The Purpose Of Keywords In SEO Strategies

What are keywords and why do they matter?

Keywords are what the user is entering into search engines to help them narrow down a search. The more precise the information inputted in the search. The more specific the results that are received.

As a business trying to reach its target audience. Keywords matter because it is what’s going to connect you with searchers who are expressing an interest in a subject. This helps to qualify a prospect and drive organic traffic to your business website. Starting the customer journey of a prospect.

Keywords also matter when it comes to establishing yourself locally. Local SEO heavily relies on keywords and location for SEO. As an SEO strategist based in The Bronx. I have to know how to be able to help drive organic traffic to a website and store location(s).

That said you can’t limit your business to a specific township or borough with a Seo strategy. You also have to work on placing well in the surrounding areas as well.

In my case that would be The Bronx, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Yonkers, Westchester County, and New York City as a whole for local SEO. The “Near me & In my area” searches are relevant and you want to rank well where you can with your business.

How to use keywords to drive organic traffic to your website

Let’s start by identifying what organic traffic is the benefits of it. Organic traffic is the non-paid traffic generated by search engine results of people looking for answers and solutions.

Search engines are taking keywords from that search and categorizing them to help organize the results they provide. The results of that search will include all the people and businesses that they deem relevant to answering the question and or provides a solution to their problem.

As a business, you can drive organic traffic to your website using keywords by anticipating those needs. The better that you know your customer, target audience. The easier it is to anticipate those search inquiries.

Couple that with your content marketing strategy of providing relevant content that is informative and educational. Addressing the questions the audience is asking and the solutions to their problems will help drive traffic to your website.

Strategies that help you build up your authority ranking and credibility with search engines

From an entry-level point of view, the strategy can be as simple as creating content that will resonate with your target audience. Without knowing a lot if you can start there it is a foundation that can help with establishing your brand.

As the saying goes “Content is King.” Take it a step further and you’ll know that “Consistency is the Queen.” By that I mean when you’re consistently creating relevant content that builds up your credibility and makes you an expert on a topic. Search engines will share your information in their results.

From an intermediate and advanced strategy mindset. There are additional steps that can be taken to help you not just get a good ranking but maintain it. Instead of ranking well one moment and then dropping down the next.

The goal is to secure and maintain not dropping below the water level on keywords that matter to your business and the consumer. Your content is only relevant to the people who can find it and benefit from it.

Why does page one ranking matter to so many businesses in search results?

The simplest answer to this is that a lot of people don’t make it past the first page of search results. By selecting the right keywords and content you can land and maintain a decent page position and ranking.

When more people see you on page one. You increase your chances of people clicking through to your website to find out more about your product/service.

That’s not to say that there aren’t quality prospects that can come in from being on an additional page. The click-through rate just happens to be significantly lower. 0.78% of Google searchers click on results from the 2^nd page. (backlinko)

How to identify the keywords that you’re target audience is using?

Searches are actions people are taking. 2 questions should come to mind when thinking through what keywords to rank on.

what are they looking for? What are the questions that your target audience is asking?
why are they looking for it? Why is important because this helps you qualify where they are in their consumer journey.

What are they looking for? Are they looking for a solution? Are they asking preliminary questions? Knowing the answer to these question set the expectations of the prospect.

Why are they looking at this time? Are they looking in preparation for future work? Are they looking to educate themselves on where they may be falling short? Are they searching because they’re ready to take action?

Asking and answering these questions when you’re putting together your list of keywords to research will help you. It will help you put together a worthwhile list to sort through and make educated decisions on.

What do you do after you identify a list of keywords you’re interested in using?

This process is fairly straight forward but in most cases, it requires a tool that can help you pull together the data. Either that or for you to outsource to get the information necessary to make an informed decision.

It’s a moment of honesty required as a next step. Once you identify the keywords. The next step is to take a look at how many people are searching for each of the keywords. The honesty comes in when you have to consider which ones you can reasonably rank well for and in what timeframe.

If it’s a keyword that you know will be hard to win the share of voice on. You don’t have to rule it out. Just set your expectations on it will take time and quality content for you to rise through the ranks. More strategies can be applied to help with the ranking but these are the initial questions to ask and things to plan for.

Content to match your keywords

I mentioned content helps drive SEO above. Here’s where you strategically start to look at what to write and why. Keywords are should be a consideration when you start writing blog articles, copy for the website, and content as a whole.

The more aligned that you are with your strategy the better the results that you’ll receive. Search engines and users that this into account. Both will evaluate you on how relevant your content is to their needs as well as the path to get to the information.

Your authority and credibility are not based on the content alone. They’re based on your ability to share the information in a way that they can understand and benefit from the knowledge being shared.

It helps to take into consideration each type of reader as well. They’ll be in different parts of their customer journey so articles that cover each stage will help win over more prospects. Moving them through the customer journey at their own pace.