Introduction
I get asked a lot about ranking in Google. The first question people usually ask is, “How do I rank higher in search results?” And then they follow up with, “What’s the best way to get more traffic from Google?” I don’t blame them; Google is one of the most powerful tools in marketing today. But ranking high and getting more clicks isn’t always as simple as optimizing your content for certain keywords or writing about things that are popular right now.
In this post, we’ll cover all the ins and outs of creating keyword-focused content that ranks high in search results: from choosing your topic and keywords through creating compelling meta descriptions on your website.
Choose a keyword that makes sense for your topic
When choosing your keyword, make sure it’s relevant to your topic. You want to choose a keyword that is relevant to your content, business and target audience. If you’re writing about how to make chocolate chip cookies, you might use the keywords “chocolate chip cookies” or “how do I make chocolate chip cookies?” However, if you’re writing about how to start an online bakery as a side hustle, then those same keywords won’t work as well.
Your goal is for each page of content on your website to rank for a different keyword in Google search results — but not every page should have its own unique keyword phrase (this would be overkill). Instead, select two-to three-word phrases that are related but still specific enough so no competitor gets confused by what they’re seeing in the search results when someone searches on one of those words.
Find keywords and topics with Google’s Keyword Planner
With the Keyword Planner, you can find a lot of information about the market for your keywords and topics. You’ll see the search volume and cost per click (CPC) data for each keyword in your list, as well as suggestions for new keywords that fit into your topic area.
The number of searches each month is sometimes called “keyword reach.” This refers to how many people are looking for a particular keyword or phrase on Google in any given month.
In other words, if you have a page about coffee makers and someone types “best coffee makers” into their search bar on Google, then that page will rank higher than other pages that contain less frequent searches—and therefore fewer potential visitors—for those terms.
Use related keywords to find the best ideas
The best way to come up with keywords is to use related keywords. Related keywords are the words that people search for before they search for your keyword (and the words they use after they find it).
Read: The best SEO strategies
When you’re deciding which related keywords to include in your content, look at what questions people ask about your topic on Google. The phrases that come up most often may be good candidates for inclusion in your text. For example:
- “How do I build muscle?”
- “What exercises build muscle?”
You can also find related keywords by looking at the top-performing content on the web. Look at what people are writing about in your industry and see if there is a pattern to their content. Are they using similar phrases over and over again? If so, you may want to create content that uses those same phrases.
Write content that is better than your top three ranking competitors
When you’re creating keyword-focused content, it’s important to remember that your content should be better than the competition. If you just copy what they’re doing and don’t take the time to create something unique and original, then it won’t matter how much money or effort you put into SEO—you won’t see any results.
So what does this mean exactly? Here are some things to keep in mind when creating your posts:
- Create high quality, informative posts that have a solid structure and that answer user questions in an interesting way (Hint: This is one of the key elements of “good” writing).
- Use different types of media to make your post more engaging for readers (text, images/videos).
- Avoid being too promotional; instead focus on providing value for people who want answers about a particular topic.
Get more website traffic with these proven strategies
To get more website traffic, you need to take a multi-pronged approach. There are many different ways you can increase the number of visitors coming to your website. Here are some proven methods that work:
- Use social media and email marketing to promote your content. These two tools deliver results in different ways, but they’re both great for getting more people on your site. If someone finds you through social media, they’ll be more likely to engage with your brand because they were referred by a friend or family member. Email marketing will bring in readers who may have never heard about you before but think it’s worth checking out since there’s an invitation inside their inboxes.
- Try paid advertising campaigns if these ideas don’t work for you—paid ads are one of the most effective strategies for driving traffic.
- Create quality content that ranks well in Google search results.
Write a compelling meta description to get more clicks in search results
Meta descriptions are the snippets of text that appear in search results. They’re a great opportunity to add some personality and make people want to click your link.
Google uses meta descriptions to decide which pages of your website are relevant for certain queries, so it’s important that you write good ones. If you don’t have time to create an entirely new meta description for every page on your site, try using one that’s already on the page and rewrite just a few words in it each time.
Optimize your content for featured snippets to grab more organic traffic from Google
Featured snippets are search results that Google returns to searchers in a special format. These can be shown as a box at the top of the search results page, or they can be displayed inline within your listing.
Being included in featured snippets drives a lot of traffic to your pages because they’re displayed prominently and often appear before other content on the page (that is, unless you block them). They also get indexed quickly by Googlebot and will therefore appear in mobile search results too.
Creating keyword-focused content is an important prerequisite to ranking high in Google search results, but it isn’t everything you need to worry about
Keyword research is an important part of the process, but it’s far from the only thing that matters. You need to focus on other factors as well, such as backlinks and the quality of your content.
If you do keyword research and then write blog posts or create landing pages that are optimized for search engines, but don’t have any internal links (links within your site) or backlinks (links from other sites), then Google won’t know where you’re trying to send searchers.
If a searcher goes to a page on your site about “Android apps” but there aren’t any internal links pointing them toward articles like How To Pick The Best Android Apps For Your Phone? or Top 10 Android Apps That Will Make Your Life Easier?, they may get confused and leave without finding what they were looking for.
Conclusion
Creating keyword-focused content is a great way to improve SEO and get more traffic. However, it’s not always easy to know what types of keywords are going to be most effective for your business or website.
There are many factors that go into choosing the right keywords, including the competition, your industry and more. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different types of keywords and see what works best for you.