A keyword targeting tool helps a content creator determine if their article will ever be seen, or rank in the number one position. Keep in mind that every word in your content is a keyword.
This means even if you don’t rank well in your intended target, you will probably still rank somewhere. There is no need to stress too much about keyword targeting if you produce quality content.
Quality content will almost always produce some traffic.
There are steps you can take to ensure more traffic from your work by targeting underutilized keywords. What’s the best keyword targeting tool to find those high traffic, but under utilized keywords? I’ll answer that question soon.
How Does Google Rank Content?
Exactly how Google ranks content is a closely guarded secret. It is believed that the algorithm used takes into consideration more than 200 individual parameters, but much of this is conjecture. There are, however, some signs that can be read from top ranked pages and some of the most important, but not all of course, factors are listed below.
Back links – Yes, back links are still considered by Google as a strong indicator of a site’s quality and relevance to a specific subject. The anchor text of these links and the quality of the site their on also factor in. It is believed that this particular factor is giving way to content quality over time as the algorithms become more sophisticated.
Content – The quality, length and other factors such as grammar and spelling all count in Google Rankings. It appears, on average, the best length for articles is between 2000 and 2500 words depending on the topic. Articles should usually be at least 1000 words though. Good quality content will almost always rank well in search engines.
Page load times – Pages that take 3 seconds or longer to load lose 40% of their traffic! Humans are getting used to instant everything and our patients are short when it comes to page load times. This information came directly from a Google study, so you can be sure it counts.
Mobile Friendly – Up to 60% of all searches are now done on mobile devices. If your site isn’t mobile friendly, forget about it, your rank will have a tough time even maintaining its position as time passes.
Click Through Rate – Impressions vs. click throughs have an effect on your rankings. If your content gets little traffic despite being on the first page, that page’s rank is sure to drop over time.
Keyword Density – Not as important as it once was, the number of keywords in content helps the search engines determine its topic. Be careful here, if a page appears to be stuffing keywords (overuse), it will likely be punished in the rankings.
Keyword Targeting, How To Do It Right
So, keywords and their density don’t really help you rank better directly, but, they do help the search engines determine your content’s topic. To use them effectively, you need to use a good keyword targeting tool. Once you have found an underutilized keyword phrase, you can use that keyword to attempt to get ranked under it, to tap into some of its monthly traffic.
By crafting articles based on underutilized keywords there’s a good chance your content can get on the first page of the search engine results. Here are some basic guidelines:
- The keyword phrase must make sense grammatically.
- Use the keyword phrase as the title of your content.
- The keywords should be used 2 – 3 times in the first 2 paragraphs.
- The remainder of your content should be natural, avoid keyword stuffing.
- Content should be at least 1000 words, up to 2500 words or more.
- Use images, this increases value to search engines.
If you are using the right tool to find your keyword phrases, you can easily spot the phrases that are getting traffic, but have little competition. There are plenty of free tools out there, but do they give you the right information to do the job?
I will show you the best tool for content creators soon. Hang in there…
Keyword Targeting, What To Avoid
Stuffing keywords in your content is probably the worst thing you can do for rankings. This old trick used to work but has fallen out of favor and search engine algos are designed to spot stuffed content. Write naturally, communicate your message well and you’ll do fine.
Content that is written just to target a keyword phrase will be awkward or unnatural which will affect readability. This will increase bounce rate and reduce time on page statistics. You can be sure these statistics affect rank over time especially if you use Google’s tracking facilities, Analytics and Web tools.
Keep your content natural, using the tips above and you will get traffic from search engines.
The Best Keywords To Target
The keywords you select should be directly relevant to your site’s target market of course. Researching keywords is also good inspiration for new article ideas.
By selecting grammatically correct phrases, you can use them as content titles increasing your chances of getting on the first page for that phrase.
The best keywords to target usually have fewer than 150 or so pages listed under them, but anything under 100 is best. This means you will be competing with that many pages, but, much of the time their content quality may not be that good, so you have an excellent chance to get on the first page.
The keywords you select should also produce at least 30 searches per month, but higher is always better and you have a great chance to find hidden gems. With enough of your pages targeted this way, this seemingly small amount of traffic, really adds up.
The Best Tool For Keyword Targeting
Finally, I will give you my secret weapon to spot good keywords. This tool is designed for the content creator specifically so the information it provides will all be very useful. The tool is called Jaaxy. This tool is totally free to try so go check it out.
The information returned on keyword searches shows how much competition the phrase has, its monthly traffic, numerous similar keywords, a proprietary SEO score and more. It makes finding traffic producing keywords that you have a really good chance of ranking under super easy. There is no better keyword targeting tool for content creators.
Jaaxy is totally free to try. I highly recommend Jaaxy so head over to their site and give it a try!
Keyword Targeting Tool Wrap Up
There are free tools out there to research keywords but the information they provide may be inaccurate or not terribly useful for content creators. Jaaxy was designed for content creators so everything it shows is to that end. If you are serious about keyword research, Jaaxy is the tool for you.
The real secret to getting traffic from search engines is producing quality content. If you do this one thing, traffic is almost guaranteed. But, it never hurts to up your chances and traffic by doing some keyword research. The right keyword targeting tool will help in your efforts and increase traffic if it is done in a conscientious way.
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->Steven
Thanks for writing this!
I’ve already had some experience with Jaaxy, and I would definitely endorse it! It really saves hours and hours of keyword research.
I’m still trying to get my mind around the subject of rankings though, and this post has been really helpful. I still haven’t quite figured out how to create long-tail keywords, or how exactly to take full advantage of good keywords. The shorter ones definitely seem harder to rank, though.
Backlinking is also something I’ve been hearing a lot about. I’ve done it a bit, but I need a lot more content before I can really do it effectively.
Long tail keywords are just more specific and are good to target because your traffic will be better targeted to your content’s subject.
Back links are something that is really out of your control and will happen with time as others share your articles. Don’t try to build them yourself, that’s usually trouble.
Thanks for the comment Jordan.
Good info on explaining how SEO actually works, the key to any site is the quality of content that you have on it. Finding the right niche to explore is a virtue, discovering a good keyword or topic sometimes takes a bit of a small strategy. Just to get people intrigued on the article or site.
Agreed, quality of content will make or break you site’s success.
Thanks for the feedback David.
Hi Steven,
Keyword research really is essential to getting good ranking on Google for your website. Even with good content, if the traffic for your keyword/title is too low and the competition too high you will have difficulty getting visitors to your site.
I have pages ranked number 1, first page, top position, that get zero traffic. My bad. I have posts with great content, very popular topic but the keyword has very high QSR (lots of competition). These also get little to no traffic because they rank on page 2 or worse. My bad again.
Jaaxy is a great tool for keyword research. You can work two ways. Start with great content and then find low hanging fruit keywords within your post for the title. Or find keywords first and develop the content afterward. Both ways work.
Thanks for the post and the super tips.
Ed
Thanks Ed. You’re right, keywords are important because if no one sees your hard work, it’s tough for it to pay off. I hope you can rework some of your pages to get them ranked!
Thanks for the input!
Hi,
Thank you for such a detailed article, I enjoyed reading it and it it of so much use to me since there is a lot I have not done on my site to increase traffic.
I am surely going to work on my pages loading faster and this aspect of a mobile friendly website is something that i will definitely have to work on so thanks again.
No problem. Mobile friendly has become very important so be sure your site fits that.
Thanks for the input Dave!
Thank you for this very informative post! I have been working on affiliate sites for about a year now and am always looking for ways to improve my content. Although I remember learning some of this material when I was first starting out, your article helped remind me of some of the key tips I need when targeting keywords.
I use Jaaxy as well so I am glad to see you recommend it too. For anyone just starting out on writing content, this is an extremely valuable article to read and apply. And I will also be reviewing this page the next time I write a piece of content. So thanks again for this information! It is much appreciated!
Thanks David I am glad it helped you out. I love Jaaxy for content creation, I get a lot of great ideas for articles from just this tool. As a matter of fact, I get most of my ideas from it…
Thanks for the kind words!
I wish I’d known about Jaaxy when I first started experimenting with my own sites a couple years ago. I didn’t know the first thing about blogging or SEO, at the time. You really put it into perspective when you mentioned that every word in a piece of content counts as a keyword, because I think if more people understood that simple fact, they’d understand better why this matters. Thanks for a great review!
Thanks Mark! If you try Jaaxy let me know what you think. It is the best tool for content marketers.
Thanks for the great read Steven, there was a lot of great and useful information. I do have a question regarding keywords though. Is there a way to find out if certain keywords will convert better than other keywords? I always hear people give different statistics on how to choose your keywords but no one ever talks about how well a certain keyword converts or how to choose a keyword that does convert.
After reading other articles you have written, I can tell you know what you are talking about and that you know your stuff. I have asked other people but have yet to receive an answer. Keep up the great writing, I look forward to your future publications.
The way I think about this is, what would you put in a search engine to find your information? So, if you were searching for articles like yours, how would you search for them?
Think like your customer. Put yourself in their shoes when thinking up keywords to target. Which keywords would attract you as a buyer? Once they are on your site the information you provide should help solve a problem. If you do all of this they will have some trust and be more open to making a purchase.
It’s a whole process, keywords just get them on your page, the information they find has to help them as well to gain trust which is the key to content marketing.
Hope this helps Jair and thanks for the input.
I wasn’t sure what you meant by the low hanging fruit at first but after reading this article I certainly know exactly what you mean! The ranking parameters outlined are good but I have one question – I heard that backlinks are no longer considered important in googles eyes, is that true in your opinion? if so, how many would be needed?
Back links do still count in ranking but Google is moving more toward content quality over time. The number of back links needed to get a number one spot would vary. The exact number can’t really be known though because Google keeps that information to itself as far as I know.
Thanks for the comment William!
Hi Steven!
When it comes to the lenght of a blog post, you said up to 2.500 words. Does it mean anything higher than that would rank worse?
And, do you think it is better to go for less competing sites or a higher SEO score when it comes to choosing your target keyword?
I guess the best is a good combination of both, but when you have to choose… what would you go for?
Thanks a lot for the tips!
With length of articles, it’s important to find balance between what Google prefers and what your readers will be willing to endure. Most people don’t have the time or attention span to get through much more than about 2000 words. Even shorter articles are often skimmed. Go with 1000 to 2000 words and you should do fine.
Choosing keywords is a bit of an art. Look for balance between traffic and competition. If you must choose, pick keywords with decent traffic but low competition, you’ll have a better chance to rank and get at least some steady traffic. With enough of those and a steady publishing rate, it adds up over time.
Thanks for the questions Israel!
This is a great reminder of how we should be using keywords! I find I am often torn between using a really good keyword that doesn’t 100% reflect my content – or going with a humorous title! I tend to alternate between the two. Keyword research does take time but, as you say, as long as it’s done properly, it’s definitely worth it.
Keyword research is very important in the beginning when your site is new and you’re looking to rank somewhat quickly once your pages start to appear in searches. No point in creating content no one will ever see!
Thanks for the comment Louise!
Hi Steven,
I note that you take the position that keywords should be used in the title and up to 3 times in the first 2 paragraphs. Has that worked well for you?
I read recently that some felt that Google was penalising them for ‘keyword stuffing’.
I’ve used your approach before with some success. However, the algorithm is subject to change.
Have you heard anything about this?
Regards, Henri
I’ve had mixed results with everything I have tried…
The method you’re referring to is a rule of thumb. I have heard a bunch of different stories on this, some claim they only use their exact keywords in their title and ranked number one. I suggest using exact keywords in your title then write naturally without even thinking about it. I’m not totally sure exact keywords used in the body of your article mattes that much. Write quality content for your readers, that’s the safest path in my opinion.
Thanks for the comment Henri!
Your content is great for a beginner like me who is just starting out, and trying to understand how SEO works. I have heard of Jaxxy and think it is a great tool to use! Very well thought out and put together! Thanks for the insight into how SEO works.
I’m glad you found the article useful Kayla. Too many people obsess over SEO when it really isn’t necessary. SEO is fluid and changes constantly as search engines try to pick the best content to show to their users. Provide good, useful content and you will do well.
Thanks for the kind words!