Last Updated on August 2, 2022 by Arif Chowdhury
Do you know you can get thousands to millions of free traffic to your site by doing this simple keyword optimization?
To grow your website, you must get thousands of monthly targeted visitors from search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Nevertheless, how do you suppose to get thousands of targeted visitors from Google? The answer is by doing SEO within your content. While talking about SEO strategy, you should clearly remember one vital factor: Keyword Optimization.
When you write content for your blog or website, you must optimize keywords to rank those particular keywords in search results. And by doing so, your website shows up on top in SERP, and you start to receive thousands of targeted visitors for free.
In this guide, we will talk about what is the keyword optimization technique. And how you can implement it on your website and blog. First, however, you should remember a few critical factors when you start the research. That is, “keyword search volume” and “keyword difficulty.” Here, the keyword search volume means how many searches a keyword gets every month.
For example, if you check for “blogging,” you would see it has 1 million to 10 million monthly search volume, and its difficulty is low according to Google Keyword Planner Tool. Please note that the Google Keyword Planner tool is sometimes wrong about its difficulty metric. Consider it super hard when you see a keyword search volume above 10,000.
What does it mean? This “word” has super stiff competition, which means big brands are chasing this term to get ranked higher in search engines. It also has a high search volume worldwide, so it tells why big brands pursue it. However, if you only check for these two factors, your research will be useless.
Why is that? Simple, this “blogging” term has a broad meaning; it doesn’t have any specific purpose. If a user searches in Google with “blogging,” no one knows what she is trying to find out. It is called the “search intent” of a user. There are several issues around it.
Narrowing Down Your Target Audience for Keyword Optimization.
Let’s say you have written an article about “How to make money from blogging?” and your main focused keyword is “blogging.” Thus, 1,000 people visited your article by searching “blogging,” but only 100 wanted to know how to make money from blogging. The remaining 900 people’s intentions were different; they were not looking for an article.
So, what is going to happen? 100 people will stay on your website and read your article, while 900 will leave immediately. Here, you will get a 90% bounce rate; hence the search engine will rank you down because 90% of people are going to your site immediately, which means the user experience is not good and your website is not worthy.
I guess you get an idea by now what the issue is here. Your ultimate task is not only to get thousands of visitors but also to keep them on your website as long as possible. And for that, you have to target all three factors at once. Keyword search volume, difficulty, and search intent.
Narrowing down your targeted visitors by using a long-tail keyword. For example, instead of using only “blogging,” you should focus on “make money from blogging” in this case, you narrowed down your targeted visitors, and now 900 visitors will come to your website who are looking for an article like yours. You will get a 10% bounce rate. It’s best practice for your site to rank higher in organic search.
This is just a basic idea I tried to give you before I started my guide. Anyway, let’s look deeper into how you should research keywords for your website more effectively, find the keyword difficulty, realize users’ search intent, and finally do some proper page SEO.
Definition: What is Keyword Difficulty?
Keyword difficulty is self-explaining. How hard is a keyword to rank higher in search engine results? If you do a simple search in Google, you will see ten websites appear on the 1st page, and this is where the competition goes on as every website’s target is to appear in the 1st-page result. It is the ultimate goal.
Now the question is, which type of keyword should you focus on?
Not every term or phrase should be worth your time. Why is that? Simple, some keywords have high competition, which means it would take lots of time and effort to appear in the top result. And in most cases, you will be able to appear as far as the 2nd or 3rd position of the search engine results page at best.
Because large brands and organizations spend millions of dollars in content marketing every month to appear on the top, think about it: if you are a small business, the chances are very slim. Therefore, you have to be smart in improving your SEO by optimizing keywords.
Anatomy of Keyword Difficulty Based on SEO.
Big brothers will take the front seat in your University auditorium. It usually happens and always. Now, look at the Google 1st page result of the top 10 websites. Here you may see that all top 10 websites are high authority sites. This is because these top websites are backed up with thousands or even millions of high-quality backlinks from other high authority sites, ranking them high enough to get in the top 10 positions on the 1st page.
If you check their domain authority (DA) using several free DA checkers, you will find that most of them are high DA sites. However, there are two vital parts of a website’s authority value. The first one is DA (Domain Authority), and the second one is PA (Page Authority). Both are vital in authority and directly impact how a website can rank higher in SERP.
If your website’s DA is only 10, it will be hard for you to compete with other websites to appear in the top 10 results if they have higher DA than yours.
Definition: Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA).
You may have already heard about Page Rank. That was an old term; now, it’s called DA (Domain Authority). It means how much value a domain has from search engines based on its quality of content and backlinks profile. A domain with a high DA value indicates that it will have a bright future in search engines. The same goes for PA (Page Authority); instead of focusing on the root domain, PA focus on the individual web page.
If you have a website with five individual pages, then based on your page quality and backlinks profile, they may have different PA values. So let me clear this for you a little bit more.
If your domain name is “example.com,” with a DA value of 40, your contact page “example.com/contact” has a different PA value of 21. It means your overall domain rating is 40. However, the contact page has less value, maybe because it has fewer backlinks or quality of content.
Now imagine you have received two backlinks from two different websites; however, both have the same DA value of 40, but the PA value is different. For example, one has 31, and the other has 21. Therefore, having two backlinks from the same DA value won’t carry the same weight as they have different PA values.
So, the verdict is that DA is the overall value of a domain, and PA is the individual value of a specific page. Now, this is important; whenever you target backlinks, remember that the PA value will directly impact the overall DA value of a website where your backlink will come from. And these are the best practices for your SEO (Search engine optimization.
Quick Note: If you receive a backlink from a website with a DA value of 60, the page where your backlink comes from has only a PA value of 10. Then it won’t give you much link juice. So instead, it will be better to have a backlink from a page the PA value is 30 while the overall DA value is only 40.
Disclaimer: DA and PA are invented by MOZ. This metric is not part of the Google ranking factor. We webmasters only use this to justify a website’s quality. But, Google does not care about DA and PA. Therefore, if your website DA and PA are high or low, it only means that judging by the MOZ metric, your website quality is good or bad. But, it doesn’t mean that Google will think the same way.
How Should You Check Keyword Difficulty by Yourself?
It is time to begin your research like an expert. Before I tell you how to do it, make sure you remember this always. Do not depend on a single research tool ever. You only use the “Google keyword planner tool” for research. Indeed, you are going to find lots of garbage in there. I am not saying that the Google planner tool is useless, but there is so much information that is unclear, even misguided.
For example, let’s say you want to research “blogging.” If you use the Google keyword planner tool, you may see that they are showing 1 million to 10 million search volumes per month, and the competition level is low. Well, this is misguided. As you may think this term has a high search volume and low competition, you should focus on that. But unfortunately, it is not valid.
If you check with other keyword planner tools like “Wordtracker,” you may find different information about this term. Here, it shows 300K monthly search volume, and its difficulty is 42 out of 100, which means it has medium-level competition. Okay, now let’s take a look at Ahrefs. Here you will see it has super stiff competition.
Why does every keyword tool have different results for the same term?
The answer is that the internet is vast, and no one can tell you exact information, as everyone has their perception based on their data. And that’s why you need to research using several SEO tools instead of depending on a single platform.
The best practice is not to focus on a one-word short term but a 3-4 word long phrase. For example, “make money from blogging” concentrating on this long-tail phrase will benefit more than focusing on a single-word term.
Remember that a single word always has high competition that a long-tail phrase does not. And by focusing on a long-tail term, you can target more relevant visitors to your site. It is always best to target quality, not quantity. And also, make sure to produce quality content if you want to target potential customers. Later in this guide, I will discuss why you should focus on a long-tail phrase rather than a short-tail.
Quick Note: Always target long-tail search terms regardless of how many search volumes it has. And do not forget to include your focus term on the content title, headings, body, image and meta description, and anchor text.
Here is a collection of top keyword planner tools you may try:
Every SEO tool has its unique feature; for example, in Ahrefs, you may see they have an estimate of how many high-quality backlinks you may need to get on the first page for that specific term. I recommended using this tool for researching keywords. However, please do not take everything they say for granted; always remember that everyone has their analysis databases.
Recommended Reading: Best and Cheapest SEO Tools for Beginners? (Tested and Reviewed)
How to Organize Your Keyword Research?
Now I will tell you another method of researching keywords without using any keyword planner tool. It will be time-consuming. However, you do not depend on any 3rd party software or tool this time. It is your research data.
Several of my favorite DA and PA checker tools you may try:
First, install MozBar, a chrome extension to gauge website DA, PA, and backlinks profile. You will see a site’s DA and PA value at the top of your chrome browser and how many backlinks that page has.
Now do a Google search for your selected keyword to begin the research. In this example, I will talk about “blogging,” so you may find ten websites on the 1st page by doing a Google search.
You can see these websites’ DA and PA values and backlinks for that specific page. So, for example, here you can see that in the screenshot, four websites from 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th in the ranking.
For example, I only decided to discuss these four websites in SERP. Here you can see that the 2nd website is blogger.com, with DA 99, PA 100, and backlinks of this specific page are 1.5 billion.
Then the 3rd website is “The Balance Small Business,” which has DA 79, PA 57, with 1.7K backlinks. And the 4th website is Wikipedia, while it’s DA 98, PA 85, and has 412K backlinks.
Now you may ask how “The Balance Small Business” got in 3rd where it has only DA 79 and PA 57 while Wikipedia is in 4th and has DA 98 and PA 85. As I said before, DA and PA are only for reference from third-party service MOZ, which has no connection with Google ranking.
Also, look at their backlinks; the “The Balance Small Business” page has only 1.7K backlinks, while the Wikipedia page has 412K backlinks. So what do you think? What is the reason behind it? Well, no one knows how exactly Google ranking works. We only can guide you to make your site the best while Google will decide to rank you up or not.
However, using MozBar, you can quickly get an idea of your big brother’s score in a football match. And whether you may have any chance to outlast them in the field. For example, if your website’s DA value is 30 and the page that you wanted to focus on “blogging” has a PA value of 20, and this page has only 1,000 backlinks, you are nowhere near outlasting them. But, again, maybe Google ranks you high for some unknown reason that we do not know.
Anyway, for the best practice, you should write high-quality content and build backlinks to get your site in a good position. Also, you should look for a long tail keyword where the top 10 websites have low DA and PA value, and their backlinks are less than your page has, or at least somewhere near. In that case, you may have a chance to get on the 1st page for that term.
Quick Note: Use MozBar to get an idea of DA, PA, and backlinks of the top 10 websites to gauge the competition level of a keyword.
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Combining Search Volume and Intent with Competition.
Congratulations if you have learned how to gauge the competition level of a keyword by yourself. It is a vital part of your overall keyword research. We will add the other two essential elements to complete it.
Keyword search volume and search intent.
I already discussed keyword search volume in the earlier section of this guide. As I said before, do not depend on a single tool; then, your whole research will jeopardize; instead, use at least 3-4 tools and combine their results to get an idea about keyword search volume.
For example, using several tools gives you an idea about the “importance of SEO” keyword search volume, which is 150,000 per month. Now check your website page that you have focused on “the importance of SEO” with the Google Analytics tool to see how much organic traffic you are getting every month on this content.
By using this method, you may get an overall idea of your keyword performance. However, do not forget that there are other keywords in your piece of content; you are not only getting traffic for your focused keyword.
Now let’s talk about search intent. There are three different types of search intent I am going to talk about in this guide.
Transactional: This type of search is mainly used for buying a product. For example, “buy Xbox in New York.” Most of the time, users are ready to buy a product, and that’s why they use the “buy” keyword at the beginning of their search query to find relevant content. For your local SEO digital marketing campaign, you should focus on this search intent.
Navigational: This type of search is used for finding content from a specific website. For example, in “cliobra” or “cliobra SEO,” a user’s primary purpose is to find a piece of information from the Cliobra website or an SEO-related article from the Cliobra website.
Informational: This search intent is mainly to find relevant information from the top website content that Google suggests. For example, “best SEO tools for 2021” by using this search, users want to find out information about SEO tools for the year 2021. Therefore, for your content marketing purpose, focus on this search intent.
There are other minor types of search intents; however, let’s not broaden this topic. Instead, I am going to discuss significant intentions in this guide. Now let’s go down to the business. Thus, when talking about optimizing your website based on these search intents. You must remember that there are fine lines between these search intentions.
For example, if your website is an eCommerce business related to console gaming like Xbox, PlayStation, etc. Then it is evident that you will focus on “Transactional,” which means buying intent search.
For this example, let’s say you will create content based on “buy Xbox in New York” and “buy PS4 from Chicago” keywords. By doing so, you are narrowing down the search to get the buyer to your website.
Not only that, but you can also focus on local keywords for your local customers. You can add these keywords to your website, sales page, Google my business page, and maps.
It is an effective and efficient way to optimize your keywords.
However, what about other searches that are closely related to your website? Think carefully for “how to play Xbox” and “how to install PS4 games”; these search intents are informational, not transactional. It means they are not currently searching for an Xbox or PlayStation console to buy.
However, they are your customer. Maybe they won’t buy it today, but tomorrow they will search for an Xbox or PlayStation console. Hence, you miss many customers by not targeting these informational search intents.
So, in that case, you should open a blog for your website where you will write articles about Xbox and PlayStation, and surely you will get thousands of extra customers who will buy in the future.
Now, when it comes to keyword optimization, you can focus on “Informational” keywords in your blog.
Yes, you can also use the same SEO technique in your content marketing, just like you did on your website. However, focus on low-competitive keywords in a social post. Though it won’t impact your site ranking directly, getting solid social signals will significantly help you.
So, let me remind you again. Your purchase page should focus on “Transactional” keywords, while your blog page should focus on “Informational” keywords. Most big brands are doing this perfectly nowadays to maximize their profit and optimize their keyword.
Quick Note: If your website does not have any blog, you should open it. Then focus heavily on “Transactional” keywords for your product page. Your blog and homepage should heavily focus on “Informational” and “Navigational” keywords. Remember that even if your product page gets less traffic, it can be compensated by getting heavy relevant traffic to your blog by writing and focusing on relevant keywords around your products. Get “Informational and Navigational” intent search users and convert them later to your paid customers. It is by far the best content marketing strategy.
Conclusion.
If your question was how to implement keyword optimization for my website and blog, then you have learned how to identify keyword competition level along with search volume and intent.
You also learned how to use various keywords on different pages of your website to acquire maximum profit potential. However, only one metric can alter choosing a high-potential keyword. That is “keyword difficulty.”
It is so evident that every website wants to rank for their business-related keywords, from big brands to small businesses or even personal websites. Top multi-billion dollar businesses spend millions to get the top rank in SERP. And because of this high demand, some keywords become super hard in competition.
It will happen that you may find highly relevant keywords that also have huge search volume and perfect search intent for your website. However, only one problem is that it has stiff competition. Therefore, even with so much potential, those keywords are not worth investing time and effort. Because most likely, by focusing on those keywords, you are not going anywhere at all.
So, what is the solution? In my opinion, try to find some long-tail keywords with a low competition level, good search volume, and relevant search intent to your website. Maybe these keywords do not have huge traffic potential; however, by focusing on these low-competitive keywords, you will be able to rank higher in SERP and start rolling the ball.
And finally, after a while, when your website ranks high enough and receives thousands of visitors, target highly competitive keywords as now you have high DA and PA value to stand a chance against those big boys.