If I asked for a show of hands to see who researches their keywords by highest search volume, I’d see a pretty unanimous answer.
If you’re a true nerd / geek / SEO’er, you might have even had dreams of climbing the search results to #1 by optimizing for those keywords.
(Kind of like a new pop artist who hopes to crack the Billboard Top 100 with their first single.)
When you pick a keyword, what do you go by?
Are you using the best metrics? Every business wants to show up at the top of the SERPs (search engine result pages).
But knowing how… that’s a skill that involves, at the core fundamental, knowing how to pick out a great keyword. And not everyone has that skill.
Keep reading for an in-depth guide on what matters most when you’re choosing best opportunity, high-ROI keywords. (The answer, surprisingly, is decidedly not keyword search volume.)
Keyword Search Volume: The Skinny
Everyone wants that coveted top organic #1, #2, or #3 hit in Google.
However, what you may not realize is top brands have already cornered those keywords. This includes multi-million-dollar corporations. These are brands you are not going to be able to compete with, especially if you’re a small business.
What do those top-ranking keywords look like?
Nine times out of 10, they’re broad keywords – short phrases that aren’t specific. For example: “cake,” “baking,” and “baking cakes.”
If you’re a small-town baker and you try to rank for these terms, you’ll be out of luck. Instead, you may find yourself competing with the likes of Cooking Light, Food Network, and Epicurious.
Let’s face it – you’re never going to win, here.
So, what can you do, instead? What’s the smarter strategy?
For good results for your particular business, you don’t need high traffic from high search volume keywords. Instead, you need the right traffic.
Forget Search Volume – Get the Right Traffic with High-Converting Keywords
Throw search volume out the window for now. Yes, it was once the be-all, end-all of keywords, but nothing in this world is static, right?
I’m not saying search volume is completely irrelevant. But, I am urging you to look at other avenues for driving people to your site.
Let’s start by defining what we mean when we talk about the “right” traffic.
You’ll have an easier time converting customers if they’re in an ideal state of the buying process. This is the “right” traffic – the people who are looking for you, but don’t yet realize you exist. If they knew you existed, they would be ready to jump on board and fish for their wallets.
Broad keywords do not drive this kind of traffic to your site.
What will?
Long tail keywords!
Long tail Keywords: Specificity and Relevancy for Search
Long tail keywords are just that: longer, more specific, and relevant to the customer’s needs.
For instance, a person who needs a specific type of cake will not search for “cake.” Instead, they might search for “wedding cake chocolate swirl Rhode Island.” Or, “birthday cake yellow with sprinkles.” A search string that is becoming even more common might look like this: “Where can I get a yellow birthday cake with chocolate frosting in Rhode Island?”
All of these have a few things in common, though they vary in subject matter. The people searching know what type of cake they want and where they want to get it. If you’re a baker and you optimize your site for long tail keywords like this, you’ll strike gold.
Why? Because long tail keywords have less competition than their broad counterparts. You have a far better chance of ranking for “wedding cake chocolate swirl Rhode Island” than “cake.”
Plus, customers use long tail keywords like this when they have a higher buying intent. They know what they’re looking for, what they need, or what they want. If you have it, there’s a very good chance you’ll close the deal.
Basically, these keywords fall right into your sweet spot for driving traffic.
Take a look at the brands who have successfully ranked for the above long tail keyword example. There’s only one multi-million-dollar corporation on this list (Ben & Jerry’s). The rest are small bakeries or boutique shops. That’s the power of the long tail keyword in action.
How Do You Choose the Right Long Tail Keywords?
According to Search Engine Journal (SEJ), one of the keys to driving conversions from search results is to engage people at the perfect time. It’s a two-way street. Their intent needs to match up with the keyword, and the keyword needs to be relative to their intent.
This is that sweet spot we mentioned earlier. Hit it, and you’ll see ROI.
Here are some other keys for choosing the best long tail keywords for you. They have to do with relevancy and uniqueness.
1. Relevancy, Relevancy, Relevancy
When a keyword is relevant to you, it ties back to your particular brand. This includes what you do, who you are, where you’re located, or what you sell.
The relevance of your keywords is the brunt of what makes long tail types work. If you’re not using relevant long tails, you won’t be taking advantage of their conversion power.
2. Use What Makes You Stand Out (Your Differentiation Factor)
A highly unique keyword could net you a buyer every time someone searches for it. Wow! That’s a BIG deal.
At the same time, that particular keyword could have next to no search volume because of its uniqueness.
Fact: this is common for keywords with good opportunities.
In other words, it’s not a problem because the conversion value is so high. The more unique your keyword, the more you’re targeting a specific buyer – the one looking to pull the trigger and make the purchase!
These types of keywords don’t work well for everyone – but they work great for you. The opportunity is personal, and that’s a big bonus.
Why Broad, Short Tail Keywords Are on the Way Out
Short tail keywords do have their uses. They haven’t gone the way of VCRs and rotary phones – they aren’t relics quite yet.
They’re good for optimizing basic pages on your site. Your “about us” page is a fine example. Over time, your long tail keyword content can help improve your rankings for those general terms. Your content will build authority, and that can give your general pages a boost.
Time, however, is the clincher here. For keywords with tough competition, it may take years for you to crack the top 100, let alone the top 50.
Ranking shouldn’t be your main concern, anyway.
Ranking for broad terms may drive traffic, but it won’t drive traffic that converts.
Instead, you’ll get a mix of people at all different stages of the buying cycle. Some, if not most, will not need what you’re offering. Neil Patel has an excellent chart that shows the difference:
As the chart shows, people who are looking to browse will use the broadest keywords of all: “Las Vegas,” “spyware,” and “television.”
Meanwhile, the people looking to buy tend to use the most specific terms possible: “Panasonic 43’ Plasma TV HVD3002 best price.” That’s one hefty long tail. You can tell this buyer is locked and loaded.
Draw the Locked and Loaded Buyer – Not the “Just Browsing” Variety
According to Forbes, a few years ago, most businesses online attempted to target small numbers of “sort-of” relevant keywords. These were traffic-drivers alone, and it worked well enough.
Now things have changed. There are millions more people online, and close to a billion websites. The competition to rank for broad keywords is more cut-throat than ever. In fact, it’s nearly impossible unless you’re a huge corporation or you pay.
You can rank well, and organically, for long tail keywords. These aren’t searched as often, but the people who do are far more likely to buy from you.
Who would you rather guide to your site – the casual browser, or that buyer who’s locked, loaded, and ready to whip out their credit card, because you’ve got what they need?
So, when it comes to keywords, redirect your focus.
Switch your tactics – shake things up.
The times, they are a-changin’, as Bob Dylan so eloquently put it. Pretty soon, short tail keywords may be thrown out with the bathwater. The long tail is the future of keywords.
Are you ready?
To start building your path towards more high rankings with long tail keyword-optimized content, Express Writers can help. Take a peek at our custom blog plans or content planning to see what we can do.
The other day, I was poking around in my favorite SEO analytic software of choice, SEMrush, checking on our rankings. My team at Express Writers has a Guru subscription there that allows us to see detailed analytics of our site–and I mean detailed. We see a ton of keyword position data down to the most recent keyword ranking change of our site in Google, as of just an hour ago. (If you haven’t already, go check out SEMrush here.)
Well, a couple days ago I was doing my biweekly SEO audit of all of our keyword positions and pulling keyword data for new content. I was shocked to see that the positions changes mapped a huge spike: as of October 28, 302 new keyword gains. In 24 hours. And our traffic had spiked up to the most I’d ever seen: 1,251 people on one day.
What Exactly Are We Doing In Google?
Let me give you a little look at exactly how we’re getting and maintaining our positions with Google before I delve into the recent major keyword growth.
1. Content
We write and publish about 3-4 blogs on our site a week, ranging from 1,000-3,000 words each. So since 2011, we have 642 blogs published on our Wordpress site (this one makes 643):
This isn’t counting the hundreds of guest blogs I’ve placed on places like SiteProNews, Search Engine Journal, Social Media Examiner, and more.
Also, we have about 50-80 website pages, maybe 400-800 words each.
2. Traffic
So, with that insight into just how much we publish, now it’s time to see what the results are. We have some serious organic traffic. I’ve never placed a Google paid ad in all my four years of business; and never will. I believe in great content brainstorming, writing and publishing, and it is what is keeping us strong. And sometimes just this process can take me 40 hours a week. It isn’t easy, but it is thoroughly worth it.
SEMrush puts our traffic at a value of $6,800 (what we would pay if we were paying for ad clicks). We have 3,000 keywords indexed in Google, with over 100 in the top 5 positions of Google. We’re outranking a large number of our competitors in the content creation niche.
Let’s look at the graph on the right a little deeper:
Whoa!
This month we have the most site traffic we’ve ever had, with 1,251 people visiting in a single day the first week of November.
3. How We Gained 300+ Rankings In One Day
Here’s what I saw that stopped me in my tracks the other day. I clicked on Position Changes under Organic Research, in SEMrush:
See that? 302 new rankings in a single day!
Clicking on what was “new,” some of these showed we were position 11 for “modern copywriter,” #3 for “copywriting companies”, and #19 for “website content”:
The orange bar below showed we’d lost 200 keywords. But clicking on that, I saw they were mostly unrelated keywords—like “express for her,” “sprinkles icing,” and more.
Except for a few pivotal ones we’d lost a few positions on (looks like I need to refresh some old SEO content), the “lost” weren’t too bad.
How The Heck Did We Get 300+ Keywords In One Day?
I have a couple theories.
First, Google RankBrain is out. It came out two days before our rankings showed a major spike. Read my blog on RankBrain here. RankBrain is an AI system that basically could be replacing Google’s old way of doing its algorithm, and it exposed 15% of the web that Google hadn’t shed light on before. I’m sure RankBrain is showing a lot more website owners rankings they didn’t know they ever had.
RankBrain means we’ll all be able to see a whopping 15% more in analytics and positions online that our sites and content are ranking for—all the more reason to start publishing great content!
Secondly, Google has still been rolling out Panda, AND, topical trust flow has recently been making big waves (it’s replacing PageRank and focuses on reporting relevant content in higher rankings). Topical trust flow weight could be mostly likely why we lost our unrelated rankings, too. All this is probably tied into the quality of the RankBrain AI.
Lastly, we’ve been working hard on our content. Over the past month, I’ve revamped and improved our blogging and content publishing quality.
Here are just a few of the changes:
SEO audit of our blogs (I just corrected 35 “bad SEO” blogs, rewrote their meta descriptions and edited the copy, over the last 3 weeks, and took them to green SEO on the Yoast plugin)
More SEO research and keyword planningwith SEMrush for each post
Heavier research and analyzing of topics and what goes into each post
Custom drawings and illustrations, like this one, for many of our posts
At least one infographic written, designed and published per month
Re-purposing of infographics into SlideShares, RSS content to pull guest traffic
Email marketing bi-weekly that sends a blog roundup to our subscriber list
We Know What It Takes To Help You
To end this post, I’d like to emphasize that any one of our clients can see these results. We’re not only writers with pens over here. My team not only writes great SEO optimized content, but we plan it, too—and we use SEMrush! Our team includes strategists that map out monthly editorial calendars for our clients, audit websites to remove anything that could be hurting websites, and similar services.
We’ve seen content success truly happen for us – this post proves that – and we know exactly what it takes to get even a brand new website client onboard with publishing great content that gets both the eye of a reader and Google (albeit if Google, a robotic eye).
If you’re ready to get serious about content and thus, your rankings and readers, check out our Content Shop!
You’ve heard it repeated over and over, ad nauseum.
It’s a cliched phrase.
And yet, we’re going to say it again anyway (with enthusiasm!), because it’s true:
Content is king. (Or queen ?.)
In other words, it’s kind of a big deal.
Without content, you can’t rank on Google’s first page.
Nope. Never. It’s not going to happen.
This is because content does two things for search engines:
It provides information on what a web page is about, plus a roadmap for how the other pages within the domain relate to each other (called “interlinking”).
It answers a user’s questions and/or fulfills their search intent.
Both contribute to rankings.
To find out whether your page nails either one of them, search engine crawlers will look for major clues – dead giveaways that your web pages provide exactly what the user and the ‘bots are trying to find.
If you don’t have content on your website, these ranking clues will be nonexistent.
That means your site and pages will not get indexed, let alone hit the coveted top 10 or top 5.
Content MUST be at the base of your rankings strategy. According to Search Engine Land, “Get your content right, and you’ve created a solid foundation to support all of your other SEO efforts.”
Content is not only king or queen; content is key.
If you want high rankings for your content and pages, you have to have it.
How does it work? Why does it work? Let’s explore.
7 More Reasons High Rankings in SERPs Depend on Content
1. Content Tells Search Crawlers What Your Page Is About
How do search crawlers figure out what your page is about? How do they know which keywords to rank you for (and if your page is worthy of ranking)?
They crawl the entirety of your page, from the code to the content.
The code helps distinguish your page, but much of the clues to what your content is about comes directly from it (Google calls these clues “key signals”).
The parts of your content that help organize the information for readers is also helpful for crawlers. Think:
Headers
Sub-headers
Keywords and keyword placement
Link anchor text
Hierarchy of headers (H1s vs. H2s and H3s, etc.)
2. Content Is a Framework for Natural Keyword Use
Once upon a time, you could repeat a keyword on your page with zero context and rank for that term. According to Moz, this meant search results had extremely limited value.
Conversely, think about search results today and how relevant they are – how they answer the questions you have or fulfill your information needs. This is possible because search engine engineers have improved the way results match up with user queries.
Search ‘bots don’t just look for instances of keywords anymore. Instead, they look at:
The context of those keywords/phrases
The relevance of the content to the user’s search terms
In other words, natural keyword use matters more than your primary keyword appearing X number of times on the page.
And, of course, the best foundation for natural keyword use on your page is to write comprehensive content on your topic.
3. Content Gives Users What They’re Looking For
Think about doing an online search. Most of the time, when you type some keywords or a question into the search box, you want something.
Content fulfills your search intent, depending on what you’re looking for. According to Yoast, search intent falls into four categories:
Each type of search intent has corresponding content:
Navigational: Homepages
Informational: Guides, how-tos, articles
Transactional: Sales pages, landing pages
Knowing your audience and building content to match their search intent will help your site pages rank well. For Google, especially, satisfying users is #1.
4. Updated Content Keeps Your Website Fresh
Another factor for ranking that search engines look at is freshness – has your site been updated recently? Is someone taking care of it? Or has it been abandoned or forgotten?
The freshness of your content tells search crawlers that somebody is still keeping house. The lights are on, and yes, you’re home.
Publishing fresh content helps crawlers establish your relevance, but updating old content is helpful, too – it keeps the information you offer up-to-date and accurate.
Plus, according to Moz, “Websites that add new pages at a higher rate may earn a higher freshness score than sites that add content less frequently.”
This means publishing fresh content consistently will work in your favor for higher page rankings.
5. It Keeps Users on Your Page Longer
The longer visitors stay on your page before returning to a search engine, the more relevant it must be to their needs.
Makes sense, right? This concept is called dwell time, and it could be a Google ranking factor.
Similarly, “time on page” is the amount of time the user spends on your page before navigating off-page (the destination doesn’t matter).
Both concepts are relevance-related. That means, if your content fulfills your user’s search intent, they’ll spend more time on-page. If your content isn’t relevant (or, let’s face it, if it sucks), the user will leave more quickly – sometimes immediately.
If you keep your visitors on-page longer, it’s a good indicator of your page’s relevance, which can contribute to better rankings.
How do you create topically relevant pages? With quality content.
6. It Builds Connections Between Your Site Pages
Search crawlers can’t index your pages without links between pages. These links help the ‘bots understand how your entire site ties together and the various page hierarchies you’ve put in place.
Content with links to other pages on your site helps the ‘bots AND your users make connections between them. These are “breadcrumbs” that show the way, so to speak, so both crawlers and users don’t get lost navigating your website.
Without a defined link structure, your website will become a maze of pages that are too hard to navigate. (Image via Web Style Guide)
A logical link structure, including content pages that link to each other, helps create relationships that are easy to follow and understand. It’s a literal map to your website. (Image via Web Style Guide)
Interlinking your content pages in a logical way is a best-practice for higher rankings, because it makes your site user-friendly.
7. Great Content Helps You Build Links and Content Rankings
Let’s not forget one of the greatest advantages to publishing content on your website: link building.
It works like this:
If the content you publish is high-quality, in-depth, accurate, and meets your audience’s search needs, they’ll find it valuable enough to share.
As the piece is shared, your authority strengthens.
Based on the authority built from your high-value content, people may start linking to your pages as trusted information sources.
These are called backlinks, and they’re ultra-high on Google’s list of ranking factors.
Backlinks are literal clues that people trust you, like your content, and find it relevant to their needs. They are votes for your page to climb the rankings. And, according to Backlinko, Google counts these “votes” heavily in your favor.
In fact, the number of referring domains/backlinks a site has directly correlates to their Google position. If you have more, you’re more likely to hold the #1 spot.
Therefore, a GIANT key to high rankings in SERPs is high-quality content. You can’t build authority without it. And, without authority, no one is going to want to link to you and “vote” for your site.
Want High Rankings in SERPs? You Need Content
Undoubtedly, content is the way to rank highly and advantageously on Google SERPs.
Without content, you’ll be attempting to steer a boat with no sail, rudder, paddles, engine, or any other key part that makes it move forward.
Instead, you’ll float aimlessly and get nowhere.
If you want better visibility online…
If you want higher authority and rankings…
If you want your website and brand name to matter…
You have to publish content.
Download your Free copy of Why Keyword Search Volume Doesn’t Matter When You Choose Your Keywords (& What Does Matter)
