Explain me how you use keyword explorer for SEO

[seoanalytics]

Hello,

Can you explain me how you use keyword explorer for SEO because I watched many video  and after watching them everything is a little confusing...

From my understanding, you have you main keyword let's say "Normandy bike tours". Based on that keyword you decide to cover TOPICS. Let's say I decide to cover D-Day landings, Omaha beach and and Caen on my page about" Normandy bike tours" ( I could cover more or others I imagine but now let's say those TOPICS are the ones I have decided to cover.

From that point on what I understand is that I need to cover each of those TOPICS and the way to cover each of them is to type each of those words separately in the keyword explorer and look for words that the keyword explorer gives mes that it considers to be "semantically related" to each of those TOPICS.

Then, if I choose the corrects one google will understand the different TOPIC and that should boost my ranking.

Is it the whole idea ?

PS : How many do you look at to find semantically related words ? 10, 20 or more ?

Thank you,

[MelissaBrown]

Yes, as in any case, you'll always adapt any SEO rules or guidance to your situation!

Target keywords are keywords that best fit your SEO scenario, both qualitatively and quantitatively.  In other words, what keywords are relevant, and possess metrics that match your needs (volume, difficulty, conversion rate, organic click-through rate, etc.).  This will depend on your site, but for more help on target keywords, you can check out this course:  https://academy.moz.com/keyword-research

Thank you, and good luck!

[seoanalytics]

Thank you for your details reply but I still have a few questions.

In point number 3 you say look for questions and phrases, I am travel website not a blog... I don't think people want me to answer questions about what d-day is they want me to describe what they will see and what their tour will be like. How about I stick with with a list of related keywords to D-Day landings, is that ok ?

In point number 5 you say to identify your target keywords, what do you mean by that ? From my understanding my target keyword is D-day landings and I just need to find secondary keywords that are relevant to that that I will find through keyword explorer using the different possibilities (exclude the query terms and so on). Do you mean something else ? If so can you clarify.

Thank you,

[MelissaBrown]

Hey there!  It sounds like you're on the right track.  I suggest using Keyword Explorer in the following way for each subtopic (I'll use D-Day landings as an example:

1. Search your main keyword (D-Day landings) in Keyword Explorer (KWE).
2. Click on Keyword Suggestions
3. Look for words, questions, phrases, etc. that are relevant to your site and your audience that are related to D-Day landings, and select them to create a Keyword List
4. Add at least 100 D-Day related keywords to that Keyword List
5. Once the list is created and populated with data, use the metrics to identify your target keywords.  Depending on your site, you may be looking for a low difficulty (under 15) or a high volume (if you have a high Domain Authority).
6. Create content around that subtopic.

Re - "How many keywords?"  There's really no hard and fast answer here. The number can be as low as 1 or as high as 15 or 20. You need to know which keywords have actual relevance to the page content.  Remember, focus on topic and concept not the number of keywords. The safe and generally effective bet is to choose one primary keyword that's specific and relevant to a page, with a decent monthly search volume, and then back it up with a few secondary keywords that are also very relevant.

We go into more detail on comprehensive keyword research in the Moz Academy Keyword Research course! https://academy.moz.com/keyword-research