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.
Keyword Themes - What's in a theme?
-
I recently read the Moz guide for "How To Rank - 25 Step SEO Master Blue Print" and had a question on keyword themes.
What is considered a theme? Is there a recommended number of keywords in a theme?
For example, if my site is for listing and selling cars, would the following terms fit within the same "car" theme or should the terms be broken out by "cars general" / "car locations" / "car types"?
- Cars
- Cars for sale in new york
- Ford Explorer for sale
-
Turns out I wrote a post that expanded on this idea of keyword themes: https://moz.com/blog/keywords-to-concepts
Hope that helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
-
You can try using Google Adwords Keyword Planner to help you with this. [Keyword Planner > Find New Keywords > Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category]
Click on that, fill out the form using (for example) "selling cars" for your product or service and drilling down to cars and trucks for product category [you can skip the landing page part] and you will get a lovely list, by relevance, of Ad groups each of which contains closely related keywords. See which ones seem appropriate to you--refine your seed term as needed and repeat.
[You need to have an Adwords account for this, but there is no cost to set one up.]
-
Cyrus explains this in a little more details here:
If your topic is the football, you’ll find it hard to rank for “Super Bowl,” but slightly easier to rank for “Super Bowl 2014” - and easier yet to rank for “Best Super Bowl Recipes of 2014.”
Apply that to cars...
If your topic is cars, you’ll find it hard to rank for “Chevrolet Cars” but slightly easier to rank for “Chevrolet Cars 2015” - and easier yet to rank for “Upcoming Chevrolet Car Deals for 2015”
And...
It’s much easier, and much more profitable, to rank for 100s or even 1,000s of long tail keywords with the same piece of content.
Pay close attention to this...
The biggest mistakes people make with keyword research are:
- Choosing keywords that are too broad
- Keywords with too much competition
- Keywords without enough traffic
- Keywords that don’t convert
- Trying to rank for one keyword at a time
-Andy
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
-
German Keywords
Hi I wanted to check the volume of a keyword in German but unfortunately, it shows no data available.?
Keyword Research | | Raymonda
Is this actually possible to research German keywords with your tool?0 -
Ranking for keywords in multiple zip codes
Hello, We are trying to rank for keywords locally. We are on the edge of four zip codes in our area and are competing with businesses in those zip codes. Should we track each keyword separately for each zip code, or just one zip code we're in?
Keyword Research | | ifixcars0 -
Long tail keyword research
Hi guys, what is the best practice to find the long tail keywords, like Google Instant Suggestion, people also search, or moz keyword explorer I have experienced a lot in MOZ pro Keyword Planner, but now I want to know easiest way to find long tail keywords for my website olehana Makeup, still I'm using just 3 keyword that I already ranked in Google SERP top 3 positions now I also want that some long tail keywords also gets ranked.
Keyword Research | | daimon670 -
How granular should I get with Keyword research?
I'm doing KW research for a new business. My understanding from KW research guides: Use tools to create a list of thousands of keywords Analyze difficulty and search volume Reduce your list and do on page optimization for your select KWs My dilemma with this approach is that it seems "keyword based" rather than "intent" or "category" based. e.g. Let's say I have a grocery store. Ignoring SEO, I know that these are my main categories: Produce Meat Dairy Canned Goods Baked Goods In other words, the above categories are the general "intents" and "categories" that I'd really want to rank for. Keyword tool shows that they have high volume and high difficulty. Let's say that after doing keyword research, I discover "Low Fat Chicken Breasts" and "Turkey Sausage" and "Cheap Meat Wholesale" have decent search volume and low competition. I don't quite understand how I'm supposed to utilize these fringe keywords in my on page SEO plan because it doesn't make sense as a human to categorize my site that way. Not sure if this is clear. Basically I'm trying to figure out if I should really be getting this granular on keywords to help guide my store categories or if I should just be picking broader terms.
Keyword Research | | clarasboutiqueusa0 -
What travel keywords to choose? 'flight' or 'airplane ticket'?
I did some keyword research in order to do some onsite optimization on a travel industry-related website. I found 2 kinds of relevant keywords: 'flight'-related keywords (e.g.: flight chicago dallas) 'airplane ticket'-related keywords (e.g.: airplane ticket chicago dallas) Competition is the same on both but the first ones have more volume. So I'm really tempted to go with the 'flight'-related keywords. However the 'airplane ticket'-related keywords also have an interested volume so how should I do my onsite optimization. So each one of this solution do you think is the best: creating one page targeting the 'flight' and 'airplane tickets'-related keywords knowing isn't a good practice targeting two different keywords ? creating two different pages (one targeting 'flight' and the other one targeting 'airplane tickets') but it isn't very relevant for visitors since both pages are proposing the same offer? also it might have some duplicate content issue. creating one page targeting 'flight' and forget about 'airplane tickets' and missing some opportunities ? creating one page targeting 'flight' and adding some 'airplane tickets' keywords in content and hoping to get some 'airplane tickets' keywords traffic ? Thank you in advance for your feedback and sharing your experience in the same kind of issue.
Keyword Research | | patricksiki0 -
Tool for wildcard keyword suggestions
Like others, I have also been oblivious to the options which were uncovered in this article, using stars or underscores to uncover more keywords suggestions. However, I am trying to find a way to avoid the manual labour. Did any of you find a successful tool that automatically adds all the possible combinations of these wildcards to give a comprehensive lists of suggestions? I am looking for a tool that also included my country (.nl).
Keyword Research | | Entertainment0 -
Keyword ranking by word order
If we have a keyword with 2 words like "SSL Audit". Will it rank in the same position the other way "Audit SSL" ?
Keyword Research | | Cistrust.com0 -
Keyword Research (dash or no dash)
I have a client that has been optimizing for "print and apply" for the past 5 months. Yesterday they decided it was more grammatically correct to use "print-and-apply." There question to me was "is this going to effect our SEO?" So... I checked the difficulty using the keyword analysis tool, both keywords had the same broad/exact adwords traffic as well as difficulty percentage. When reviewing the top 25 listings for each keyword it looks like the same sites rank in the SERPs between 1-8 and then after that it is completely different. So, is there a better keyword to target? Are these two keywords different enough to truly have separate search results?
Keyword Research | | kchandler
The top 8 results didn't even target "print-and-apply" in there content or title tags... Thanks for the input/discussion - Kyle0