Keywords are the cornerstone of great SEO, but the days of keyword stuffing are long gone. Google’s RankBrain algorithm has become much more advanced. As such, a more targeted and refined SEO strategy is vital—especially if you want to achieve the same level of ranking success.
Not all is lost, though. Even if keywords aren’t as effective as they used to be, the important thing is they still work. The difference now is that your keyword use must be much more intuitive, as Google uses them to help identify and catalogue infinite webpages.
Keyword Strategy: What Is It?
SEO strategies should always start with evaluating what your customers are searching for. Once you know that, you can research associated keywords and develop digital content focused on fulfilling popular search queries. A keyword strategy simply places those researched keywords at the top of your agenda and gives you and your team a focus.
Whether your website is brand new or you’re revamping existing content, it’s always best to start with the keywords that’ll provide the best return on investment. Of course, just because a keyword is popular doesn’t mean it’s the most effective to target. Some high-ranking keywords are incredibly competitive, so you’ll need to dig deep into what is most relevant to your audience.
Keywords remain essential for SEO, but modern strategies require intuitive and targeted keyword use due to Google’s ever-evolving RankBrain algorithm. A good keyword strategy prioritises keywords that align with customer search queries, helping to guide digital content creation for the best return on investment.
Why Is a Good Keyword Strategy Important?
While keyword research goes hand in hand with a keyword strategy, the latter helps to give direction and meaning to the content you publish. However, that’s not the only benefit of an effective keyword strategy.
Greater Brand Awareness
When it comes to SEO, ranking is the name of the game. The higher your page ranks, the more likely visitors are to click on it. In fact, the first three positions of a Google search account for nearly 70% of all click-through rates. To make matters worse, click-through rates for the second page of a Google search plummet to a mere 0.63%.¹
With a good keyword strategy, however, you can push your way higher up in the rankings. And higher rankings leads to greater brand awareness—period.
Building Trust and Credibility
Building upon increased brand awareness is an improved sense of credibility. Even if you don’t rank in the top spot, having your content appear among more established sources provides a significant boost to your credibility, increasing audience trust in turn. After all, just being on the first page means your content must be effective in answering a particular search query; otherwise, Google wouldn’t suggest it.
Also, by focusing on keywords relevant to your audience, you show your authority in a particular field. Ranking for a single keyword won’t make you an expert, but focusing on a collection of keywords relevant to your chosen topic will establish your presence, both in the eyes of Google and its users.
A good keyword strategy enhances brand awareness by improving search rankings and driving traffic to your content. It also builds trust and credibility, as ranking on the first page signals to users that your content is relevant and valuable.
How to Develop a Keyword Strategy
Your keyword strategy will help to shape not just the type of content you create, but when and where you publish it. Below we break down the steps to developing and executing a successful keyword strategy.
1. Define Your Content Goals
There are an untold number of keywords and even more webpages, all vying for the attention of Google users. Defining your goals is crucial if you want to make the most of your time and resources, whether that’s supporting a new product launch, helping your homepage rank, or directing new customers to a sign-up page.
By unifying your marketing and SEO efforts, you ensure that both get the return on investment they deserve. For example, a sales promotion using long-tail keywords including words like “cheap”, “discount”, or “low-cost” aren’t effective if your brand is aimed at the luxury market. Defining your goals and setting a clear objective will keep your keyword strategy aligned with your company values.
2. Create a Spreadsheet for Research
Love it or hate it, all good SEO strategies start and end with a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet dedicated to keyword research has numerous benefits. First, you can open it up to collaborators and allow team members to see where their efforts are best spent. Second is the ability to filter data via key metrics.
The exact categories you use will differ according to keyword tools (more on this shortly), but in essence you’ll be tracking data points such as overall traffic, ranking difficulty, business potential, and more. With the keywords carefully collated on a spreadsheet, you can adjust these data points to suit your focus—and you can always come back to the sheet for further updates should that focus change.
3. Get Insights Into Your Rankings
Unless you’re starting a website from scratch, you will already have ranking pages and keywords associated with them. Often, the best place to start is with the content you already have, improving the structure of your website through core pages that rank on the first page of Google. Tools like Ahrefs can provide a detailed breakdown of website performance, but many website builders have their own backend analytics.
Wix, a popular website builder, provides a detailed breakdown of Google search performance, including top queries, click-through rates, site sessions, and more. This data goes hand in hand with the goals you set during step one to help tailor and refine your keyword strategy.
4. Find Keyword Gaps
With a strong foundation, the focus now is on identifying keyword gaps. Fortunately, several tools can help identify popular keywords and keywords your competitors are using.
- SEMrush: While SEMrush does have functions that allow you to review and optimise the keyword ranking of current content, the most powerful tool on SEMrush is its competitor analysis. It is possible to analyse the keyword strategies of rival companies. Armed with this information, you can also publish content with similar, popular keywords.
- MOZ Keyword Explorer: Type any keyword into the search bar, and MOZ will return a wealth of information: organic click-through rates, monthly search volumes, keyword suggestions—plenty to get a growing company started. The free account only allows ten monthly searches; you need a paid account to continue your keyword dominance.
- Ahrefs Keyword Explorer: Consider Ahrefs a slightly more advanced version of MOZ. It can be daunting the first time you use it. One keyword search can return thousands of suggestions for you to trawl through. The benefit of Ahrefs is its paid package, which will guide content marketers to the most popular phrases or keywords.
- Google Analytics: If you want to optimise pages you already rank for, Analytics can provide you with the organic traffic those pages have received. Combine well-performing pages with MOZ or Ahrefs, and you can further improve rankings.
5. Look Into Different Metrics
There’s no shortage of metrics when examining website and keyword data. In fact, many people shy away from keyword research because the dataset is so vast. However, the key (no pun intended) is knowing which metrics are most important to your business. Refining your strategy via one or two key performance indicators is the best way to start creating lucrative content.
The exact formatting will vary depending on the tool you use, but essentially, what you’re interested in are keywords associated with your industry or brand that strike a balance between search volume and ranking potential.
For example, keywords with a high search volume but a low ranking potential indicate that the keyword is already extensively covered by competing websites and will be difficult to gain traction. However, by picking keywords with a decent search volume but a high ranking potential, you can focus on terms that are much easier to rank for. Moreover, those keywords can help funnel traffic to core pages containing highly competitive terms.
6. List and Group Keywords in the Spreadsheet
Using the work you’ve done in the previous step, it’s best to categorise keywords on a colour-coded basis (e.g. green, amber, and red), giving them a score out of three based on your research on search volume and ranking potential.
For example, keywords with good search volume and high ranking potential would be assigned a business potential (BP) of one, and colour-coded green. Keywords with a BP of two would be amber, and those with a BP of three would be red. The idea is to focus on all the green keywords first, as these present the best return on investment while helping to build a strong foundation of ranking webpages.
You may choose to categorise your keyword research differently (perhaps via terms linked to a product launch), but the point is that you provide a framework of your most valuable assets so all teams involved understand the focus and direction.
7. Rewrite Existing Content Before Creating New Content
Most websites will want to focus on improving the pages they already have before diving into content creation. That’s not to say you shouldn’t focus on new search queries, especially if they have excellent business potential. Still, you want to ensure core pages target the correct keywords and are well-researched and well-written. Your CMS pages form the backbone of your website, so you’ll want these to perform as effectively as possible before you add more content.
Of course, even with the most detailed keyword strategy, many business owners lose sight of the most crucial consideration—writing for their customers first, and Google second. Remember, keywords may guide your efforts and support Google’s ability to catalogue webpages, but your content needs to address customer search intent for it to rank on page one.
If you’re struggling to integrate specific keywords naturally, consider long-tail keywords instead. In reality, when someone searches for a topic, they don’t just type in related keywords. Instead, they may ask Google, “What is the best way to improve SEO ranking?”. Long-tail keywords highlight the importance of a conversational tone when writing content.
8. Keep Track and Update
Tracking the performance of your keyword strategy is crucial. Not only does this help you understand whether you’ve met the goals outlined in step one, but it also lets you know if the pages you’ve updated (or created from scratch) have improved their ranking. To begin with, it’s best to start small and track a handful of your most lucrative pages, checking their search volume and Google ranking every week.
If particular pages are gaining more traction over others, what did you do differently? Is it the volume of keywords, the quality of the writing, or does a particular subset of keywords get better results from your audience? Answering these questions will keep your strategy on track and allow you to refine it for even greater results.
Developing a keyword strategy involves setting clear content goals and leveraging insights from existing rankings to optimise performance. Grouping keywords by potential and refining existing content means you can align your SEO efforts with business objectives while continually tracking and updating progress.
Create an Effective Keyword Strategy
While optimising your SEO efforts requires a multifaceted approach, keywords are still one of the cornerstones of success. However, it isn’t enough to simply stuff keywords into text. Instead, you need to research the most effective keywords and then plan which ones will impact your business the most. This is where your keyword strategy is pivotal in focusing your efforts, not only ensuring you get the best return on investment but also improving those all-important search rankings.
References:
1. Dean B. We Analysed 5 Million Google Search Results. Here’s What We Learned About Organic CTR. Backlinko. Published May 28, 2023. https://backlinko.com/google-ctr-stats
