4 Ways To Improve Your Keyword Search For SEO

When planning long-form content, you may think there are tons of industry topics you can write on. Although you may have a lot of information on one subject, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will make an excellent blog. There’s more to it than coming up with a title and writing a few hundred words—you’ll need a keyword. To improve your search engine ranking, you must implement optimization practices.

Here are 4 ways you can improve your keyword search for better search engine optimization (SEO)!

1. Take A Deep Dive Into Your Audience

There are two ways you should be analyzing your audience: target and current. Compare demographics such as age, gender, interests, and behavior between these two groups. Ideally, they will be similar and overlap. If there is a gap between these two, you may need a new marketing approach, and blog writing is an excellent start.

To view who your current audience is, review your website and social media analytics which will provide you with those key insights. The data points you collect will help determine what topics your audience is most likely interested in and how to gear your writing towards theme.

2. Look At Your Competition

Chances are, your competitors have a similar target audience as you do. If they are publishing blogs, it’s not a bad idea to look at what topics they are utilizing. This will spark ideas on what you should be covering and inspire new ideas that your competition is missing out on. Later, when you do your research, you’ll be able to determine which keywords are worthwhile.

3. Research Potential Keywords

Now comes the most crucial element of blog writing. When conducting keyword research, keep in mind monthly search volume, difficulty/competition, and how the words or phrases are being searched. Let’s break these key elements down.

• Monthly Search Volume—This number will tell you how many people are searching for any given word or phrase monthly. You’ll want to try and avoid keywords that only generate a small traffic volume, as you won’t receive much traction.
• Difficulty—When you try to rank for a keyword, you’re up against competitors to get on that coveted first page of the SERPs. The difficulty will often be presented as either low, medium, or high or on a number scale from 1-100.
• Long Tail Keywords—One-word keywords are often harder to rank for, as they typically produce an extremely high search volume and tons of content already exists around them. Long tail keywords are phrases that help narrow down a search by being a bit more specific.

Try utilizing long tail keywords that have a higher monthly search volume and lower difficulty. There are tons of online tools to help you discover keywords; however, they often have limitations for free accounts.

4. Create An Immersive Blog Strategy

You won’t want to be doing keyword research the day you’ll be writing the blog. Instead, plan ahead. By creating a list of keywords that fit the above criteria, you should be set for a few months of content. That way, you can focus more on blog writing and only revisit your blog plan as needed. This will also be an opportunity to check if your audience’s searches or digital behavior has changed and adjust accordingly.

Conducting a keyword search doesn’t have to be complicated. Get in touch with Kraus Marketing’s digital strategists who can assist your blog strategy and improve your SEO—no matter your industry. Contact us today!