When it comes to SEO, there is always something to do. It’s easy to get sidetracked by the next shiny thing instead of focusing on the tasks that will move the needle for the business.
Having hundreds, thousands, or even millions of potential keywords worth targeting is overwhelming. You need to prioritize SEO keywords and create a measurable plan.
How do you get started? Read on to find top tips on prioritizing SEO keywords for content creation.
Think about business and marketing goals
If you’re creating SEO content, you must have a goal in mind.
You should be working toward ranking a particular set of keywords, usually based on a specific topic. An end goal is essential for measuring SEO success.
A complete optimization might be doable if your site is less than 20 pages. More than that, you need to hone in on a topic cluster.
Your topic cluster will be a section of your website. For example, if you sell housewares, you might prioritize one particular room and related items.
You can prioritize your essential clusters by considering the following:
- Management’s desires and business goals: Marketing should support management to drive the business forward.
- What’s working well already: You might find some easy wins if a site already has some authority in a particular topic or product.
- Well-converting pages: If a page converts well, increase organic traffic to drive more conversions.
Finding keywords for prioritization
Before you start prioritizing keywords, you’ll need to research keywords for SEO. You can do this in many ways, but here are three ways to get started.
Google Search Console
If you’ve got a site with organic visitors, then Google Seach Console (GSC) can be a great place to start. GSC tells you every keyword your site ranks for.
Go to Search results in the left-hand menu and click Average position so it turns orange. I recommend filtering by country but clicking the plus above the graph and choosing Country. Now you can see the average position of all ranking keywords in the country you’re most interested in ranking in.
Look through the keywords and pay attention to those in positions six to 20.
These keywords are your bottom of page one, page two, or top of page three keywords, also known as your low-hanging fruits.
In theory, moving these keywords up the ranks will be easier.
Competitor analysis
As part of a competitor analysis, you can find keywords that competitors are ranking for. SEO tools like Ahrefs or Semrush will give you insights into potential search volume, traffic and search intent.
There are two major benefits to researching competitor keywords:
- You will eventually show up in the SERPs where they are so that you can receive some of that traffic.
- You can demonstrate E-E-A-T to Google. If you cover the same keywords (and, more specifically, content) that your competitors are, you’re proving to Google that your site is at least as valuable as theirs.
Just because your competitor is ranking doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. Use the prioritization tips below to help determine what to use on your site.
Customer research
Nothing beats finding keywords than talking to the people you most want on your site.
Talk to your customers and prospective buyers. Alternatively, talk to sales and customer support or customer success managers.
If you can understand customer pain points and the words or phrases buyers use to find you, you can be sure they’re also putting these words into Google.
Prioritize conversion keywords and money pages
SEO’s primary goal is building a qualified audience. You want people on your site who will likely be interested in your product or service.
You want visibility for the pages that lead to conversion, be it a sale or an email sign-up, a download, or something that brings web traffic into your marketing funnel.
Your SEO efforts should be in pursuit of bolstering these highly important pages so that you can accelerate the marketing funnel.
SEO can bring users to the site who are in the awareness stage of the marketing funnel.
This stage is also known as the top-funnel (ToFu). ToFu users are unlikely to convert. But, good to have if marketing can nurture them through other means – by email if users sign up, for example.
SEO can also bring bottom-funnel (BoFu) traffic – a.k.a. conversion traffic – if those money pages rank high enough on page one.
BoFu users are ready to buy. If you know which pages are converting, you can work to develop an SEO content strategy that helps these pages rank.
Read the rest of the article on Search Engine Land.
For help with developing a content and keyword strategy for either local SEO, multi-location or enterprise level websites, call us today about our expert SEO Services.
