The main element of your search engine optimization / SEO strategy is to drive more qualified leads to your site by using keywords in your Content. Excellent keyword research reveals the most common terms, phrases, and questions your users and customers search for.
Read on to learn about keyword optimization, its benefits, and how to use it for long-term website rankings and traffic.
What Is Keyword Optimization?
Keyword optimization effectively uses the best keywords to improve visibility in search engines, drive traffic to your site, and increase its organic ranking.
Good keyword optimization involves researching, analyzing, and selecting the keywords you will use for each page on your Site.
In simpler terms, keyword optimization helps search engines better understand your Site, making your pages more accessible for people searching for those key phrases.
Benefits of Keyword Optimization
Keyword optimization is significant in digital marketing, from content strategy to how your site content is organized. It is among the most critical aspects of search engine optimization and pay-per-click/ PPC.
Here are the specific benefits of keyword optimization:
- Increases Organic Discovery: Keyword optimization will help deliver your site pages to a relevant audience through pertinent search queries.
- Measure and drive potential traffic flow to your Site: Optimization helps you measure and understand your potential online market size.
- Write captivating Content. Optimized keywords in your website’s Content let you instantly connect with potential customers and address their needs.
- Understand client behavior: By analyzing the best keywords, you get an idea of what your clients need and how to service those needs.
- Credibility and Trust: As a result of ranking first for a specific keyword, your credibility is endorsed, helping clients trust you more
How Do You Optimize Keywords?
1. Find the Right Keywords for Optimization
Keyword optimization begins with finding keywords and phrases associated with your Site, product, or service.
However, figuring out which words to use is a daunting task.
Therefore, using the best keyword optimization tools will help you analyze the popularity of the keywords and improve your SEO.
Several practical keyword optimization and SEO analytics tools will help you choose the right keywords.
Some that offer free trials include Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, Keyword Hero, Jaaxy, and Soovle.
Ideally, it would be best if you aimed to find keywords with high search volumes but lower competition. This way, your Content will easily rank high on Google’s search result pages.
2. Map The Keywords to Each Page on your Site
Now that you have the relevant keywords you will be working with, the next step is mapping them to your website. This is assigning keywords to specific pages on your Site based on keyword research to avoid duplicating keywords on multiple pages.
It would be best to focus on one primary keyword per page while including at least two or three SEO keyword variations. Each page should focus on a single topic and include the most essential SEO keywords.
3. Check Your Current On-Page SEO and Do Keyword Optimization
You will audit your current on-page SEO strategy to see if your Site has existing Content.
However, if you are creating new Content, ensure it is optimized.
Here are things to look for during content optimization:
a. Title Tags
The title tags will show what your page is about. You need to ensure they contain the right length of 56 to 60 characters and are unique.
b. Header Tags
Your page should have appropriately formatted headings and subheadings in HTML instead of bold headers.
c. Meta Descriptions
This short description is usually below your web page in search results. It should be 100 to 155 characters and clearly describe your page.
d. URL Structure
The URL should be short and simple and include your primary keyword.
e. Images
You should have more than one image on the page. Ensure the image has the image file names for each keyword and alt text.
f. Content
Ensure that your content is optimized by using the main and a few secondary keywords within the first 100 words on your page. Content should be at least 300 words.
g. Internal Links
If you have links to other Content, ensure those links still work.
4. Submit your Content to Google Search Console
Submitting your Content to Google Search Console will help index your pages on the search engine results page (SERPs). It will also potentially speed up the discovery process.
5. Track Your Keyword Rankings
After your Content is indexed and ranked in Google, you need to track and see how those keywords rank.
You should give it at least 2 months for new Content before making any keyword search optimization changes.
You can track rankings daily for 14 days before changing existing Content.
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