How many keywords do you recommend tracking?
-
I am working through thousands of organic keywords and would like to create a list of core keywords. I want the list to be small enough that we can really go after these keywords and track progress. I work for a B2B software company. I am thinking between 20-30 but I would love to hear any tips, opinions and recommendations!
Thank you!
-
thanks again!
-
I have had an account at SEMrush for a long time and they have a long history of what I track.
-
Can I ask why you use SEMRush vs. Moz to create your keyword baskets.
Thanks!
-
This is fantastic! Thank you!
-
I track "baskets" of keywords.
Let's say I am running a website about hammers and I want to rank #1 for the root keyword of "hammers". Early in the planning of this business and its website I do keyword research and determine that I will be selling hammers made by different companies (with a number of models from each company), hammers used by different occupations (and numerous hammers for some occupations)... I will also have lots of articles about hammers that include: how to select them, how to use them, how to avoid injuries, care of your hammer, etc.
So I am going to go for the root keyword of "hammers" (which might take several years to accomplish - but I am the hammer man and I plan to hammer at this until everyone else drops dead).
Then starts my baskets, each will be a keyword "project" at SEMrush. These keyword projects will each have many keywords tracked. We might have a few dozen projects running for this website. These will track website performance for different parts of the attack. Knowing where you are succeeding, where traction is hard to get, where you are making money, etc.
BRANDS: Estwing (and a keyword for each type of hammer, perhaps weight as well, or length), then Black and Decker, Kobalt, Irwin, Vaughan, etc.
HAMMERS by OCCUPATION: carpenter, mason, auto body, etc.
**ARTICLES: ** how to select, how to use, types of handles (wood, drop forged, fiberglass), how to care for, safety (each of these will have several articles)
REVIEWS: field tests of many types of hammers
RELATED PRODUCTS: that can be sold beside hammers
OTHERS: that will be discovered as the project progresses
Now we start a content attack and a battle that will advance across time, tracking keywords on all of these levels, using sales data and profit margins as we learn them to prioritize the attack.
Your website might be smaller. Your content attack might be simpler. Your industry or business might have broad or narrow product lines and content opportunities.
So the number of keywords tracked might be dozens, hundreds or thousands. You might have a nascent site and be tracking long tail easy, or you might have a mature site and be tracking mainly single-word root keywords.
I track a lot of keywords. But each day I mainly look at the progress of the baskets, looking at individual keywords occasionally, but focusing on the big picture. I load the baskets at the start of the project, knowing that I might not get to writing for some of those keywords for weeks, months or years - depending upon the size of the project. As the project advances and I populate the keywords and the baskets, things start moving up, up, up. That is what energizes me and keeps me on the attack. A person's mental state is worth a million dollars. The taste of blood and money is worth even more. It helps keep me motivated and keeps me hammering hard.
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 -
Keyword optimisation
I have a few questions regarding keywords that we are wanting to optimize on our site. This may be a bit basic so if this had already been answered elsewhere let me know. Question 1: How many time can I refer to the one word on different pages on the site ? Is there any rules around this? In theory the keywords we are looking to include will be relevant to these pages. **Question 2: ** Should I use different variation of the key word or is the one variant fine? Question 3: Looking at the search terms people use from google analytics to get to our site, there is a lot of people using the phrase “sliding windows New Zealand. Should I write this on the page exactly as “sliding doors New Zealand “ or is “sliding doors” fine? Its just that the former phrase doesn't really work with our communication. I look forward to your advice!
Keyword Research | | aplnzjune180 -
Keyword Plan Of Attack
We have looked up our direct competitor to see what keywords they rank #1 for (aside from their own company name). We have narrowed it down to 3 that we want to focus on. Our plan is to build internal landing pages, external landing pages and beef up our content. Is that a good strategy to start or are we missing something?
Keyword Research | | IcarusSEO0 -
Any recommendations on how to find non-branded keyword phrases revealing searcher’s intent with high volume and CPC?
-Most of the organic keywords driving traffic to our website are branded. -I’ve used UberSuggest, but those keyword phrases tend to have low CPC and low volume -Thus, the UberSuggest keywords usually produce a low benefit & K.O.B score. -Andrew
Keyword Research | | Todd_Kendrick0 -
Keyword Difficulty Report
Hi I am a seo beginner, please help me to know and usability of Keyword Difficulty Report. Actually, i see the difficulty percentage is 28 for a keyword and i have option to generate defficulty report. Bit confused how can i use this?
Keyword Research | | Webworld_Norway0 -
Is there any value to meta keywords?
The more I read the more I realize that meta keywords are not as helpful as they once were. Is there any SEO value to meta keywords anymore or should the emphasis be put on the content and title tags in regards to keywords? As always, I appreciate any feedback.
Keyword Research | | TracSoft0 -
Keyword variations
I have a question about keyword variations. To be specific, let's say "blue upside down cars" has low competition but fairly low traffic. However, the shortened variation "upside down cars" has low competition but extremely high traffic. Can I double my bet by going ahead and using "blue upside down cars" whereby in some instances Google would refer traffic based on the entire keyword, but it would also refer traffic based on the the last part of the keyword which has the higher traffic ("upside down cars"). In this case, we would optimize around "blue upside down cars" with hopes of getting traffic for both keywords (the long tail and longer tail). Is there any reason not to pursue this strategy? I hope I made sense!
Keyword Research | | amandahx20 -
Location-based Keyword Targeting
We are located in Denver, Colorado. I want the majority of the site to be focused on Denver keyword terms but I also think we should branch out to other cities around Denver, as well as around the keyword "Colorado." What's an appropriate way to do this? I've seen site that have a page for every city in the area but it looks terrible and doesn't really fit into the site. How do I cross link to these new city pages (I don't want them in the main navigation)?
Keyword Research | | kylesuss0