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SEO

Consider how many backlinks you might actually need to rank for the keyword you were targeting. In Keyword Explorer’s "SERP Analysis" report, you can view the pages that are ranking for the term you're targeting, as well as how many backlinks those URLs have. This will give you a good benchmark for determining how many links you actually need in order to compete and which websites might be a good link target. When targeting sites for backlinks, you can prioritize by how authoritative they are using Domain Authority and Page Authority metrics.

Keyword rankings A website’s ranking position for desired keywords. This should also include SERP feature data, like featured snippets and People Also Ask boxes that you’re ranking for. Try to avoid vanity metrics, such as rankings for competitive keywords that are desirable but often too vague and don’t convert as well as longer-tail keywords.

PageRank is calculated at the page‐level, not the domain‐level.

unlinked mentions

https://ahrefs.com/blog/unlinked-mentions/ even if you already have a link from elsewhere on a domain, it’s still totally worth pursuing an unlinked mention on a high‐authority (i.e., high UR) page on that same site to see if they will turn it into an tag

boost CTR

write long blog posts

  • 2000+ words
  • definitive guides pull in more views that shorter blogs
  • goal is to answer all questions that a googler would have related to their query
  • Analyze LSI keywords
    • LSI keywords are words and phrases that are strongly associated with your page’s topic.
    • https://lsigraph.com/

For example, let’s say that you just published an article about The Paleo Diet. LSI keywords would be terms like:

  • Nutrition
  • Caveman
  • Weight loss
  • Recipes
  • Grains

And when Google sees these LSI keywords on your page, they think: “Awesome! This page obviously covers this topic really well.”

now, just sprinkle these LSI keywords into your content

  • Publish Unique Data
  • Bloggers and journalists LOVE unique data.

And if you can hook them up with a stat, a survey, or an industry study, they’ll throw links at your feet like rose petals. This content contains lots of data that people can cite (like the fact that the average video on the first page of YouTube is nearly 15 minutes).

keyword research

https://backlinko.com/keyword-research

1. Brainstorm a List of Topics

Here’s where you come up with topics that your target customer is interested in.

For example, let’s say that you run a digital marketing agency.

Well, you’d want to ask yourself: ”What topics do people search for that are related to my business?”

Some topics that come to mind would be things like:

Social media Email marketing Website traffic Content marketing Blogging PPC

2. Use Google and YouTube Suggest

  • Now that you have a list of topics, type each one of them into Google. These are great keywords to add to your list.

Why?

Because if Google suggests a keyword, you KNOW that lots of people are searching for it.

  • check out the “Searches Related to” section at the bottom of Google’s search results.
    • Pro Tip: Click on one of the “Searches Related To” keywords. Then, scroll to the bottom of THOSE results. This will give you a new list of related keywords. Rinse and repeat.
    • Tip type out 'keyword a', then 'keyword b', all the way to Z to have Google suggest even more keywords

3. Reddit

You’d head over to Reddit. Then search for a broad topic that your target audience is interested in… and something that’s related to what you sell. Pro Tip: Scrape common words and phrases from a subreddit with a free keyword tool called “Keyworddit”. This tool scans Reddit for words and phrases that people use… and sorts those phrases by monthly search volume.

4. Wikipedia Table of Contents

First, head over to Wikipedia and type in a broad keyword: Then, look for the “contents” section of the page. This section lists out the subtopics covered on that page.

Google:

“keyword forum” “keyword” + “forum” “keyword” + “forums” “keyword” + “board”

Once you find a forum, note how the forum is divided up into sections: Each of these sections are potential keywords that you can add to your list.

check out some of the threads on the forum to find other specific topics that your target audience struggles with

Focusing on long tail

First, search for your keyword in Google. Then, look at the sites ranking on the first page. If the first page is made up of uber authority sites (like Wikipedia), then you might want to cross that keyword off from your list: But if you see a handful of smaller blogs on page 1, that’s a sign that you have a shot to hit the first page too. canirank.com

choosing which keywords to use

-you must consider what "high search volume is" for the particular industry you are targetting

- For example, a long tail keyword in the fitness niche (like: “best ab exercises”) gets 10K-100K searches per month, But a long tail keyword in a B2B space like digital marketing (like: “best seo software”) only gets 100-1K monthly searches.
  • That’s why you want to figure out what a “high” and “low” search volume number is in your niche. Then, choose keywords based on what’s normal for your industry.
  • organic link clicking is down due to:
    • ads taking top spots
    • featured snippets
  • Search volume only gives you part of the story. To get a full estimate of how many clicks you’ll get from a first page Google ranking, you also need to estimate organic CTR.
    • you can look at the SERPs (Search Engine Result Page) for your keyword.
      • If you see a lot of stuff on the first page (like a Featured Snippet and multiple Google Adwords ads), then you know that you’re not going to get a ton of clicks… even if you rank #1.
    • With all that said, don't avoid a keyword just because it has a low CTR. If lots of people search for that term, it might still be worth going after.

CPC

CPC (cost per click) is a single metric that answers one important question: Do people searching for this keyword actually spend money? So yeah, search volume is nice and all. But if the person searching for that keyword is broke, then there’s no point in targeting that term. Plus, you can sometimes get a great ROI from a keyword that doesn’t get that many searches… if the CPC is high enough.

  • For example, one of my target keywords is “link building services”. According to the Google Keyword Planner, this keyword gets around 10-100 searches per month. So if I ONLY looked at search volume, I’d say: “This is a horrible keyword”. That’s why it’s super important to ALSO look at CPC. The CPC on that keyword is $7.15. Which means that people are spending $7.15 every time someone searching for that keyword clicks on an ad. So even though the search volume for that term isn’t that high, the CPC more than makes up for it.

For example, a few weeks ago I came across the keyword: “backlink checker”. On the surface, this is a great keyword. It gets a decent amount of searches, And has a $4.01 CPC. But considering that I sell a YouTube training course, this term is a 10/10 in terms of business fit

Finally, you want to see if your keyword is growing fast… or dying slow.

And the best way to do that? Google Trends.

For example, last year I was considering the keyword: “voice search SEO”.

But I decided to pop that keyword into Google Trends before pulling the trigger.

As you can see, interest in that keyword is growing fast. Which is why I optimized this page around that term. Even though that piece of content only brings in about 1k monthly search engine visitors per month today, the trend tells me that traffic to this post should increase over time.

suppose you’re a web design company with a new plan to offer marketing services. You’re getting ready to launch the service and write a new, search optimized page for your own site. But should you call it:

  • web marketing
  • digital marketing
  • internet marketing

Enter those three phrases into Google Trends and here’s what you’ll see Digital marketing is most trendy.

  • Google Trends also shows geographic differences, which can be important if you’re targeting a local audience. Even though digital marketing is most popular, consider where the audience is.
Barnacle SEO

practice of using other sites’ authority to rank on the first page. Bottom line? If you find an amazing keyword, you want to take up as much first page real estate as you can. First, create content on that topic on your own site. Then, publish keyword-optimized content on authority sites, like YouTube, LinkedIn, Medium and more.

GSC Keyword Research

GSC > Performance Report

  • This report shows you the terms that bring in the most clicks from Google search.
  • sort the list by “Impressions”.
    • This shows you keywords that get lots of impressions… but not necessarily clicks
  • Finally, create a piece of content optimized around that same keyword.
    • These are keywords that you KNOW people are searching for. You also know that Google sees your site as a good fit in the search results. You just need to publish content that’s super focused on that specific keyword (or optimize a piece of existing content around that keyword) and you’re set.
Optimize Content around Synonyms and Related Keywords

If you are optimizing for "build backlinks", sprinkle throughout your content "get backlinks" and "generate backlinks"

Ahrefs Content Gap
  • use Ahrefs to see the exact keywords another site ranks for.
    • Head over to Ahrefs content gap. And put in 2-3 competing sites.
    • This will show you keywords that at least 2 of your competitors rank for… but you don’t.
    • And because multiple competitors rank for these terms, you know that you also have a good chance of cracking the top 10.
  • people searching for "ahrefs" are most likely looking for www.ahrefs.com
  • this means that very few people click on anything but the first result
  • so a particular keyword may look great, but this wouldnt be a good keyword to optimize for, as you will not get much traffic compared to the first result.
  • This is why focusing on searcher intent is so important
Find “Shoulder Keywords”

Most people ONLY optimize their site around keywords that are very closely related to what they sell.

And it’s a BIG mistake for two main reasons:

  1. Keywords that people use to find your products are usually super competitive.
  2. There are thousands of keywords that your potential customer searches for when they’re not searching for that you sell. For example, like I mentioned earlier, I run an SEO training company. But I don’t optimize every page on my site around commercial terms. (Like “SEO training” and “SEO courses”). Instead, I rank for keywords that my customers search for when they’re not looking for SEO training. (Keywords like: “link building”, “on-page SEO” and “SEO Tools”). these keywords are “Shoulder Keywords”. These keywords aren’t directly related to what you sell. But they’re keywords that your customers search for. Which makes them worth going after. -Let’s say you run an Ecommerce site that sells basketball hoops. Obviously, you’d want to optimize some of your pages around terms like “buy basketball hoops online”. But don’t stop there. After all, someone interested in buying a basketball hoop may also search for:
  • How to shoot a better free throw
  • Slam dunk highlights
  • How to get recruited by college scouts
  • Nutrition for basketball players
  • How to improve a vertical jump

evaluate top industry websites

  • find the topics/KWs that are in their menus, footers

FAQ keyword research

AnswerThePublic.com

  1. export to csv and delete non relevant KWs
  2. Search and filter “display keyword suggestions” by “are questions”
  3. Add relevant questions from answerthepublic.com to a new keyword list in Moz Keyword Suggestions
  • don't worry about evaluating search volume too closely for FAQs because questions are typically more long-tail

Competitive content research

similarweb.com - Evaluate your competitor’s 10 most popular pages

  • This uncovers the specific type of content your audience is interested in
  1. Evaluate each of the top pages & gather 3 key takeaways
  • example
    • The most popular “www.example.com/gallery” page confirms that images are extremely popular in the wedding and event space. Maintaining an optimized gallery and incorporating more images into on-page content should be a top digital marketing priority.
    • Interestingly, the “Preferred Vendors” page is a Category page! It's something we should consider implementing on Hunter & Co. It would also be a great link building opportunity (to get vendors to link back to Hunter & Co)... but I digress.
    • Testimonials should also be a top priority and live off the primary navigation.

While researching competition, you’ll quickly notice that it’s perfectly normal for pages with low authority to rank relatively high. Typically in these cases, the page has stronger relevance. That page (or that entire website) is totally focused on the topic.

Authority is important, but it’s not everything. There are many other search ranking factors. Here is the general rule:

  • If the Domain Authority of your site is within the range of the domain authorities of the other, high-ranking websites, you should have a chance of ranking for the phrase. If not, go back and look for a longer, more specific, less popular but less competitive phrase.
    • Note: Page Authority, not Domain Authority is the real test. Ultimately, it’s the authority of our page versus the authority of their page.
    • But when we are making a new page targeting a new phrase, we don’t have a page authority to compare to! So use Domain Authority as a more general guide when creating new content and Page Authority when adjusting keyphrases and optimizing existing content.

Here’s a simple way to research keywords fast. You can estimate your odds of ranking based on your Domain Authority and the keyword search volume or just number of words in the phrase. This is oversimplified for sure, but it may help give you an idea for what general range you should be in.

  • If domain authority is...
    • < 30, target keyphrases with less than 100 searches/mo OR keyphrases of length = 5 words
    • < 50, target keyphrases with less than 1000 searches/mo OR keyphrase of length = 4 words
    • < 70, target keyphrases with less than 3000 searches/mo OR keyphrase of length = 3 words

Expand your keyword reach with MozBar

  1. Activate MozBar. Enter in your primary keyword and click “optimize.”
  2. Click “On-Page Content Suggestions”
  3. View the content integration ideas for your webpage
  4. Decide which topics you want to integrate

https://moz.com/blog/featured-snippets-a-deadsimple-tactic-for-making-them-stick Know which search features show up most often for your keywords

  • example: you type 'wedding checklist' and see a featured snippet
    • you'll notice that if you click on the link, not necessarily is it a bulletted list. however, it does use <ul>/<ol>. They just use text-decoration: none to hide it. This allows Google to use these results in a featured snippet
    • now, you just need to make something better:
      • Hire a freelance developer to create a beautiful, printable wedding checklist calendar that, once a reader enters their wedding date, populates with scheduled to-dos.
      • Create an IFTTT (If This Then That) recipe to schedule Google Calendar To-Do Reminders based on the user’s wedding date.
      • Provide a more detailed and more beautiful wedding checklist.

Important questions to answer

  • What do people really call your product or service?
    • So you can avoid using jargon and start using top-of-mind phrases.
  • What related products and services are people looking for?
    • So you can consider expanding your offerings, or at least your content.

Page optimization

The homepage is usually optimized for the most popular, most competitive phrase. That’s because your homepage is your strongest competitor with the most authority and the best chance of ranking.

Interior pages, such as product and service pages, should be optimized for more specific phrases. Those phrases may have hundreds of searches per month. Search volume for a blog post’s target keyphrase may be even lower, with fewer than 100 searches per month.