Keywords are a vital element of search engine optimization, also known as SEO. They are used to communicate to search engines what your content on your webpage is about. If you do not use keywords, your website will not show up on relevant search engine result pages (SERPs), which is vital to any website’s success. This means those searching for content like your website will not be able to find it.
SEO keyword rankings can seem like an overwhelming process at first. This article will break it down and explain how to improve your SEO keyword ranking.
What are Keywords?
First, what are keywords exactly? A keyword is a word or a short phrase that helps to describe the content on a website. When you specify the correct and appropriate keywords, your rankings for relevant search terms will improve. This will help your website get in front of the right audience.
What are SEO Keyword Rankings?
SEO keyword rankings refer to how well your ranking for certain keywords does in relation to other webpages. The higher you rank, the more visibility your website receives. This is why it is necessary to work on your keyword research, also known as keyword optimization. This is the process of searching for new keywords that are both relevant and different from the existing keywords you have already been using.
How Does Google Perform Keyword Rankings?
Google keyword rankings refer to where your website ranks on Google’s SERPs. Google keyword rankings change constantly because Google is frequently changing its algorithms. This means that every few days or even hours, Google updates its software. They do this to ensure that their software is improving their optimization for websites and users everywhere.
The frequent software updating can seem overwhelming but the best way to keep up with it is to also update your website often. This will ensure that both your keywords and your content are up to date with current best practices.
The Best Keyword Tracking Tools
There are numerous keyword tracking tools available to tell you how well your keywords rank. These tools are extremely useful in choosing which keywords to use on your website. Additionally, they can help you manage your keywords to see how they are performing.
SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool
SEMRush offers 20 billion keyword opportunities. It combines all of the necessary keyword research tools into a single place. When using the SEMRush Keyword magic tool, you can pick a keyword to research. When you do this, you are given a list of suggested, related keywords that are organized in 3 levels for easy navigation and sorting. Next, you dig deeper. You use filters to sort question-based keywords. You can organize keywords by word count, search volume, keyword difficulty, cost-per-click (CPC), competitive density, and more metrics. The last step of using this SEMRush keyword research tool is to take action. Create specific lists and export them so that they can be used for marketing campaigns.
Other keyword tools SEMRush provides include keyword overview, keyword manager, and keyword gap. All of these are available for you to stay up to date on the keywords that will improve your SERP ranking the most.
Moz Keyword Explorer
Moz’s keyword tool is known as Keyword Explorer. It helps you to find the best keywords for your SEO strategy. It allows you to discover, prioritize, and create lists of high-quality keywords. You are given access to a database that includes half a billion quality vetted keywords that are updated monthly. Moz Keyword Explorer includes accurate volume estimates. This can effectively predict how much search volume a keyword will receive with more than 90% accuracy. Moz even includes a SERP analysis. This helps you understand why pages rank where they do by providing a SERP analysis breakdown of links and social data on each ranking position.
Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is a keyword tool that can help you improve your keyword search results. It helps with keyword research and selecting the right terms. You can discover new keywords by searching for words or phrases that are related to your products or services. This can help you find the most relevant keywords for your business.
It includes a keyword research tool that provides insight on how often certain words are searched and how those searches have changed over time. You can use this information to narrow down your keyword list. You can add the keywords you like and save them to your advertising plan. These can be saved for future use.
Google Keyword Planner is an extension of Google AdWords. Therefore you can receive bid estimates for keywords. This will be useful when determining your advertising budget.
How to Rank for Keywords
Follow these seven steps to improve your SEO keyword ranking for any keywords of your choice.
1 – Lay the Groundwork
Before you can start working on your SEO keyword rankings, you need to lay the groundwork. This includes having a strong website. A strong website is one that has established domain authority and credibility. Domain authority is a website’s measurement of how successful it will rank on SERPs. Credibility can be gained by providing helpful information to customers.
2 – Perform Initial Keyword Research
Although you may have an idea of what keywords you need to use for your website, you should still do initial keyword research. This will ensure that you are on the right track and help you discover keywords you may not have thought of. Use the previously mentioned keyword tracking tools to help with this keyword research.
Some tips include choosing a keyword with good volume, but not too much volume. You do not want to use a keyword that has a low search volume because that means not many people are searching that term. At the same time, you do not want a keyword that has an extremely high search volume because that means that keyword is extremely competitive. It will be very difficult to become a top result on a SERP with competitive keywords. This is why you need to find a middle ground.
3 – Check out the Competition
After doing some initial keyword research, you should research the competition. These would be sites or businesses that are similar to your own. You can look at the domains, URLs, and titles of these webpages. You can also find what type of content is ranking for those keywords. Is it blog posts? Product pages? Look to see what type of business is ranking. Are they well-known brands or small businesses? Lastly, determine how authoritative those sites are.
All of the information can be used to help you improve your site when it comes to ranking keywords. It can help you differentiate yourself from the competition.
4 – Consider Users’ Intent
We need to consider users’ “intent” because it is our best guess at what they are actually searching for. We can better gauge a searcher’s intent by using more specific keywords. An example of specific keywords is long-tail keywords. These are a group of words that make your search more specific. For example, the keyword “Italian restaurants” could become a long-tail keyword by changing it to “Italian restaurants near me.”
5 – Create the Content
Now that you have done all of the necessary preparations, you can create the actual content that will include the keywords. When you are creating this content, you want to ensure that you are optimizing it for your keywords. For example, try to use your focus keyword several times throughout your article. This is one way to optimize your keywords within your content.
6 – Publish and Promote the Content
Now, it is finally time to publish and promote your content. These are two of the easier steps when it comes to ranking keywords. When you publish, you want to start promoting immediately. Attract all of the attention possible to your content by promoting it on your social media or in an email newsletter.
7 – Analyze Your SEO Keyword Rankings
The last step in ranking for keywords is to analyze how well they are performing. As mentioned previously, Google is constantly updating its software. This means you need to continuously update and produce new content. Use keyword rank checker tools to see how your keywords are ranking. If they are ranking poorly, it is time to make some changes.
How Do I Find Out What Keywords My Site Ranks For?
Keyword tools are available to answer the question of what keywords does my site rank for. You can use the previously mentioned keyword tracking tools. For example, Moz Keyword Explorer includes a feature that will allow you to find ranking keywords for your site or a competitor. You just have to enter the URL to your website and select the country where your audience is based. Then, when you click the analyze button it will tell you the top-ranking keywords. You can also see the difficult and monthly search volume.
Along with the previously mentioned keyword tracking tools, there are more that specialize in rank checking. Some of these include the Ahrefs Keyword Rank Checker, the AccuRank SERP Checker, and the Mongols SERPWatcher. These sites can track how well a site ranks for its target keywords. For example, Ahrefs Keyword Checker can show every keyword for which the target website ranks and rank these keywords.
FAQs about SEO Keyword Rankings:
- What is Google keyword ranking?
- What keywords does my site rank for?
- What are SEO keyword rankings?
- What keyword tracker tools are available to help with keyword research?
- What is Google Keyword Planner?
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