The majority of our SEO Plugin users are just getting started with learning about SEO, keywords, and how to write SEO optimized articles. Because I’m also part of the customer service team, I am able to see what the most common questions are that people ask when they’re using the plugin.
Over time, I noticed that different users tend to ask the same questions. It makes me happy when more and more people want to use our plugin to write SEO friendly articles and I’m always eager to answer to their questions.
Hopefully, this article will serve as a guide for the plugin’s users and will help them better understand the importance of keywords.
[bctt tweet=”Its purpose is also to benefit anyone that is interested in this topic.”]
First of all, let’s begin by describing what the type of keywords you can choose when writing a SEO optimized article, according to this post.
1. General keywords
These are one word type keywords. When we’re not sure what we’re looking for, we typically begin our research with one keyword, and then, according to what we find in search engine results, we move on to more specific keywords.
If you’re Wikipedia, or a website with high authority, and a lot of back links, then general keywords will probably bring you a lot of traffic.
[bctt tweet=”Nevertheless, they are the most competitive ones, and certainly not specific to your website’s niche.”]
If you want to attract targeted traffic to your website, and a relevant audience for your business, you shouldn’t use general keywords to optimize your articles.
2. Specific keywords
These are 2-3 word keywords. They’re definitely a much better choice than general keywords because they provide traffic to your website and they’re relevant to your business.
The competition for specific keywords is moderate, so you have higher chances of showing up in the first pages of Google.
3. Long tail keywords
These can have a minimum of 4 words and are often called ‘keyword strings’ or ‘keyword phrases.’ They’re extremely specific, and tend to be low competition.
The bright side is that long tail keywords will bring you an extremely targeted audience. On the other hand, this will not translate into a high volume of traffic to your website. Still, it’s better to bring people that know what they want, than to bring a lot of traffic which will not translate into conversions.
Where to Begin When Writing a SEO Optimized Article
After you’ve figured out your buyer persona, which will tell you what is the best strategy for your content, it’s time to write down the main topics/categories for your blog.
[bctt tweet=”Each topic/category will have its own batch of articles.”]
The title of an article is probably the one thing that will attract visitors to your website, so you want to take time with it. Leave the creation of the title as the final step of your writing process. You’ll have a better overview on what the title should be after you’ve finished the article.
Think about what would be the best keyword for your article. You can begin with a general one, and then move on to a more specific one, or even a long tail keyword.
How to Find Relevant Keywords
Right now, you’re probably thinking “But how can I figure out what the best specific or long tail keywords are?.”
Let’s say that you sell shoes. You can begin by searching on Google the word “shoes”. Because Google is really helpful, it will also give you suggestions based on this keyword, like “Nike shoes”, or “shoes for women”.
You can also check out Google Trends. This tool is extremely helpful, because it shows you exactly what words people are using to look for products or services.
If you can’t seem to find a way to integrate the keyword in the title of your article, don’t worry. Some articles (especially the long form ones), have much greater impact than the ones you struggled to fit in the keyword. Use the insights from your analytics to determine the best way to do it.
With Squirrly, in order to optimize an article 100%, you need to use the keyword in the title as well. But, as I said, it’s not entirely necessary if you attract a lot of visitors despite its missing keyword.
There’s another trick you can use. You can optimize an article for more keywords. For the second keyword, your article won’t be 100% optimized, because you probably won’t be able to integrate the keyword in the title (unless you are a master, of course).
Characteristics of the Ideal Keyword
Last year, for the articles we wrote for Squirrly, we used keywords that had high competition. After a while, we decided to measure and analyze whether this strategy was a good fit in the long run.
These keywords with high competition brought us a lot of traffic, but mainly from social media. That being the case, we decided to start using keywords that will bring us visitors from Google as well, which is the number one place people are looking for, well, basically anything.
Here are the characteristics of the ideal keyword:
It needs to have high search volume and low competition. What does all this mean? High search volume means that many people are looking on search engines for that certain keyword, and low competition means that there aren’t that many articles that have been optimized for that keyword.
[bctt tweet=”As I said, this is an ideal case, but not impossible to find.”]
The Importance of Keyword Research and Long Tail Keywords
Here is why you should do keyword research when writing a SEO optimized article.
1. Better Google rankings. Long tail keywords, and even specific ones, will help your articles show up in the first pages of Google. If it’s a long form article, and if people like it, share it, or comment on it, Google will be able to tell that it’s quality content, so the ranking of your articles will increase.
2. Increase in targeted traffic. If your blog is just getting started, then long tail keywords will bring you a lot of traffic, especially from search engines. That way, you will know that the people who read the content you produce can easily become your customers.
3. Increase your conversion rates. Someone who is searching for “moisturizer” is not quite ready to buy yet. This person is currently just searching the web to gather information about these kinds of products. Someone who is searching for “light moisturizer for oily skin” is a person who is looking to buy a product that fits this description. So if you have an article on your blog using this long tail keyword, and this visitor arrives on your website, he/she will be more willing to buy your product if it satisfies him/her.
An Extra Tip For You
Because you’ve been so great, and you’ve read this article until the very end, I want to share with you one last tip.
Not getting enough readers for your articles is a struggle, but I will show you that it is actually pretty simple to achieve at least 300 readers for each and every one of your articles, and then easily turn them into conversions.
Yes, that’s right. If you want to know how to do it yourself, then head over here.
[bctt tweet=”This strategy worked for us, so it will most definitely work for you.”]
Good luck!
