When you’re looking to launch an SEO campaign, the very first thing you need to do is choose the right keywords to target. It determines whether or not you’ll get more clicks to a landing page or a blog post, but more importantly, targeting the right search terms help to attract the target audience that you’re looking for.

Without understanding the potential of a keyword, you may be wasting a significant amount of time, effort and money investing in one that won’t yield a significant ROI. It’s important that you learn how to conduct proper keyword research to narrow down the best ones for your site.

What is an SEO campaign

An SEO campaign is a planned effort of optimizing a page or website to improve its Google SEO rankings. It’s often a long term project that involves many different components, such as keyword research, web audit, SEO analysis, on-page optimization, link building, and many more.

Any type of brand or business can benefit from a well-executed SEO campaign, whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a digital marketer for a large multinational company.

With that said, here are 5 tips on how to make the most of your SEO campaign by using the right keywords:

1. Focus on long tail keywords

The internet is a vast ocean of websites. Frankly, it can seem downright impossible to compete with mega-corporations as a small company. Therefore, instead of focusing your efforts on trying to make it in an open ocean, you need to focus on being the king of a small pond first. For this reason, it’s better to look for relevant keywords (with three words or more) with low competition, which is why long tail keywords are so important.

For example, if your brand sells sports shoes, you shouldn’t be focusing on keywords such as “sneakers” or “trainers”. Chances are that you will have to be competing against Nike and Adidas. It’s better to focus on keywords such as “training shoes for flat footers Sacramento” instead, as this will single your brand out compared to your competitors.

It’s a process of pre-qualifying the traffic, which means that those who visit your site from these keywords are more likely to convert and generate revenue for you that way. Which also means, long tail keywords have higher conversion potential for your web visitors turn into leads or paying customers.

2. Optimize your keyword placement strategy

Another thing you have to consider is keyword placement, as this is also an integral part of the success of your SEO campaign. Many people simply throw keywords in random places, thinking that it will have the same effect for their rankings. The truth is that search engine algorithm views and analyzes them based on their placements as well. It’s crucial that you place your keywords in:

• The page title
• URLs
• Meta descriptions
• Headings and sub-headings

This is to ensure that the Google algorithm is able to see the terms clearly when they crawl your site. Aside from earning you brownie points with the algorithm, this will help to make the keywords more noticeable for viewers as well.

Make sure that you place your keywords in logical places that improve the quality of your content; otherwise, it can be marked as keyword stuffing, which can actually harm your rankings significantly. Most blog posts usually have around 0.5% to 2.5% keyword density, so make sure you optimize your content around that limit.

3. Narrow down the right keywords

Now that you know what a good keyword looks like, the next thing you will have to consider is how to go about finding one for your business. There are two ways you can do this:

1. An organic search of primary keywords, or
2. Using a keyword generator like Keyword Tool.

When you conduct organic research, you will be able to see what the people in the community related to the keywords are talking about. This will give an idea about which type of keywords you should be using to attract more traffic. The issue with this method is that it can be time-consuming and laborious.

Keyword Tool, on the other hand, allows you to see the traffic and engagement of each search term, which can help to cut down the time significantly. However, it may not provide the same understanding of the industry and community as organic research does.

We would say that a combination of the two methods is best to ensure the most success.

4. Find the sweet spot between high search volume and low competition

Keywords aren’t as black and white as it seems. Keywords with tonnes of searches tend to be competitive, and will likely take you a long time to rank against the bigger brands and websites that have ranked for those keywords for a long time. Long tail keywords have much lower competition, but also lower search volumes.

Then, there are those special set of keywords that have relatively high search volumes but yet are not highly competitive. These are the type of opportunities that can be a gold mine for your SEO campaign. They are hard to come by, but with proper keyword research aided by the right type of SEO tool, it’ll be much easier to find them.

Let’s say you run a blog that publishes content about running. Since monetizing blogs require you to maximize traffic to your website, you’ll need to create content that can attract the most amount of clicks. Ideally, you’d want to target high volume keywords that are not as competitive as other keywords (that most likely rank for big names like Nike or Adidas).

To find these type of keyword opportunities, key in “running shoes” into the input field on Keyword Tool:

As you can see from the summary of results, there are tonnes of searches for this keyword but the average keyword competition level is also pretty high. Scroll down to see the list of generated keywords:

Not surprisingly, a lot of the top keywords with a lot of searches are dominated by Nike and Adidas. The keyword competition is also very high at 100 (out of a max of 100, based on Keyword Tool’s metrics). This means that although a lot of people search for these keywords, it’ll be very difficult for you to outrank them.

So, the next best solution is to find a sweet spot between high search volume and low competition. To identify these type of keywords with high search volumes, click on the Filter Results box on the left-hand side of the screen, and key in “50” in the “max” field of Competition, and click Go:

After filtering the results, there are now 141 keywords that have a competition level of 50 and below. And as you can see, the average competition of these less competitive keywords are at 23 (Low). Let’s scroll down to see whether we can find these “sweet spot” keywords:

Voila! Based on this new filtered results, there’s 1 keyword with a high search volume of 60,500 yet with a low competition of 23. Other than that, there are also:

• 1 keyword with more than 10,000 average searches that is moderately competitive.
• 2 keywords with more than 3,000 searches with an extremely low competition level of less than 5.
• 7 keywords with at least 1,000 searches with very low competition.

From this list alone, you can craft several articles that target keywords with high search volumes yet low to medium keyword competition levels.

5. Keep track of your KPIs through a thorough SEO analysis

Lastly, it’s essential that you keep track of the performance of each keyword through Google Analytics to see what you need to adjust. If your KPIs aren’t hitting the mark, you will need to make adjustments to your SEO campaign to ensure that your investments pay off.

For example, if your keywords have high traffic but low conversion, the issue may be the call-to-action (CTA), so you will need to fix it according to what the stats show.

If you’re looking for an SEO keyword research tool, take a look at our tool today! We provide an easy way to research and compare the search traffic of different keywords across multiple platforms. It’s a great SEO tool that makes your keyword research effortless yet incredibly effective.

The post 5 Easy Steps to Run a Great SEO Campaign (Like an Expert) appeared first on Keyword Tool Blog: How to Find Great Keywords.

You might wonder, what’s the difference between a search term and a keyword? There’s actually a fine line between the two. A search term is what users key into a search engine to find something specific. It can be a single keyword or made out of a combination of words, e.g., “physiotherapist” or “sports physiotherapist Los Angeles.”

A keyword, on the other hand, is a word or phrase that SEO professionals use to attract organic clicks and improve page rankings on search engines. Keywords are also used by marketers and PPC specialists to bid on in their paid search campaigns.

What is a search term?

A search term is also known as a search query. It’s a word or phrase that someone enters into a search engine, like Google. Search terms can contain a single keyword or a string of keywords that’s either a part of or the entire length of a phrase.

These keywords are used by:

• SEO professionals or agencies to rank a website or page
• Digital marketers to bid on in their paid-per-click (PPC) marketing campaigns

All search results shown on Google depend on these two types of keyword targeting. And it all begins with the user’s search term.

How Google reads search terms

Search engines have changed a great deal in these past few years. And the better you understand how it works and the way people today search on the web, the better equipped you will be when crafting your SEO strategy.

Google no longer only ranks pages based on keyword density or volumes. Instead, the search engine’s algorithm looks at search intent. Over time it has adapted to understand users’ search queries better and match them as accurately as possible to relevant results.

When a user performs a search, Google will show both organic and paid results based on their search behaviors. And this is precisely why it’s important to understand how your target audience performs searches.

Paid marketing with Google Ads

All the results (including paid Google ads) that you get upon performing a search on Google depends on the search term that you used. Each Google search ad uses a keyword, or a group of keywords, identified by the advertiser. That’s why you will see relevant pages for both organic and paid results.

Once the target keyword is found, the advertiser will place a bid (or the maximum amount of money they’re willing to pay) for each relevant keyword. The value varies depending on the competitiveness of the keywords. And in most cases, the bid will depend on the advertiser’s paid-per-click (PPC) budget.

For example, if you’re running a marketing consultancy agency that targets small businesses, you might target “small business marketing” as a keyword. When a potential client enters a search term “how to do small business marketing,” Google will run an automated auction involving other advertisers that have placed a bid on that same keyword.

How a keyword competition level determines its placement on SERP

The winner of the auction will get the top advertising spots on SERP, followed by the rest in descending order. In PPC marketing, placing an appropriate budget that matches the competition level of a keyword is important. It increases the likelihood of your ad placed in priority and high visibility spots on SERP. But choosing the right search terms also matter just as much.

Using Keyword Tool can help you find both relevant high-volume keywords and give you valuable data such as competition level and the keywords’ average CPC costs:

Once you’ve entered your desired keyword, in this example “small business marketing,” you will see an entire list of keywords that will show you the competitiveness of the keyword:

As you can see from this example, the search term “small business marketing” and its semantic keywords are very competitive. So, depending on the data you get based on your keywords, they should help you craft a more feasible digital marketing strategy to promote your services on search.

Organic results on SERP through SEO

A large part of SERP, as you would’ve already noticed, are mainly organic search results.

It’s the handy work of search engine optimization (SEO), which is the practice of optimizing a page or website to ensure that it’s indexed, crawled, and ranks well on SERP. And just like paid search marketing, SEO is centered on search terms.

When a user enters a search term, Google’s algorithm will sort millions of pages and filter only the most relevant pages on SERP. The more clicks a website gets, the more relevant it will seem to Google. That, among many other factors, will determine the placement of the website or page on SERP.

How Google ranks websites

There are many factors that Google takes into consideration when ranking pages, including relevant keywords, meta keywords and how they are used in title tags, headlines, and meta descriptions. But don’t worry too much about keyword density, it’s been long proven to be mostly a myth. What is important is that you use high-volume keywords that are relevant to your brand or content.

Another important metric is your website’s page authority that is determined by Google PageRank. The more backlinks you attract, the more reputable your website will be in the eyes of Google’s crawlers. Which means it will be easier for your page to rank higher based on a targeted keyword.

Page authority depends on the strength of your backlinks. Want a high score? You’ll need tonnes of solid backlinks from authoritative, reputable websites. There are many strategies to gain backlinks, as long as you avoid any black hat SEO techniques like buying backlinks (because Google really doesn’t like it and you’ll get severely penalized).

On the other hand, if you have great content and solid on-page SEO practices, you’ll have a higher potential of getting organic backlinks from other websites, blogs, and even social shares. Which brings us back to the heart of SEO – using the right search terms for your content.

Finding relevant, high-volume search terms couldn’t be simpler when you use the right keyword tool. Through proper keyword research, you will see not just a list of relevant keywords but also valuable data like search volumes, cost-per-click (CPC) and average competition level.

With accurate keyword data and a solid SEO foundation, you can then focus on writing good copy and creating great content.

The post Search Terms: #1 Tool to Find Popular Keywords (& Skyrocket Your Traffic) appeared first on Keyword Tool Blog: How to Find Great Keywords.

My question to you is – How often do you do keyword research?

The best keyword data-crunchers know that effective keyword research is like a marathon, not a sprint.

Did you know that in an interview with Bloomberg, a senior Google research scientist admitted that 15% of keywords that people enter into Google’s search box every day have never been seen by Google before?

In fact, another reputable source, Search Engine Land reported that Google processes about 5,500,000,000 (yes, it’s 5.5 billion) searches per day. It means that there are around 825 million brand new keywords appearing on Google every single day!

The Benefits Of Regular Keyword Research

We brush our teeth regularly to maintain proper dental hygiene. The same goes for our websites. If you wish to drive targeted, consistent traffic to your pages, you have to research new keywords on a regular basis and create fresh content targeting these keywords.

There’s literally no cap on the amount of traffic you can earn from Google or other search engines. By exploring new keywords every day, you can grow your website’s traffic, leads and sales.

We have built Keyword Tool Pro with one purpose in mind: to help you uncover hidden traffic opportunities. Lets look at some real-life examples of how you can use Keyword Tool Pro to find new keywords.

Trend Spotting With Keyword Tool Pro

Let’s say you’re doing keyword research for Football related articles.

From November 20th to December 18th, Fifa World Cup was held in Qatar, an event that attracts the attention of millions of people from all over the world. 

You can see this yourself with the help of Keyword Tool data. 

Keyword suggestions related to Fifa World Cup got almost 75 million searches, and that was in the span of 2 months since it’s a seasonal keyword. 

Fast forward to January 2023 – you can see how sharply the search volume dropped.

It just shows how fast the search popularity can change even in one month.

Keyword Tool Pro can help you spot these sudden changes in search popularity, but only if you make an effort to do keyword research regularly.

Google Autocomplete Reveals Popular And Trending Terms

As mentioned earlier in this article, every day 15% of search terms are completely new to Google. Google Autocomplete (Keyword Tool Pro’s source of keyword data) updates itself with these new and trending terms on a daily basis.

How Google Autocomplete Works, According To Google:

Predictions are made based on factors, such as the popularity and freshness of search terms. According to Google, the search predictions that you see in Google autocomplete come from:

1. The terms that you’re typing.
2. Relevant searches you have done in the past (if you’re signed in to your Google Account and have Web & App Activity turned on).
3. What other people are searching for, including Trending stories. Trending stories are popular topics e.g. in your area that change throughout the day. Trending stories aren’t related to your search history.

As you can see, just by searching on Keyword Tool Pro, you can tap into this invaluable vault of fresh keyword data. For trend-spotting, we recommend sorting your search results by “Keyword Ascending” instead of “Search Volume – High to low”. Very often, keywords starting to trend might not have the highest search volume.

How To Get Even More Trending Keywords For Your Next Keyword List

Earlier, we talked about how “Fifa World Cup”  was a breakout search term in November and December 2022. If you want to find keywords like this, Google Trends is an amazing tool for spotting breakout or rising keywords.

According to Google Trends, a rising keyword means that popularity of the search term has grown tremendously in that given period. A breakout keyword means that its search volume has increased by over 5000%.

For example, let’s say you are in the arts and entertainment niche and operate in the United Kingdom.

Head over to Google Trends Explorer and customize your Google Trends settings based on your search requirements.

• Country: United Kingdom
• Time Range: Past 90 Days
• Category: Arts and entertainment

Google Trends will get you the latest trending search queries. From your search request, you can see that the search volume for the term “Paul O’Grady” grew by 4000%. To ride on this trend, you can put this keyword inside Keyword Tool to generate keyword suggestions for you.

Also, from Keyword Tool Pro (Plus and Basic plans) you can see the exact search volume for each month. As you can see, in March, there was a spike in searches.

This is consistent with the results in Google Trends for rising and breakout keywords.

You can use the long-tail (pun intended) keyword suggestions for “rusty spotted cat” to create targeted content for your subscribers, which are easier to rank for on Google.

Synonyms, A Great Way To Expand Your Keyword List Further

Running out of keyword ideas? You can use synonyms of your seed keyword as a great way to expand your keyword list and uncover new opportunities.

You’ll find synonyms and other semantic keywords in the ‘Related keywords’ section of Keyword Tool.

You can use synonym checker websites like thesaurus.com to find close variants of your existing keywords for targeting. For example, “vacation”, “holiday” and “getaway” are closely related terms. By targeted synonym keywords, you can potentially double or even triple your traffic!

Summary

In summary, it’s without a doubt that there are so many keyword opportunities waiting to be discovered every single day. We recommend doing keyword research at least once a week, so you don’t miss out on new lucrative keywords within your niche.

The post Regular Keyword Research is the Key to Discovering Hidden Traffic Opportunities. Here’s How. appeared first on Keyword Tool Blog: How to Find Great Keywords.

In this article, we will break down everything you need to know about this SEO tool so you can start using it to drive more traffic and sales to your website.

Table of contents

• What is Webmaster Tools / Google Search Console
  
• Why use Webmaster Tools
• How to use Webmaster Tools
• How to use Webmaster Tools for SEO
  
• Bing Webmaster Tools
  
• Yandex Webmaster Tools
  
• New Search Console
  
• Getting more out of Webmaster Tools
  

What is Webmaster Tools? / What is Google Search Console?

Google Webmaster Tools, also known as Google Search Console, is a collection of free web utilities to help website owners ensure their site is Google-friendly. This set of Google Web Tools has many useful applications, such as getting data about incoming search traffic, requesting Google to crawl and index the website, viewing crawl error reports, and many more.

Why use Webmaster Tools?

One of the tool’s top applications is that it allows webmasters to make sure that their websites and pages are crawled and processed for Google Indexing. Error reports enable them to discover issues that might prevent their site from doing well in Google searches. Webmaster Tools also comes with a set of Google Search Tools which gives data on what keywords are ranking on Google and what domains are linking to the given website.

How to use Webmaster Tools

Webmaster Tools is a free online web tool and can be accessed online here.

Note: In 2015, Google Webmaster Tools has been rebranded to Google Search Console. The majority of the tool’s functionalities remain the same.

Add Your Website To Google Webmaster

To start using Webmaster Tools, you first need to sign in with your Google Account and add a Website Property to the tool. If you have an Android app, you can add it there as well. Once you’ve added your website, you need to verify your ownership.

Google Site Verification

There are multiple ways to verify your website on Google Webmaster Tools. Instructions for verifying your website property can be found here.

Once you’ve verified your site, congratulations! You now have access to some powerful tools to help keep your website Google-friendly. Let’s look at some of the Google tool’s key features now.

Google Webmaster Tools Features

1) Crawl

The Crawl tab gives you vital information on any crawl errors or blocked pages that your website might have. Some of the features in this tab include testing and submitting your sitemaps to Google, testing your robots.txt file, as well as fetching and rendering your website.

Submitting a sitemap is used to let Google know if you’ve made a major change to your website like adding/removing pages in bulk so they can crawl it accordingly.  By using these tools, a webmaster can ensure that the site can and will be crawled by Google without any problems.

2) Google Index

The Google Index tab monitors the number of website pages indexed by Google.

You can see how the number of pages indexed changes over time, as well as the number of URLs blocked from indexing by your robots.txt file.

You can use the Remove URLs section to exclude specific URLs from Google’s search results (on a temporary basis). Here you can also see what pages were removed from Google index automatically. For example, if you removed a page from your website and this change got detected by Google’s crawlers. You can re-include removed URLs into Google index using this tool if you wish to.

3) Search Traffic

The Search Traffic tab is one of the most useful free tools for SEO and keyword research purposes. In the Search Analytics tab, you can see what queries people search for on Google when they visit your website. You can filter the metrics by clicks, impressions, CTR, and position (average position on Google).

You can also see which pages are receiving the most clicks or which country or device type is sending you the most clicks.

Links to Your Site tab can show you which websites link to you the most, what are your most linked content as well as the anchor text of those links. In the next section, we’ll look at how we can use these features for SEO purposes.

Google URL Inspection Tool

A quick and easy way to get your pages indexed without having to submit a sitemap is using the Google URL Inspection Tool. You can find it here at the top of the page:

You can inspect a URL using this tool, and it will tell you if the page is indexed or not. If you wish to index it, you can do it by clicking on ‘Request Indexing.’

To use it, just enter the URL of a page, and Google will inspect it for you.

How to use Webmaster Tools/Google Search Console for SEO

The tool’s most relevant function for SEO optimization is the Search Results tab (formerly known as Search Traffic Tab) under Performance.

Here you can see what keywords people are searching to come to your website. Very likely, people searching and clicking on these keywords to visit your site will become your leads or even customers.

By looking at these keywords, you can identify new opportunities for getting more website traffic, such as by creating content pages for related keywords or topics. You can further conduct keyword research based on these top-performing keywords to get additional ideas for targeting.

The Links tab is a powerful tool for discovering backlink opportunities. Quality backlinks are essential for boosting your Domain Authority, which would lead to better SEO for your website.

In this tab, you can see how many total backlinks your website has and monitor its growth by doing weekly and monthly checks. You can then focus your efforts on backlink generation if you see your backlink profile stagnating.

By analyzing who links to your website,  you can reach out to other similar businesses who would be interested in linking to you as well.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Similar to its Google counterpart, Bing also offers Bing Webmaster Tools (Bing Search Console) to help SEO professionals optimize their site experience for Bing indexing.

Getting Started With Webmaster Tools For Bing

You can access Bing Webmaster Tools here. You first have to log in with a Microsoft account. Once inside, add your website and then perform verification.

Webmaster Tools for Bing is designed to help your content get found and indexed by Bing. In the platform, you’ll also be able to see similar statistics such as clicks from searches, impressions, pages indexed, and pages crawled.

Using the tool, you’ll be able to detect any crawl or indexing errors with ease and fix it. Bing Webmaster Tools will help you to perform similar functions to Google Webmaster Tools, such as submitting sitemaps to Bing, checking for crawl errors, and analyzing mobile-friendliness.

For the full list of features and tutorials, visit Bing Webmaster Help.

Submit URL to Bing

The easiest and fastest way to get your pages crawled by Bing is using Submit URL to Bing. No login required. Simply submit your URL here. If you’ve made major changes to your website, such as uploading or removing many pages at once, it is better to submit a sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools.

Bing Webmaster Tools for Bing SEO

Unlike Google, Bing actually provides a complete checklist for Bing SEO best practices on the Bing webmaster guidelines page. One of the features worth mentioning on Bing Webmaster Tools is the SEO Reports tab. SEO reports for Bing analyze your website and give you a list of SEO suggestions and weaknesses based on the 15 Bing SEO Best Practices checklist.

Yandex Webmaster Tools

The Yandex search engine has its own set of Webmaster Tools called Yandex Webmaster Tools. These utilities help SEO professionals optimize their site experience to get crawled and indexed by Yandex. The SEO tool comes with a similar set of functionalities as Google Webmaster Tool, such as:

• Crawl and index statistics
• Search traffic analysis
• Submit sitemap to Yandex

How to use Yandex Webmaster Tools:

Like most Webmaster Tools, they come with essential functionalities to help you analyze and grow your organic traffic on the search engine. Here’s how to start using Yandex Webmaster Tools:

1. Visit Yandex Webmaster Tools website
2. Register for a free account
3. Add your website
4. Complete Yandex site Verification
5. Access the dashboard and start using Yandex Webmaster Tools

Detailed instructions on using the tool are outside the scope of this article. However, you can access the full guide on how to use it here: Yandex Webmaster Tools Guide

New and Improved Search Console

In early 2018, Google rolled out the beta version of the new Google Search Console, for selected Google Webmaster accounts. In this section, we will focus on some of the main differences between the new version and the current Google Webmaster Tools.

When you log in to the new platform, the first thing you will notice is they’ve restructured the original tabs section.

The Search Analytics tab is now the Performance tab, where you’ll find the previous search analytics data, such as queries, pages, countries, devices, etc. The date range selector has also received an upgrade. It now allows you to see historical data for up to 16 months.

The index coverage report provides a comprehensive look into the indexing of URLs from your website. For example, it displays indexed URLs, warnings about potential issues, and reasons why Google isn’t indexing some URLs. 

Coming soon: Improve your AMP and Job Postings pages.

The new Google Search Console will slowly roll out tools to help you discover errors quickly when implementing AMP or job posting pages. These reports will go into the specific errors and warnings that Google identified for these topics.

Getting more out of Webmaster Tools

As mentioned earlier, this SEO tool by Google is great for identifying your top-performing keywords and content pages on your site. That said, it’s not the best tool for keyword expansion if you want to find additional keywords to drive even more traffic to your website.

A better alternative for keyword research is Keyword Tool, which lets you discover keyword opportunities for targeting audiences who are looking for information related to your business online. The dedicated SEO tool is able to show a wealth of keyword data, including keyword volume, CPC, competition level, and even keyword trends.

How it works

Keyword Tool uses the autocomplete function of Google Search, which suggests search queries when a person types something into the search box. This feature helps people find information faster, and at the same time, presents an invaluable source of keyword information for webmasters.

Keyword Tool then uses this source of keywords to compile a huge list of keywords related to the search term for you.

To use Keyword Tool, just put any keyword into the search box and press enter. The tool will then provide you with a comprehensive list of keywords pulled from Google Autocomplete in seconds.

Give Keyword Tool A Try Right Now

The post Webmaster Tool: A Quick Guide to Google Webmaster Tools (or Search Console) appeared first on Keyword Tool Blog: How to Find Great Keywords.