Keywords planner
#e. ubersuggest
what words a person would use if it is to search over the internet for your products or services.
I.e If I am selling Digital Marketing Services most probably someone in need of my services will search with:
Of course this is not a task that you will do in 10 minutes. Take your time, listen to other people’s needs, join communities with small businesses owners..etc As you can see the phrase is composed of 2 words: SEO Cyprus
However, the game now is around what we call “long tail keywords”. As SEO progressed and Google algorithm became more sophisticated and ranking on the first page became a war against invisible forces long tail keywords targeting became THE LIFELINE OF A SUCCESSFUL KEYWORDS STRATEGY. A long tail keywords would be “SEO company in Cyprus”
Simply type 1-2 words and watch how it pre-populates the rest of what you are typing.
Google’s algorithm is constructed to record searcher’s intention. However, beware that the algorithm takes into account also your search history (except if you always search incognito or delete periodically your search history).
At the bottom of the page you most probably noticed “Searches related to SEO Cyprus”. Google gives suggestions what other searchers searched in relation with the keywords that you tipped on the search bar.
Nonetheless, this step will get you started with some ideas to play around.
Keyword Planner is a free Google Ads tool for new or experienced advertisers where you can search for keywords and see how a list of keywords might perform.
There are rumors that the data in keyword planner is manipulated and the volume and bits are not real data, but personally I learned over the years to read, learn, test and analyse instead of believing rumors. So, my advice is to get into keywords planner and test. Analytics will give you the data after all and you can see what works and what doesn’t.
So you have to open an account on Google Ads platform and go to the little wrench on the top right where it says tools. Then go to the place where it says “Find new keywords”
As you click on that it will open the bar where you can search for suggestions…Be aware that you can only insert up to 3 words or phrases. Then a list like this it will appear and then you have to decide which ones are your best keywords. At this point you will have to take into account the 3 factors mentioned above:
On the top bar you can see “Avg. monthly searches”. This is what we call volume of search or how many people searched over Google for these particular words. To target people with these keywords, of course, we need people to search for these keywords. You may decide that some particular keywords are very good for your business but if you don’t find volume of search it means that people are not searching with these words. However, there are cases where you may decide for certain reasons to choose a word or a phrase with lower volume than others but I will explain this at a later stage.
As you can see from the image the keywords with biggest volume are “SEO Cyprus” and “search engine optimization”. But, the cost of acquisition for “SEO Cyprus” is lower than the cost of acquisition for “search engine optimization”.
Since the competition is the same, “seo Cyprus” is a better keywords comparing to “search engine optimization” since the cost of acquisition is lower!
Stay tuned for our next article where we will get deeper into keywords strategies, with Google trends and ubersuggest.