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.
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
-
How do I do keyword research when search volume is unknown
Hi Mozzers! I do a lot of work in niche areas, and one issue I often confront in keyword research is unknown search volume. That is, I'll be doing keyword research in Keyword Explorer or Gooogle Search Console, and for the most relevant keywords, I find either very low search volumes, null search volumes, or "Data not available." How do I make good keyword planning decisions when I can't find good data for search volume? Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Andy
Keyword Research | | AndyKubrin0 -
How many redirects on a redirect can you have?
Since 2007 the best keywords for a good rank in seo have changed. In some cases we have changed urls to maintain a good ranking. That was 2 years ago ... and now we see we need to upgrade the keyword phrase we use and are thinking about changing the urls once again to keep our ranking. It seems absurd to have a redirect for your redirected page. Are there different ways to approach updating your keyword phrases without the 301 redirect? For example, it has been 2 years since we did a 301 redirect on a group of our pages. Are we better off having the original url deleted (which has been up since '07) or is it better to redirect the original page and the redirected page to the newest page? We already incorporate the updated keyword phrase changes into our titles, images and body copy to reflect the changes. Thanks
Keyword Research | | Manifestation0 -
Price Comparison Website And Keywords
I run a price comparison website for a small niche at http://cdkeyprices.com I am targeting keywords for the specific products I am comparing the price/merchants on. On a typical page I would have a price column, product name, the merchant and a buy button. Buy button is affiliate linked to the merchant. The product name in the product column is the name from the actual website I am tracking. As such, my keyword was appearing sometimes up the 30 times. I've took it down some months ago but was wondering if this was a bad move. I was concerned Google would think I was stuffing the keyword. I've only just gotten into SEO the past few months so was not able to see any changes. Should i put the product column back up or would it be considered over optimization?
Keyword Research | | MrPenguin0 -
Keyword Conundrum...
I have 3 keywords that I am targeting. Assume for the time being that they are all equally competitive. Includes local exact match monthly searches: Managed IT Services - 3600 IT Managed Services - 720 Managed IT Support - 170 They are all exactly synonymous, not to mention other keywords such as IT Managed Support, Managed IT Service, IT Managed Service, Managed IT Service Provider, etc.. My current strategy is to target the top 3 all on one page. The problem then is the title tag: Managed IT Services | IT Managed Services | Managed IT Support Pretty spammy. I could build pages for all 3, but how would I incorporate them into the website since they are all synonyms. Can I get some recommendations on how to handle this? What would you use for a title tag? How would handle separate pages with synonymous content?
Keyword Research | | CsmBill0 -
Keywords + Country?
Hey guys, Let's say that I'm doing on-site SEO for a website that sells football shirts. This website targets 5 different countries. We only have a .com domain and no other country specific domains will be added at this point. When I choose the keywords, do I opt for product name + country or only product name? football shirts france or football shirts? Some info: Countries have been added in the title of the pages. Countries appear in the footer. Thank You.
Keyword Research | | BruLee0 -
Is there an ideal ratio of keyword difficulty to search volume?
I used the keyword research tool to pull data on potential keywords, the report returns a percentage to represent the competition and difficulty of a keyword. Is there an ideal ratio of percent difficulty to search volume
Keyword Research | | AdviceElle0 -
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?
Keyword Research | | staingurus0 -
Keywords for multi service business?
New to this so bear with, I am a TV aerial, satellite, CCTV, Door entry, Access Control, Telephone repair engineer. I have one seperate page for each of the installations I carry out as well as the basic home, about, areas, faqs and so on. My question is do i have one key phrase for each of the services i cover or do i just relate all the keywords from that service into the keywords tag ie, META name=keywords content="Digial aerials Stockport,digital aerials Manchester,aerials Stockport,aerials Manchester,aerial repairs Stockport,aerial repairs Manchester,digital,aerial,tv,tv aerials Manchester,tv aerials Stockport,arials,arial,aerial installer,aerial installations,aeril installation,Stockport,Manchester ,"> That is what i have fro Tv aerial installation, Should i make landing pages for each phrase for each service or stick to one page? www.redvalecommunications.co.uk is the site if you want to take a look thanks in advance
Keyword Research | | redvalecomms0