Your keyword selection is one of the main components that help determine the success or failure of your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. Although this may not appear much, choosing the right keyword to use for your website is one of the more grueling parts of the entire SEO process, mainly if you aim to find one that will be most effective for your site's search engine optimization.
When using keywords for SEO, you need to follow a few simple steps to find the right keyword that will do the job correctly. It would help if you also looked out for a couple of things to avoid problems when optimizing your web page.
Make a list
The first thing you should do if you want to be able to use keywords effectively is to start by making a list of "key" keywords or phrases relevant to your site's content. Doing this can lead you to create or discover more keywords or phrases that may blossom from the original one you have chosen.
Select key phrases or words
Once you've made a list, try to select ones that contain a "key" keyword or phrase that can help you identify your site's content. Let's say your site's content is all about cars; using cars as a keyword won't put you high up in the page ranking of search engines, especially since many sites or pages have that as a keyword. Try to avoid using words or phrases that are too general, as this will not help improve your page ranking.
Adding other key terms to your chosen keyword, such as "second-hand cars" or "second-hand sports cars," will help improve your chances of going up higher in the page rankings. Just make sure that these are relevant to your site's content.
Check your competition
It also helps if you took the time to search for keywords or phrases that your competition is using to narrow down which ones to use and which ones to avoid. There is no sense in using a type of keyword or phrase, such as "cars," which a lot or most of your competition are using as well, and if their sites are ranked high up in the search engine's index, then you might have a difficult time going up against that.
Use your location
You can also improve your chances of getting a much better page ranking result if you incorporate your location to the keyword or phrase that you are trying to use. Let's say your business is located somewhere in Minnesota; by simply adding the word "Minnesota" to your keyword selection ("Minnesota second-hand sports cars"), you can fair better in your page ranking.
However, this type of method usually entails that people plan to see you in person when they do searches like this, so make sure that you only utilize this technique if you are open to the idea of them visiting you in person.
Use your niche
Always try to choose the keyword you specialize in or at least the one that offers you the most profit. Remember that you want to provide the keyword that best describes your business. Still, if the search volume of users is leaning towards one that isn't your main product, you can opt to use that keyword instead, just as long as that keyword is still related or relevant to your site's content.
