How do you decide which keywords to optimize first?
-
Let me be very clear, I am not looking for info on how to rank keywords so please do not post about that.
I have a list of keywords I chose and want to rank for, and every group of keywords are related. I was wondering, what is a good strategy for determining which keywords to start with? Should I take one keyword from each group so it looks more natural? Should I do a group of 10 related keywords at a time?
Any ideas? Links? Tips? Resources? What have you done in the past?
-
That's an SEO companies IP
I think if you're looking at level of competition, ppc $ and monthly traffic estimates that can be a good start but you are also part SEO part business consultant so you need to factor in the clients margins and other factors as well if you want to do your job properly in my opinion.
With existing websites there is always this sunk costs bias which I tend to see creeping in as well which affects people's decision making process.
-
Stephanie i will suggest you to make a use of Hittail Keyword tool as it helps you to get a list of keywords that are good and have potential to get you good traffic + are closer to the first page and are easy to rank i use HitTail: The Best Long Tail Keyword Tool beside that if you already have a list of keywords what you can do is worki8ng first on the long tails building links for them to build authority as well once authority is build you are surely going to get a push on your short keywords + till then getting complete advantage of your long tail keywords
-
Go to your google analytics and see if any of the organic search keywords align with keywords on your list.
Run ranking reports on the ones that do. Note pages that are getting search traffic for terms on your list but that are not at the top of the search results.
Review the pages that are receiving the search traffic for those terms to see how well they're optimized.
Start first with the pages that are least optimized, getting traffic, and are on page three, two or bottom of page one of the results. Optimize those pages for most closely aligned keywords
It's called low-hanging fruit.
-
lol thanks
-
I know how that goes :(. Good luck!
-
yes of course. i am just in the process of creating a new strategy though and fixing some of the stuff the person before me messed up.
-
How do you focus on keywords without being spammy? Backlink anchor text? Guest post title tags? keyword proximity to your backlink?
-
Hi Dave,
Yes I am doing something similar, most of these keywords are for different pages. Obviously all the pages will be optimized to the keywords specific to that page, but i am wanting to pick 10 keywords to focus on and rank for with their respective pages. Rather than focusing on everything and building links all at once, I want to focus on 10 at a time, set goals and measure the results, then maintain those results and work on the next 10.
-
Hmm, I seem to take a different approach than most here. I look at each page and see which of my keywords will match up to that specific content. I don't use a top keyword list unless I'm optimizing the homepage. I hardly ever look at competition when placing keywords on the content pages of the site. I ALWAYS look at competition when looking for long-tail blog post type keywords. I used to use 5 different tools to look at competition, but then I realized that you really only need one metric - the allintitle: "keyword." If the allintitle is below 2000 you can rank 1st page with the keyword being furthest to the left in the title tag pretty easily. If it's higher than 2000 the keyword you choose dosn't really matter. It's going to come down to off-site SEO.
-
One strategy is feeding KW terms into Google Trends and figuring out interest levels. Next, figure out the total amount of sites ranking for that string (via quotes in a Google search). Once you have these two data points you can prioritize the string as you have a good indication of interest/competition.
-
Thank you
-
Great answer thank you
-
I would look at what you already have ranking and quality phrases which are coming up in the search and need that extra attention to get them onto the first page and also factor in:
Level of Competition
Potential Traffic / current traffic
The quality of content on site you have to work off of
That would tell you which short tails you have a shot at and if they are out of reach or already ranking, start taking a look at the next most valuable long tail terms
-
Hi Stephanie,
I'd say pulling your analytics data for keywords you're getting long tail traffic for that you're ranking for on the first page (not in top 2 spots) and prioritizing that against your rankings data (whether its from SEOMoz, Advanced Web Ranking etc) using Vlookups in Excel
If you're estimating potential traffic, you can export Adwords keyword data for potential traffic (very rough estimate) to get an idea of what kind of traffic you could potentially be getting
An excellent resource would be http://www.distilled.net/excel-for-seo/#vlookup to start off with.
Hope that helps!
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
-
How keywords and subfolders connect
I'm working on restructuring my site. We have main topic areas, and any given visitor will ONLY be interested in 1 of those topics. So to consolidate the information into a simpler format, I want to take all the various pieces of content and wrap them under a given topic. [There is a question in here, I promise.] So I want to create www.domain.com/topic/subtopic-1, /topic/subtopic-2, etc. [Yes, I will apply all necessary redirects for any new URL restructuring.] Now here's the question: If I want to rank for "Peanut Butter Sandwiches with Jelly" and "Peanut Butter Sandwiches with Jam," will I be able to structure the URLs as /peanut-butter/sandwiches-with-jelly/, or should I go /peanut-butter/peanut-butter-sandwiches-with-jelly? And please note, /peanut-butter/ will likely redirect to /peanut-butter/subtopic-1/ since it won't make sense to have /peanut-butter/ on its own. [PB&J is just an example.] What's the best way to go about this? Any recommendations? I really appreciate your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jheath0 -
Should we go after this main keyword?
Hello, We run an online store. The main content keyword for our niche is very competitive, but if I was going to go look up information and I was one of our customers, that is exactly what I would type in - this main general keyword. We have an expert in the field to write it and plenty of time. Although the main keyword is competitive, there are many many subkeywords that are a lot less competitive that would be answered in the article. It's tough to find good topics in this niche. We're thinking about doing a "Complete Guide to X". We would have far less backlinks and authority for about half of the 30 keywords it will cover than our main competitors. Should we do this and spend the next couple of years working on it, or should we perhaps target a smaller topic? Any advice is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
No matter what the keyword, only the homepage shows in the SERP
Hi, wondered if someone could help. My clients website shows up well for terms but its always the homepage rather than the targeted landing page. For example, if you search for "teeth whitening anglesey" they appear http://goo.gl/ohJdua however, its the homepage rather than the tooth whitening page http://goo.gl/uVI8gK Thanks Ade
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | popcreativeltd0 -
Optimize Pages for Keywords Prior to Building Links?
Greetings MOZ Community: According to site audit by a reputable SEO firm last November, my commercial real estate web site has a toxic link profile which is very weak (about 58% of links qualified as toxic). The SEO firm suggests than we immediately start pruning the link profile, requesting removal of the toxic links and eventually filing a link disavow file with Google for links that web masters will not agree to remove. While removing toxic links, the SEO firm proposes to simultaneously solicit very high quality links, to try to obtain 7-12 high quality links per month. My question is the following: is it putting the cart before the horse to work on link building without optimizing pages (with Yoast) for specific keywords? I would think that Google considers how each page is optimized for specific terms; which terms are used within the link structure, as well as terms within the meta tags. My site is partially optimized, but optimization has never been done thoroughly. Should the pages of the site be optimized for the top 25-30 terms before link building begins. Or can that be done at a later stage. Note that my link profile is pretty atrocious. My site at the moment is receiving about 1,000 unique visitors a week from organic search. However 70% of the traffic is from terms that are not relevant. The firm that did my audit claims that removal of the toxic links while building some new links is imperative and that optimization for keywords can wait somewhat. Any thoughts?/ Thanks for your assistance. Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Optimize root domain or a page in a sub directory?
Hi My root domain is already optimized for keywords, i would say branded keywords, which i do not really need, as the traffic from these does not give me any revenue ( mostly consists of our employees/returning visitors). Now i have run on page optimization for set of keywords for root domain which i like and got good grades (hurray!). But yet my website does not show up on search engines for those keywords. I have got pretty good link building done to my root domain but this is not done for all keywords (but done for branded keywords). It just happened, please do not ask why. So i decided to optimize inside pages in sub directory with new set of keywords i like. Starting with link building, giving anchor text on various other website linking to this particular page. These pages are not ranked in top 50 in google. Is that a good practice? or I would not need those branded keywords, hence should I re-optimize my root domain to suite my new keywords by giving less preference to branded keywords? Is this a good practice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MiddleEastSeo0 -
How to increase the page rank for keyword for entire site
sorry for my bad english is there any way to increase the ranking for a keyword for the entire site .i know that seo is done per page basis .my site contains 1000ds of posts and i cant get back links for each and every post .so i picked 4 keywords which are mostly used while searching my products , is there any method i can increase my ranking for those keywords like increasing domain authority EXAMPLE :like if i want to increase my ranking for "buy laptop" .if any user searches In google with buy laptop i want my site or any of related pages that match the user search query must show up in front
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | prakash.moturu0 -
What is the optimal link profile?
I am doing a variety of SEO link building techniques. I am doing: guest blog posts article submissions directories bookmarks web2.0 properties link acquisition I don't expect much from the article submissions, web 2.0, and directories, so I am using these methods for the long tail and less competitive keywords. Is this a good idea? When we talk about a link profile, is it per page or for the whole site? Does it matter if you have a more diverse link profile for a single page or does it have to be diverse for the whole site? Appreciate any informed comments!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
Keyword Self-Cannibalization
Hi, Happy Friday! I was advised to look at the SEO strategy of a UK SEO company and copy a technique they used, however, I have doubts that this technique is any good. So mydomain.com targets My Domain For my main keyword phrase, I was told to place a link to a newly created inner page in my footer, targeting the main keyword and on this page, create unique content which points back to my homepage. Now I also have mydomain.com/my-domain.php which has a link to mydomain.com with anchor text My Domain. Based on the SEOMoz reports, this now seems to be Keyword Self Cannibalisation and I think that it is diluting link juice and the value of my SEO on my homepage for this term rather than helping. Can you advise if this technique is wrong?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tdsnet0