Writing online content isn't a case of write it and people will find it. You need to make sure it's well thought out and uses keywords and phrases that resonate with your audience.
If you fail to resonate with your audience, you might find that visitors are leaving your site before they find the information they came looking for. Plus, if search engines notice the majority of visitors leaving quickly, they can penalise you by not showing your website as high as your competitors.
Well thought out keyword research can, hopefully, prevent this from happening. Take the following example:
Roseblade Media decides to write content about outdoor advertising. We use the term 48-sheet throughout the piece. However, our audience doesn't know that's another term for a large billboard they see at the side of the road. Visitors get frustrated because we haven't made it clear enough that we've answered their question, leading them to leave the site and visit a competitor who has made it clear by using both the term 48-sheet and billboard throughout their content.
In other words, you need to use not only keywords that you know from your business and industry, you also need to consider what the audience knows and would connect with.
If you're not sure where to start when it comes to keyword research, then this post will point you in the right direction.
What are the five steps of keyword research?
If you think your content could benefit from better thought out keywords, the following five steps are a good place to start.
Step 1 - List the topics you want to talk about
Broadly speaking, think about what your business does and use it as a base for what you want to write about. For example, here at Roseblade, we could use:
- Web design
- Web development
- Print marketing
- Content creation
- Social media
- Outdoor advertising
If you're not sure where to start, put yourself in the shoes of your customer. What do they come to you for? What products or services are you selling?
Step 2 - Find the keywords associated with your topics
This requires a bit of time and thinking power.
You now need to think about the keywords and phrases that your audience would find interesting about your topic. In other words, what are they searching for?
If we take the example of the web design topic, keywords could include:
- Web design trends
- What is a good web design?
- What colours work well together on the web?
- Changing the look of a website
Try to think of at least 10-15 keywords and phrases that match your chosen topic, but don't worry if you struggle to come up with that many, the following steps will help you to expand your initial list.
Top tip: If your website is connected with Google Analytics, you don't need to start from scratch with this. You can drill down into the organic search terms that people are using to find your site.
Once you're done with your first topic, repeat the process for your other topics.
Step 3 - Consider user intent
This can be nuanced and tricky to understand, but it can have a big impact on where you rank in the results.
In it's simplest form, you need to consider and understand what the searcher intends to do with the information they find.
Take the following example:
Person A searches for "How to fix a leaky pipe" - this person probably intends to fix the pipe on their own.
Whereas person B searches for "How much should plumbers charge to fix a leaky pipe?" - this person is either a plumber wondering how much they should charge, or they are a person looking for prices for a person to fix their leak. Either way, they're looking for prices, not a step-by-step tutorial on how to fix their leak.
On the face of it, both of these searches are using the same key phrase: fix a leaky pipe. However, the user intent is vastly different.
When you're writing your content, you need to understand which of these two users you're targeting and tailor the rest of the keywords and content around it.
Step 4 - Find out related terms
When you thought of your initial list of keywords and phrases, it's likely that you only thought of the ones that appealed to you.
But in most cases, you're not your intended audience.
If you work in a very technical business, it's easy to slip into using jargon. This is why you need to think how your audience is thinking. How would they describe your products and services?
Rather than using keywords like "Increase website CTR", you might need to look into phrases like "Increase website visitors for free".
If you're struggling with this, use the Google Search Results page itself. Carry out a search for the keyword or phrase and then scroll down to the "Related searches" section. Here you'll find things that are close to what you searched for, but different.
Let's go back to the example of fixing a leaky pipe.
As you can see here, you could include the material the pipe is made from, different methods of fixing it, different locations the pipe is in, whether your content needs to focus on which sealant is best to use.
It's likely you didn't think of these things when you first came up with the content you need to write, but including them could see your content appear on more searches, so it's good to keep them in mind.
Be aware, you don't need to include all of these terms in a single piece of content. You could include one keyword per piece of content, or you could have several different pieces of content built around a few of them. The main idea here is to be aware of the keywords and phrases and the different ways your audience use them.
Step 5 - Write amazing - well researched - content
Now you know which keywords and phrases you need to use in your content, it's time to use them.
If you've been writing content since the dawn of the internet, you've probably heard about "keyword stuffing". This is a term used for including as many keywords as possible without caring about whether the content even makes sense. Do not do this.
Keyword stuffing is now frowned upon by search engines and it will harm your rankings.
So what do you do instead? You pepper your keywords throughout your content in a way that makes sense.
Essentially, you need to write so that a human can read your content and understand it, that's what all this research has been leading to. From finding topics that your audience is interested in, to finding out how they talk about it and what they specifically want to know about it, the search engine doesn't really care, but your audience will.
It's the interaction your audience has with your website that the search engine cares about. So write for your audience first, and search engines second.
