Using keywords for SEO: Finding keywords that will rank and gain traffic

In the 21st century, website promotion cannot be based solely on traditional media. Television, radio, newspapers – these are media in which you propose something, but you do not reach customers initially interested in your services/products (outbound marketing). 

Most of them are looking for companies on Google. Searching for what they need or want is the quickest way to get more information about a service or product you are interested in.  The most effective investment from a strategic point of view is SEO with a strong content and inbound marketing strategy. This regular work for the development and indexing of your website in search engines. 

The success of a website is all about intercepting users' search intentions on Google. To do this you need to know how to choose the right keywords (or keywords in English) for which to optimise your pages and your, content, articles and blog posts. The keyword research is so important for SEO. It is the cornerstone of every search engine positioning strategy.

Billions of search queries are made every day on Google. For each keyword typed, only 10 sites will be lucky enough to be on the front page of the search rankings. The competition is fierce and what determines the ranking is a secret that is in the hundreds of Google ranking factors.

We SEO Specialists to be able to do our job, gain the knowledge on how to choose the keywords and long tail keywords to place on the website. Creating content in line with these keywords forms part of your overall strategy. 

How to choose keywords? Fortunately, some SERP (Search Engine Results Page) analysis tools can help us, giving us a wealth of useful information and understand what people are searching. The first step is always to find out what your target audience is searching. 

How to find keywords for SEO

The search query for keywords (in English "keyword research") is usually done through an in-depth analysis of the sector in which the website wants to compete for in organic search. Usually, first, a survey is carried out to know with which terms the users look for the product of the niche in which one operates.

In the beginning, it is good to use software specialised in keyword research. Below we explain the operation of the best.

Google Keyword Planner

Google keyword planner's first keyword research tool that I can recommend is the Google Adwords Keyword Planner. Once logged into Google Adwords, go to the Tools section, then in the "Keyword Planning Tool" and finally select "Find new keywords and get the data related to the search volume".

Here we type our keyword (let's take the example with the "keywords" key ) and give the tool time to process the data. Once the processing is completed, the Keyword Planner will return a series of keywords with an indication of the search volumes.

Specifically, in this example we will have as a result:

• keywords (with 1900 monthly searches)

• keyword research (with 320 monthly searches)

• keyword tool (with 480 monthly searches)

• SEO keywords (with 110 monthly searches)

• Google keyword search (with 110 monthly searches)

With this tool, we can get a precise idea of what are the keywords to use for our SEO strategy.

The Google Keyword Planner is the only free tool that can also return search volumes for each search key.

After obtaining our list of keywords, we will have to choose the ones that best suit our purpose, but this is a speech that we will address in the section "How to choose keywords".

Answer The Public

Answer The Public tool. Many users use their searches using the exact keyword (dry keyword). In our example, the dry keyword corresponds to "keywords".

But another very large slice of users prefers to use complete sentences such as:

• how to find keywords

• how to 

• what is the best SEO course

• how can I place my site on google with keywords

• how do I choose keywords for my site

These phrases express precise search intentions to which to respond and intercept, would guarantee a high volume of traffic to the website.

Answer the Public is the ideal tool for this kind of research. The tool, starting from the main keyword, returns the users' search intentions obtained from the Google database itself (Google Instant).

We will get questions and prepositions around the keyword typed. By continuing to use our usual example, we will have:

• What are the keywords of a text?

• How to choose keywords?

• How to find keywords?

• Keywords for SEO

• Keywords to sell

• Keywords for website

In this phase, it is good to note down the keywords obtained on an Excel spreadsheet to then be able to evaluate the search volumes and to finally be able to choose the best ones.

So, having obtained the specific keywords to work on and the associated search intentions, now it's time to go and use another tool that will tell us which elements Google has already associated with our keywords. This aspect is very important because when we are going to write the text optimised for our search keys, we will have to make sure that Google understands exactly what we are talking about. 

The artificial intelligence of this search engine has already associated concepts and terms for various topics. For example, he knows that if I use the words "search intentions", "keywords", "search engines", "Google rankings" and "keywords" in my article, I'm probably talking about SEO.

Seo Hero

This tool is currently in "beta" version but, even with some sporadic jamming, it is very useful for our purposes.

The operation is very simple. Select the Italian language, enter the main key in the text box and send it. The processing process takes a long time but, on the other hand, the data obtained are many and valuable.

The tool will give us a lot of information. The ones we need now are contained in the section "latent entities and co-occurrences".

If we go to type our usual keyword "keywords", the tool returns us:

• Website

• Google AdWords

• Search engine

• Search volume

• Search terms

• Google trends

• Search Results

Developing texts focused on identified keywords that also contain these terms means showing Google something easy to categorise and index. Once Google categorises my page on keywords as belonging to the SEO topic in its index, it will quickly enter the search ranking shown to users when they type a query on the topic.

How to choose keywords for SEO

SEO choose keywords fact, with the use of the 3 tools, we have already carried out a first screening of the keywords. We will not take all the keywords obtained but only those that seem more relevant to the topic to be treated.

The time has, therefore, come to choose the keywords. By copying all the keywords obtained and pasting them into the Google keyword planner in the view section above, we will get a list of keywords with the related search volume.

Some keywords will have a high search volume and others will have zero searches per month. What are the keywords to choose to optimise our article? It depends.

High-volume search keys are also the most difficult to place because even competitors will have had an interest in using them. But if your site is already very authoritative on Google, don't be afraid to try to place this type of keywords.

For all the others I suggest to select keywords with a search volume ranging from 30 monthly searches up to 100-150 (depending on how the site is authoritative). The newcomers will be able to start from the lowest volumes to begin to take some satisfaction.

Once the keys have been chosen it is time to type them on Google to see two things:

1. Who is on the first page for that keyword?

2. What kind of sites are returned by Google for that keyword?

3. What meta description do they use?

4. Look at the alt text of images on top pages.

Knowing who is on the front page for that keyword will allow us to analyse the pages of competitors who have positioned themselves so well, highlight their strengths and weaknesses, evaluate their optimisation and the status of the page and Off-page optimisation. The goal is to create a better, more optimised and richer page with specific content. (Remember not to adopt keyword stuffing, adhere to the 1-3% keyword density rule)

Knowing what types of results Google returns for that keyword instead, will be useful to see if the search engine has associated the query typed with an informative or transactional result (sale). If our site sells products (and we want to sell the product or service with the page we are going to write and publish) and the first page for our keyword returns only sites with information pages on the subject, we would do well to change the keywords because we will have few abilities to position ourselves worthily. If, on the other hand, the key returns results in line with our intentions, we can proceed to use it in our article.

Whatever your goal, to position yourself on Google and other search engines, you need to know both how to find them and how to choose them. Your SEO and the success of the project start from here and depend on it.

Recap on using keywords for SEO

In the era of rapidly growing computerisation of society, online presence has long been a possibility, but a necessity. The pulse-keeping companies are well aware of this. To beat your competition on the Internet, you must not only ensure the substantive value of your website, but also that internet users can search for it. Positioning is not an easy art, especially in the face of ubiquitous competition. Therefore, if you do not feel up to it – order this duty to a professional positioning company.

Want to level up or implement keywords for SEO in your business? We're here to help, drop us a line!