Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Adding qualifiers to keywords?
-
I know that it's worth adding qualifiers to high value keywords to create long-tail variations which will later have the potential to rank well for the main keyword as well...
My questions is, how important is it that the newly-formed keyword/phrase also be evaluated for search volume?
E.g. "tips for job interviews" has a high search volume, but scores 72 in the Keyword Difficulty tool - quite high. I would therefore be tempted to create a "10 tips for job interviews" articles or something similar, yet THIS particular phrase is searched for <10 times per month...
If there are not any easy-to-find qualifiers that also create a well-searched for keyword/phrase, is it still worth adding them?
-
OK, to answer the primary question of "My questions is, how important is it that the newly-formed keyword/phrase also be evaluated for search volume?"
It's important to check on that keyword phrase, but in the case you presented, it's not going to be a huge factor in your decision process. Had the modifier shown 1000 searches per month, than it would naturally be more worthwhile.
It's very difficult to estimate long-trail traffic based on keyword data from Google's Keyword Tool. There are plenty of keywords that are listed as zero or negligible traffic, that send me plenty of visits.
You'll have to make the call for yourself as to where to draw the line in terms of what keywords to focus on for page-level, and what keywords to focus on solely within the content level.
In other words, some keywords will be valuable enough to dedicate a page to, meaning targeting that phrase in your title, h1, and in your content and images. Other keywords are just long-tail phrases that should be within the content but not have an entire dedicated page.
In the particular case that you presented, I believe that creating an article titled "10 tips for job interviews" would be an excellent way to rank for "tips for job interviews". Google is advanced enough to know that a piece of content titled "10 tips for job interviews" is equally valuable to a piece of content titled "tips for job interviews."
In my opinion, what you should really worry about is how you're going to get enough links to that piece of content for it to ever rank, not whether or not the person is searching with small modifiers like 10 tips, etc. I'd probably try and get 10 experts to each weigh in with one tip - this will be a much more valuable piece of content than something you write yourself. Otherwise it will just blend in with the crowd.
-
Thanks for this, although it didn't fully answer my question, which was essentially: Is it worth doing? If no one is searching for these full key phrases, then why bother altering the main keyword?
-
Thanks for this, although it didn't fully answer my question, which was essentially: Is it worth doing? If no one is searching for these full key phrases, then why bother altering the main keyword?
-
You can also think of using different professions as qualifiers such tips of IT interviews, SEO interviews, graduate interviews. It is also worth think about market trends. In the UK degree courses tend to end in May or June with an up swing in graduates looking for work at this time. You could make sure well in advance that you have content to match this niche that is ranking well. Work on at least a three month time lag. Also look at the job board career sections and see what they are doing and if there is anything you can do better.
Also use social media and social bookmarking once you have the content up to spread the word.
Hope this helps.
Good luck.
-
Title like "10 Tips For Job Interviews" are excellent for getting people interested and clicking on your SERP.
But, nobody really searches for them. They just expect "top 10 tips for job interviews" to be one of the results for "tips for job interviews."
If you're going to head this route, try "top tips for job interviews" without a specific number.
Also try non-numerical qualifiers like "good tips for job interviews", etc. The keyword tool is your friend here for brainstorming purposes.
Qualifiers that don't register much Google Adwords Keyword Tool are also good to use in content instead of creating their own page.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Relevant but not-relevant keywords impact to SEO
Hello, I would like to know if the selection of individual keywords(that are not primary, secondary or tertiary) are important for SEO regardless of the relevancy to the page topic. I am wondering how much of a contribution a non-P1/P2/P3 can make in terms of SEO? For example it is a product page and I have built my content with P1,P2&P3 based only on the product and its properties itself. Do you think that a content gap for the page could be the production process of that product? So even if it is a product and its properties page, I can add 2 sentences about the production, so that I can drive more traffic by including these 2 informative sentences.? EXAMPLE:
Keyword Research | | Siir
So lets' say my topic is "hair types" (P1) and my subtopics are "Straight," "wavy," and "curly"(P2s) which I used as subtitles. But throughout the page, I am planning to add some relevant but not-directly-relevant keywords here and there since they have high metrics and volumes. For example a potential sentence I can add: "innovative hair products these days can offer amazing results for the desired hair types". It is not specifically about "hair types" but I am using the keyword "innovative hair products" (good metrics keyword) which may help for the traffic... Another potential not-so-direct sentence can be: "For all hair types, the hair damages are common: heat damage, chemical damage and mechanical damage". Would adding this extra sentence where I am not specifically talking about "hair types" (my topic) but "hair damages" and damage examples (off-topic high metric keywords) help me to drive traffic to my website? And how much of an impact would it be?0 -
How to find low difficulty keywords
how to find informative low difficulty keywords. how can I get content ideas? I have lots of content ideas but it's not good search volume on google. I have a kitchen-related affiliate website called https://gloryspy.com
Keyword Research | | MalikJan0 -
Which keyword to use (plural / singular)
Hi guys. So I'm racking my brain with a question whether I should use plural or singular keyword as a focus keyphrase of my page. The page that I'm optimizing is basically a review page of different websites offering proofreading services. Considering the fact that this is a review and I mention a lot of websites on my page, I decided to rank for a plural keyword that ends with "services". However, this keyword is very unpopular (ahrefs doesn't show any volume for it), while singular "service" has about 100 searches per month. As far as I understand, Google sees both keywords as synonyms, because search results for both keywords are almost identical. Should I change my keyphrase to singular "service" (even though the page mentions a lot of services), or stick with "services" instead? Do I have a chance of ranking for "service" if I stick with "services" in this case? Thank you.
Keyword Research | | AslanBarselinov0 -
Is it a bad idea to hyphenate keywords?
Hello, my understanding was that Google reads hyphens in keywords as spaces, but if that's accurate how come keywords with hyphens that I research with Keyword Explorer — for instance, hospital-acquired infections — rank lower when I include the hyphen? If the hyphen hurts SEO, do I have to remove them all from the blog or page in question? Removing hyphens means a blog or page will have punctuation errors, which is irritating to an editor, but I don't want to sacrifice the effectiveness of keywords, either. Thanks, in advance, for your response!
Keyword Research | | SallieJ0 -
Keyword research tools
So I went to a panel a while back that said Wordtracker is basically useless. I'm not using it as an end-all, be-all, but more for insights and context. Do you agree with that statement? The hosting company provides a keyword research tool, so I wasn't sure how seriously to take it. Have you guys been using Bing for the search data previously provided by Google's Keyword Research Tool? Do you find that to be a viable resource? Thanks.
Keyword Research | | SSFCU0 -
Why does this keyword have much greater volume in Bing Keyword Research Tool than Google AdWords Keyword Planner?
I'm using the Google AdWords keyword planner and Bing Webmaster Keyword Research tool. For both, I'm trying to get accurate search volume for the exact term "advertising sales". Over the last thirty days, Bing reports a volume of 5,988. Google's average monthly search volume is 880. Given the market share Google has, I would expect a much higher volume, especially when compared to Bing. Can you offer some ideas of why this might be happening?
Keyword Research | | Kevin_P0 -
Ignore keywords that have no data in the Google Keyword Tool?
Hello, There are some keywords that have no monthly search data in the Google Keyword Tool. In many cases, this is because there have been very few searches for the keyword. Would you recommend focusing on other keywords that do have search data in the Google Keyword Tool? Perhaps focusing too far out on the long tail of search results can be less productive than focusing on keywords that have proven that at least some people care about them. What do you think? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | nyc-seo0 -
Where to start with keyword research for a telecom company?
Hey, I'm a brand's person with no SEO experience, yet I'm in a position where I have to carry out an SEO audit of our telecom company's website. Though our website is up and running for some years now, nobody bothered to undertake keyword research. From the little I've read over months on SEOmoz, I've just done the following: took out keywords bringing organic traffic on to our website and checked our rankings for those keywords on major search engines. My observation is that most of these words are long-tail keywords. Since we only have product/service information related to our offerings, most of the head terms we've used for packages/offers/services pages are branded keywords. My understanding is that we need to rank top for our branded keywords (a must) and try to rank as high as possible for long tail. In addition, we can use those keywords in our copy so that the right page ranks top for the respective keyword. Am I missing anything here? What else do I need to do?
Keyword Research | | HasanPK0