People search for keywords or phrases online when they want to find information about anything. These keywords or phrases can be typed into the search boxes of search engines or can be spoken into the voice search box to return relevant results from the search engines. Similarly, your target audience uses certain keywords and phrases to look for the products or services you offer. Keyword selection which is relevant to your target audience and represents the product or service you offer will help your website rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs), and make them more visible to your audience.
Importance of Keyword Selection
The success of any digital marketing campaign relies heavily on the keywords being used in it.
Creating a list of keywords is just the first step in building a successful marketing campaign; the real challenge lies in keyword selection which can help you achieve your business goals.
Different Types of Keywords
There are two types of keywords which can be divided into two groups based on length and search volume:
Short-tail Keywords
These keywords are generally one or two words long and have the highest search volume.
This often makes them difficult to rank for because there is a lot of competition for them. “athletic trainers” or “women’s athletic trainers” are good examples of short-tail keywords.
Long-tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific versions of short-tail keywords.
Fewer people search for these terms and there is less competition for them. “Cheap women’s athletic trainers” is a long-tail version of “athletic trainers”.
These types of keywords can be further divided based on their purpose:
Navigational Keywords
These types of keywords help searchers find a specific web page.
For example, someone might search for “Samsung” to find the website for the Samsung brand or name of a celebrity like “Britney Spears” to see their websites.
Informational Keywords
These types of keywords help searchers find information on a specific topic.
Someone looking for information on Local SEO might search for “Local SEO tips” or simply “what is local SEO”.
Transactional Keywords
These types of keywords are used by searchers looking to buy something online.
“Buy books online” and “online cosmetics shop” are examples of these keywords.
If you know the types of keywords you can use these keyword types to use for your website and your target audience in the best way.
What Defines a Good Keyword?
Just because you’re running an e-commerce site that sells fashion apparel doesn’t make “fashion apparel” a good keyword for your online marketing campaign.
Or if you run a school then school admission or “best school” doesn’t make a good keyword for your online campaigns.
To decide which keywords you should use in your website content and online ads you need to keep four major factors in mind, which are:
Relevance
Relevance is the key to Digital Marketing success.
So, you need to choose keywords very carefully that are relevant to your products, services, and content.
Your keywords need to describe and justify your content accurately, or your visitors will simply land on your website, skim and leave because they won’t be able to find what they’re looking for.
Buyer Intent & Conversion
Your keywords should match with the buyer intent, and lead them to a page or part of the website where it translates to conversion.
A lot of keywords can generate decent traffic for your website, but that won’t guarantee you an increase in sales or conversions.
So, you need to very carefully choose keywords that are meant for the visitors having conversion or purchase intents. If you do that correctly you will see increased conversion for sure.
Search Volume & Competition
It’s important to first figure out the search volumes for the keywords you are trying to target and then analyze the competition for those keywords.
You can do that very easily using the Google Ads Keyword Planner. Choose your keywords very carefully and make sure they are relevant for your target audience.
You can focus on the keywords with the highest amount of searches, but remember that those keywords have high competition, because a lot of your competitors would be trying to rank on those keywords.
The best way is to choose the variations for those keywords, and also include those keywords strategically as per the Google’s LSI parameters.
The targeted long-tail keywords with lower competition and search volume are always easy to rank.
So, you should start with those keywords, and then as your sites continue to grow you can always add more competitive keywords.
Keywords to Avoid
It is very necessary to know which are the negative keywords for your industry, and you should always avoid those keywords in your content.
Avoiding the negative keywords in your Google Ads Campaign will save you precious marketing money and give you better results.
Below is the quick list which will help you identify the negative keywords and eliminate them from your campaigns:
Poorly Targeted Keywords
If you choose the very general keywords based on your target audience and your industry would give you a lot of non-targeted traffic.
And this traffic would only increase the bounce rate on your website, and would not convert in a sale.
So, choose your keywords carefully and avoid the very general keywords which won’t result in conversion on your website.
Keywords with Little or No Search Volume
Targeting for the keywords that nobody searches for often means you won’t get any traffic on those keywords, and not having any traffic means you won’t get any sales.
So, avoid keywords which have very low search volumes or are totally alien which nobody searches to find product or services in your industry.
Irrelevant Keywords
Irrelevant keywords are those words that have nothing to do with your business, products, services, or industry.
Obviously you won’t use them on your website or digital marketing campaigns.
But, these are not the only irrelevant keywords, but the keywords which don’t represent your business or what you don’t offer are also the irrelevant keywords which you should avoid.
For example, if you do not offer discounts on your website you should not use word discount in your content.
Because, this will not help you, and people who will land on your page by searching this keyword would not make any purchase on your website when they will find that you are not offering any discount.
Broad Keywords
People usually type very few words or smaller phrases when they search for something online.
And if you are trying to target very broad keywords they will probably not meet the search intent of the users and hence won’t rank easily on the search engine result pages.
So, try to keep your keywords within 2-5 words only.
Grouping Your Keywords
The next important step in the keyword selection is to create a group of your keywords. Creating groups of related keywords help you increase your website’s relevance for those keywords.
It also helps improve your click-through rates (CTR). And it also improves your Quality Score if you’re running pay-per-click (PPC) ads on Google.
You can create groups by choosing your main keywords, which are of course high priority keywords and then including the variations of the keywords which relate to the main priority keyword.
For instance, if your website offers Plumbing in New Delhi, then your main keyword would be “plumbers in Delhi”, etc.
Once you have chosen your main keywords, choose your supporting keywords.
These are long-tail keywords that include the main keyword. For instance, the group with “plumber in Delhi” as the main keyword can include “affordable plumbing services in Delhi”, “cheap plumbing service in Delhi”, and “best plumbers in Delhi”.
Keyword Research Process
The whole process of keyword selection for your website and online campaigns is divided into four inter-related steps which are as follows:
Create a List of Relevant Topics for Content
The best way is to use your products and services to start the process. Then branch out further into your industry in general to create ideas for topics.
Identifying Keywords for Each Topic
Research the keywords for each topic and list them out. Keep the high priority, high search volume keywords on the top of your list, so that you can focus on them in your content.
Find Related Keywords or Phrases
You can use the keyword research tool from Google Ads which gives you an idea about the search volumes for those keywords. Try to add keyword and phrase variables to add to your list.
Keyword Grouping
Grouping your keywords would help you create content around them to drive organic traffic.
This will also help you to create your marketing campaigns. Identify the main keywords and their supporting keywords to write your content, similarly, you can use these keywords to run your Google Ads campaign.
Conclusion
An effective keyword selection strategy can help you create your way for success in online marketing campaigns.
Keyword selection is an important element in your marketing and content strategy that should be given the correct amount of investment in terms of time and effort.
If you don’t have time, know-how, or a team to do it, you can always consult us and we will help you with the right keyword selection for your business website and rank you for the relevant keywords which would drive the right traffic to your website.
