Did you know that there are currently more than 1.1 billion websites on the internet? 1 billion websites is certainly a large number to compete with, especially if you’re only starting out with your own website. How can you even begin to get a foot in the door when it comes to digital marketing?
It all has to do with how you choose good keywords. Keywords are the foundation of SEO (a concept that we will discuss later) and without them, you won’t have a chance of getting your website seen by all the people browsing the internet. The last thing you want to do is choose keywords at random.
Instead, you will want to consider a variety of factors such as keyword competitiveness, volume, length, and so on. Keep reading and learn more about how to choose keywords to give your website a seriously beneficial SEO boost.
What Is SEO Exactly?
SEO stands for search engine optimization and it is the foundation of all websites on the internet. Search engines like Google and Bing work in certain ways to find websites and promote them so more people can see them. For example, suppose that you type “blue eyeshadow” into Google.
“Blue eyeshadow” would be the keyword that you’re trying to find more information about. When you search for this keyword, you will be able to see how many search results it has on Google. More often than not, when you search for something on Google, there will be hundreds of millions of search results.
Of course, you will not be able to see all of those search results at once. Instead, only a select few will show up on the first page of Google. If your website manages to hit Google’s first page, you’ve basically won the jackpot.
That’s because very few people bother to go to the second or even third page of Google. The first page already has all the information that the average internet user wants to know. But how did those websites get on the first page of Google in the first place and what are the websites on the subsequent pages doing wrong?
The trick has everything to do with SEO. If your website is not centered around choosing keywords for SEO, your website isn’t going to go anywhere. There are many people who refuse to do keyword research for SEO for their website because they find it too complicated.
However, if you try to do this, you will find that no one will come to your site because no one will be able to find it. This, of course, is not ideal if you’re trying to build your website and brand.
What Are Keywords?
As mentioned before, a keyword is something you search for on your search engine of choice such as “blue eyeshadow.” A keyword is indeed a key to whatever question you might be asking on the internet. But not all keywords are created equal.
For example, since “blue eyeshadow” is a very popular keyword with hundreds of millions of search results, you might think that it’s easy to make your website a success just by using it a few times. After all, if it’s such a popular keyword, won’t all those millions of people on the internet flock to your website as a result. Unfortunately, making your website a success with certain keywords is not such an easy task.
Instead, you will need to do a lot of Google keyword research to find the right keywords to promote your website. Finding and using good keywords can be especially difficult if your website is still new. That’s because, as a new website, you have no chance of competing with huge websites that have been successful for years.
But as long as you put in the work and do your SEO research, your chances of success will slowly start to climb. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you should never give up on the importance of keywords. Some people give up and fill their website’s content with random words that really have no SEO value.
While this might be easy to do, it won’t get your website anywhere and you would just be wasting your time. To make sure you’re using the right keywords, you will want to use some keyword tools that you can find online. By using these tools whenever you need keywords, your website will actually start to get somewhere.
But where should you start?
Consider Keyword Competitiveness
When it comes to how to choose keywords for your website, you will first need to consider keyword competitiveness. This concept involves how certain keywords rank against other keywords, whether they’re similar or different. For example, “blue eyeshadow” is a very competitive keyword because there are so many search results that pop up once you search for this on any search engine.
If you put this keyword into your website’s content, the reason you won’t get a huge influx of views all at once is due to keyword competitiveness. While the keyword you’re using is very popular, it is too popular to be successful for a small, new website. That’s because larger and more successful websites are already using that same keyword.
As a result, Google will want to show those larger websites with that keyword rather than your website even though you are both using the same keyword. This may not seem very fair, but that is the nature of competitive SEO keywords. Does this mean that you have no chance of getting anywhere if your website is still small and relatively new?
Not necessarily. However, it will be hard to get your website started if you’re just starting out. But after some time and some hard work, your work will eventually start to snowball and success for your website will no longer be a distant dream.
To get the ball rolling, you will actually want to start using keywords that are less popular and less competitive. While this may sound counterintuitive, it can be very helpful for websites that don’t yet have a large following. That way, you won’t have to compete so much with huge websites that are already very successful.
Instead, you’ll be able to compete with more niche websites.
Use More Long-Tail Keywords
You may notice that the most popular keywords tend to be only one or two words in length. On the other hand, keywords that are three words or more tend to be less popular. Keywords that have three or more words are considered long-tail keywords.
They can act as the holy grail for new websites that are struggling to get a foot in the door. As mentioned before, keyword competitiveness is often the downfall of both new and established websites. After all, how can you compete against the internet giants like Allure or Investopedia?
The trick to getting past this impasse is to use long-tail keywords. Their magic lies within the fact that they are not as popular as shorter keywords. For example, “blue eyeshadow” is not a long-tail keyword and is too competitive for you to get much success out of it.
However, if you use keywords that are similar to it but longer, you may have more success. For example, the keyword “dark blue eyeshadow looks” is a long-tail keyword and as a result, it is not as popular as the original keyword. Less people would search for “dark blue eyeshadow looks” than simply “blue eyeshadow.”
However, there are still people who are searching for that long-tail keyword, but the audience is smaller than the audience for the original keyword. There is also less content on the internet that aims to cover that keyword. As a result, if you were to create content about that keyword, you wouldn’t have to compete with so many other websites and your content will be more successful.
If you targeted a keyword that was especially small, you might even become the most successful website for that keyword. Once your website starts to grow with long-tail keywords, you can start to expand.
Use Online Keyword Tools
When it comes to choosing the best keywords for your website, online keyword tools will soon become your best friends. Without them, you won’t have any chance of finding and choosing great keywords. That’s because online keyword tools have all the information you need to see whether or not a keyword is a good choice to begin with.
Without keyword tools, you would more or less be guessing how effective a given keyword would be. For example, if you were writing a blog about blue eyeshadow, you would need to know all the details and analytics about that keyword. How competitive is it, what’s the search volume, what’s the keyword difficulty index like, and what’s the cost per click rate?
You wouldn’t know any of this information without having an online keyword research tool on your side. You would also have a hard time finding related keywords to add to your content. Is “dark blue eyeshadow” a better keyword than “light blue eyeshadow?”
How much does the difference matter? Without knowing the answers to these questions, there is a good chance that your website would never be a success. That’s because you would practically be guessing good keywords and, more often than not, you would probably get the keywords all wrong.
On the other hand, when you use an online tool for keyword research, you’ll have all the information you need to make the best keyword choices. You’ll be able to measure a keyword’s competitiveness and see whether or not another keyword might be better (or worse) for your website’s content.
Fortunately, there are plenty of keyword tools that you can find online. By trying some different tools, you can see which ones you like best and which provide you with the most information.
Consider Hiring an SEO Agency
Many people think that they can flesh out their website with SEO all on their own. However, this may not be a good idea, especially if you’re not very tech-savvy and don’t have a lot of time on your hands. That’s because completely renovating your website and maximizing its SEO potential can take a lot of time and there are times when it can be very tricky.
If you’re doing all that work on you’re on, at one point or another, you’ll become very stressed. You’ll have to keep up with consistent content while worrying about the effectiveness of keywords and many other factors. For one person, this is too much to deal with, especially if you already have another job to worry about.
Fortunately, you don’t have to do all of this work alone. A good SEO agency will be able to help you out. Some people are wary about hiring an SEO agency at first because they’d rather save money and try to optimize their websites on their own.
However, if you don’t understand SEO beyond keywords, doing it on your own isn’t that great of an idea. SEO professionals, on the other hand, are full of information and know exactly how to change your website so that its SEO potential is maxed out.
Besides that, an SEO agency can free up your time so you have time to work on other projects.
How to Choose Good Keywords
When it comes to how to choose good keywords, there are many things that you will need to consider. For example, you’ll need to think about how competitive a keyword is, if it is a long-tail keyword, and so on.
While you can do all this by yourself, sometimes hiring professionals can be a big help. To learn more, contact us here.
