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HI all!
Question on keywords.
If I find a great, low hanging fruit keyword, but even though it's gramatically correct, as a stand alone it still isn't enough - c
whatever you do always check who is on page one of google - this is who you are trying to beat - they may or may not have the exact keyword but it maybe in a backlink or google thinks the result is close enough....
to me your first keyword where it stops at or is a partial keyword - where people are looking down the auto suggest list and choosing one of those - so no it is not a complete keyword - adding the not completes the keyword....
you can see in jaaxy's list there are half a dozen other keywords under the first containing the first one - it maybe worth using those as well if you use the first one...
you need to be using keywords that are whole questions that you can answer completely in your article....rather than hanging sentences....
with an seo of 80, to me this is a very competitive keyword and unless you have an authority site it wil l not rank on the first page - i would be looking for high 90's, 97 and above.
you need to work on a 3 month plan with content being added two or three times a week if poss and looking at the ranknigs after that time.....
good luck
phil
Keyword = search term. The keywords you should be targeting as low hanging fruit should be what someone is likely to type into the Google search box. So yes, your example makes complete sense.
If your post answers someone's search query better than anyone else (plus a few other factors that Google doesn't tell us about) your post will be #1 in the SERPs.
Continue to write good content and strive to be better than the competition.
See more comments
Keywords - where do they start, and end?
HI all!
Question on keywords.
If I find a great, low hanging fruit keyword, but even though it's gramatically correct, as a stand alone it still isn't enough - c
Hi Gareth, great question. There was a time when exact match keywords would give you a better chance at ranking well but the algorithms are a far better at understanding keyword "intent" today.
Jaaxy is great tool but it's only part of the keyword research process. It will help you qualify keywords so you have a list of potential LHF's, but then you should enter those keywords (as complete search terms) into Google and see what comes up.
The posts that are currently ranking are your competition regardless of QSR... and this can go both ways.
You may find the content being delivered by Google is great content. Helpful, accurate and most importantly, highly relevant to the search term even though the exact search term is not being used in the title or description.
In this case, the algorithm still understands the "intent" of the search term even though the content creator is targeting a slightly different keyword. An exact match keyword may help you move up the rankings in this situation but it's usually negligible.
That's because Google is paying more attention to things like time on page, bounce rates, CTR's, engagement etc. of the posts already ranking on page one for that keyword and has determined they are highly relevant and engaging posts even though the keyword is not an exact match.
However... other times this will work in your favour.
You may find that the content being delivered by Google is thin, unhelpful and not entirely relevant to what the searcher is looking for... even though somewhere in the article the exact match keyword is being used.
They may have included the keyword you're targeting as a subheading somewhere in the article but only given it a paragraph or two of attention.
The QSR may be relatively high... meaning the exact keyword is found in a relatively high number of posts, but it's not the primary keyword being targeted.
In that case, you have a great opportunity. You can create specific content dedicated to that particular keyword and you will have a very good chance of ranking well, possibly in the top spot because your post is one of the few that expands on that specific topic.
I've actually lost traffic for this very reason, lol. I've had posts that were ranking well because there were other keywords I had touched on throughout the article, but someone else came along and created an entire post around the topic I only briefly mentioned.
So Jaaxy is great in helping you narrow down a list of potential keywords with good metrics, but that should be followed by SERP research to further qualify them.
Thank you Jay, always incredibly helpful in your responses! I've been targeting keywords a bit one-dimensionally it seems. So it looks like I should be using Jaaxy to get an idea but then use Google search and SERP to expand on that? As Phil mentions below, it seems like each time I'm researching a keyword, I need to actually check page 1 and review the existing articles appearing to get an idea? I think you're suggesting the same thing above?
If so, I guess the process to choose a keyword to write about is going to be more lengthy - so I should target then only ones that hit really high on the SEO ranking (high 90s)?
Yes exactly. It is a more lengthy process, but it's quite intuitive once you start doing. It sounds like a long process but when you know what you're looking for you can scan the SERP's quickly and often within seconds you'll get a good feeling for your keyword.
I pay attention to the AVG and QSR in Jaaxy, but to be honest, I don't pay too much attention to the SEO ranking number. Not that it's not helpful, I'm sure it is... I just don't understand it, lol.
I think of it a more organic way.
The important thing with keyword research in my opinion is first understanding what Google wants.
Google's primary goal is to provide high quality, relevant information to searchers. That's why they are the number one search engine and it's why they remain that way.
But if in some parallel universe they dropped the ball... and some low quality, less relevant posts started appearing in the SERPs (a good example would be blackhat strategies exploiting an SEO loophole and getting junk posts onto page one), people would quickly move to another search engine because the results they were getting Google wouldn't be helpful.
So it means everything to Google to deliver the best content to their searchers. Google depends on it. Searchers depend on it. And as content creators, we depend on it.
Because of that we know two things...
One, if we want to rank our articles, our goal must be the same as Google's, and...
Two, Google has already done the heavy lifting for us.
In other words, when we have a keyword we're researching... we already know what Google is looking for because what they know what their searchers are looking for... which are the posts already ranking on page one.
With that knowledge we can design content that delivers what Google and the searcher wants... even better than what's already there.
Quite often, that's not possible or worthwhile (which you'll find out during your SERP research).
For example, you might have a keyword with a low QSR but when you do your SERP research you find out the top 10 articles are 5000+ word posts with original research. Original research would be something like an in-depth case study, interviews or surveys conducted by the content creator and so on.
If you were in the health niche for example, you could write about a particular diet trend and maybe you could rank very well... but it would be difficult to outrank the article written by the doctor who developed the diet with a team of other doctors and a clinic that collected results and data from hundreds of patients over the course of a year... just an example :-)
So whenever I'm targeting a keyword I always ask myself, can I create an article that "deserves" to rank on the first page?
Sometimes I can't. Or at least, I'm not willing to.
Of course you can spend weeks on a post and hire writers and editors. You can create inforgraphics and videos and conduct our own case study, interview people and so on... but as independent site owners, it's usually just easier to find a new keyword.
More often than not the content I find on page one is nothing special. In that case I know I can easily create something better. I can take every point made by all of the top 10 posts in the SERPs, plus go deeper by adding a few of my own points that no other article has even mentioned and then construct an epic piece of content.
It won't always pay off, but the ones that do can generate income for years. As I'm typing this I have Analytics open on my other screen and there are active users on posts I wrote years ago. I can't even remember those posts, lol. In fact, 9 out of my top 10 posts this week were written in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
And that gets back to my first point about our goal being the same as Google's.
Google has become very good at knowing what their searchers want. So we can piggy back on that knowledge by studying the SERP's and aligning our goal with Google's goal which is giving searchers what they want.
That's my thought process when doing SERP research.
Thanks os much Jay, this has really made me look at keyword research differently! But it's better to put more time in up front to get the right start than write posts that might never rank!
Appreciate your help on this; will be adding the above into my Keyword Research Bible! ;)
Cheers,
Gareth
whatever you do always check who is on page one of google - this is who you are trying to beat - they may or may not have the exact keyword but it maybe in a backlink or google thinks the result is close enough....
to me your first keyword where it stops at or is a partial keyword - where people are looking down the auto suggest list and choosing one of those - so no it is not a complete keyword - adding the not completes the keyword....
you can see in jaaxy's list there are half a dozen other keywords under the first containing the first one - it maybe worth using those as well if you use the first one...
you need to be using keywords that are whole questions that you can answer completely in your article....rather than hanging sentences....
with an seo of 80, to me this is a very competitive keyword and unless you have an authority site it wil l not rank on the first page - i would be looking for high 90's, 97 and above.
you need to work on a 3 month plan with content being added two or three times a week if poss and looking at the ranknigs after that time.....
good luck
phil
Keyword = search term. The keywords you should be targeting as low hanging fruit should be what someone is likely to type into the Google search box. So yes, your example makes complete sense.
If your post answers someone's search query better than anyone else (plus a few other factors that Google doesn't tell us about) your post will be #1 in the SERPs.
Continue to write good content and strive to be better than the competition.
See more comments
Hi WA peeps!
A question on keywords and SERP.
I've been following the advise to locate the "low hanging fruit" in my niche and have used good ol' Jaaxy to do the
Hey Gareth,
It is vital that you understand the value of keywords and why you need to use them. However, no one has the key as to how align our chosen keywords with SERPs.
You may find the following tutorial very helpful, as Rob (aka boomergp08) explains in detail, as to what I mean by my response: Stop worrying about keywords so much Hope this helps you.
See more comments
Keywords and serp - how to align them?
Hi WA peeps!
A question on keywords and SERP.
I've been following the advise to locate the "low hanging fruit" in my niche and have used good ol' Jaaxy to do the
Hey Gareth,
It is vital that you understand the value of keywords and why you need to use them. However, no one has the key as to how align our chosen keywords with SERPs.
You may find the following tutorial very helpful, as Rob (aka boomergp08) explains in detail, as to what I mean by my response: Stop worrying about keywords so much Hope this helps you.
See more comments
Hi all,
Any recommendations for a plugin that does both static contact form / subscribe widgets as well as popups?
I've got a great popup sorted, but haven't get so
See more comments
Anyone have a combined opt-incontact form and popup plugin?
Hi all,
Any recommendations for a plugin that does both static contact form / subscribe widgets as well as popups?
I've got a great popup sorted, but haven't get so
See more comments
Hi all,
Something I'm battling to find clarity on is the world of autorepsonders.
I'm starting out, so don't want to be paying monthly subs for something until I've
Hi Gareth, I agree with Dale... particularly about waiting until you get traffic. You can spend countless hours and a lot of money on strategies that are only effective if you already have a source of significant traffic. Email marketing (creating lead magnets, opt-ins and dealing with autoresponders) is time consuming and can add up if you're paying monthly fees for tools.
I know setting these things up is where a lot of MMO systems begin, but 99 times out of a 100 (probably 100 times out of 100), they all require paid traffic to make them work. They're putting the cart before the horse.
It's not necessarily as flashy, but your time and effort (and this is just my opinion) is better spend generating traffic first.
Thanks Jay, that's valuable advice. I'll stick to just an optin plugin for now and any leads that come in I can deal with manually for now and wait until the real traffic arrives before I setup the autoresponder.
Appreciate the response!
G.
Yeah, it's a good idea to capture leads and I remember when I first started it seemed every blogger and online personality was saying their biggest mistake was not starting an email list from day one. Based on that advice, I started paying monthly for an autoresponder in 2016 and it took me two years to build a list of about 100, LOL.
Open rates are typically well below 10% so it's hard to cover the cost of an autoresponder (even a cheap one) until you have a decent amount of traffic.
I actually stopped collecting emails in my second year because it was more of a distraction than anything. I was spending more time on testing opt-in forms, creating lead magnets and stressing over horrible conversion rates than I was on creating content for my site. As a result, my traffic numbers were not budging.
It was only when I ignored everything other than traffic related activities (which for me has only been keyword research and content) that I started making any real progress.
Once you have decent traffic though, you can collect emails all day, every day. For free 😀
Thanks Jay.
I've just setup my opt-in plugin, so any conversions won't be missed now. And I can deal with them manually for the moment.
I must agree, I just want to create content now. It's definitely a packs and troughs type progress with the content, I get some ideas and inspiration, then have days with a lack of ideas. But I'm trying to note everything down, so I've got a list of ideas to refer to in the "lean" period of inspiration. I just see how some people churn out their reviews of products almost every few days! Pressure's on hahaha. But I need to race against myself, not everyone else ;)
I struggle with content as well and although I enjoy writing, churning out keyword optimized blog posts to me is a grind, lol. I also have a writer who has written quite a few posts on my site, but I had to force myself to sit here and write the first couple hundred before I reached that point. So I totally know how you feel 😀
As far as inspiration, it's far more about keywords than it is about inspiration. Every once in awhile I'll write about something I want to write about, but in most cases it's just capitalizing on keywords. Those are the ones that bring in the eyeballs.
Ja, I"m the same Jay. I do enjoy the writing aspect and when I'm in flow it's relatively easy.
But you've pointed out, it's the keywords where the value lies (and the inspiration). I think I need to focus more time and effort on getting that right - I'll revisit the training on keywords and writing keyword rich content.
I am starting to see where this can take me and there are many avenues! :)
Giving my honest advice, I would avoid any "free" autoresponder & either use nothing & simply wait until you get traffic, or pay a premium for a proper service.
Sending mail is a very complex business & deliverability is very important. It's not nice paying out for all these things, sure, but if you want solid deliverability it's just something that's gotta be done. Using a free service with bad deliverability could actually harm the overall deliverability of your sending address in the long run.
AWeber offer a relatively cheap startup option, which scales as you grow. GetResponse I believe also offer cheap options too.
Thanks Dale. I definitely agree that you get what you pay for. I'll have a look at these more reliable ones and see which the most cost effective startup option.
Cheers!
See more comments
Sumo alone or sumo and autoresponders?
Hi all,
Something I'm battling to find clarity on is the world of autorepsonders.
I'm starting out, so don't want to be paying monthly subs for something until I've
Hi Gareth, I agree with Dale... particularly about waiting until you get traffic. You can spend countless hours and a lot of money on strategies that are only effective if you already have a source of significant traffic. Email marketing (creating lead magnets, opt-ins and dealing with autoresponders) is time consuming and can add up if you're paying monthly fees for tools.
I know setting these things up is where a lot of MMO systems begin, but 99 times out of a 100 (probably 100 times out of 100), they all require paid traffic to make them work. They're putting the cart before the horse.
It's not necessarily as flashy, but your time and effort (and this is just my opinion) is better spend generating traffic first.
Thanks Jay, that's valuable advice. I'll stick to just an optin plugin for now and any leads that come in I can deal with manually for now and wait until the real traffic arrives before I setup the autoresponder.
Appreciate the response!
G.
Yeah, it's a good idea to capture leads and I remember when I first started it seemed every blogger and online personality was saying their biggest mistake was not starting an email list from day one. Based on that advice, I started paying monthly for an autoresponder in 2016 and it took me two years to build a list of about 100, LOL.
Open rates are typically well below 10% so it's hard to cover the cost of an autoresponder (even a cheap one) until you have a decent amount of traffic.
I actually stopped collecting emails in my second year because it was more of a distraction than anything. I was spending more time on testing opt-in forms, creating lead magnets and stressing over horrible conversion rates than I was on creating content for my site. As a result, my traffic numbers were not budging.
It was only when I ignored everything other than traffic related activities (which for me has only been keyword research and content) that I started making any real progress.
Once you have decent traffic though, you can collect emails all day, every day. For free 😀
Thanks Jay.
I've just setup my opt-in plugin, so any conversions won't be missed now. And I can deal with them manually for the moment.
I must agree, I just want to create content now. It's definitely a packs and troughs type progress with the content, I get some ideas and inspiration, then have days with a lack of ideas. But I'm trying to note everything down, so I've got a list of ideas to refer to in the "lean" period of inspiration. I just see how some people churn out their reviews of products almost every few days! Pressure's on hahaha. But I need to race against myself, not everyone else ;)
I struggle with content as well and although I enjoy writing, churning out keyword optimized blog posts to me is a grind, lol. I also have a writer who has written quite a few posts on my site, but I had to force myself to sit here and write the first couple hundred before I reached that point. So I totally know how you feel 😀
As far as inspiration, it's far more about keywords than it is about inspiration. Every once in awhile I'll write about something I want to write about, but in most cases it's just capitalizing on keywords. Those are the ones that bring in the eyeballs.
Ja, I"m the same Jay. I do enjoy the writing aspect and when I'm in flow it's relatively easy.
But you've pointed out, it's the keywords where the value lies (and the inspiration). I think I need to focus more time and effort on getting that right - I'll revisit the training on keywords and writing keyword rich content.
I am starting to see where this can take me and there are many avenues! :)
Giving my honest advice, I would avoid any "free" autoresponder & either use nothing & simply wait until you get traffic, or pay a premium for a proper service.
Sending mail is a very complex business & deliverability is very important. It's not nice paying out for all these things, sure, but if you want solid deliverability it's just something that's gotta be done. Using a free service with bad deliverability could actually harm the overall deliverability of your sending address in the long run.
AWeber offer a relatively cheap startup option, which scales as you grow. GetResponse I believe also offer cheap options too.
Thanks Dale. I definitely agree that you get what you pay for. I'll have a look at these more reliable ones and see which the most cost effective startup option.
Cheers!
See more comments
Hi Gareth, great question. There was a time when exact match keywords would give you a better chance at ranking well but the algorithms are a far better at understanding keyword "intent" today.
Jaaxy is great tool but it's only part of the keyword research process. It will help you qualify keywords so you have a list of potential LHF's, but then you should enter those keywords (as complete search terms) into Google and see what comes up.
The posts that are currently ranking are your competition regardless of QSR... and this can go both ways.
You may find the content being delivered by Google is great content. Helpful, accurate and most importantly, highly relevant to the search term even though the exact search term is not being used in the title or description.
In this case, the algorithm still understands the "intent" of the search term even though the content creator is targeting a slightly different keyword. An exact match keyword may help you move up the rankings in this situation but it's usually negligible.
That's because Google is paying more attention to things like time on page, bounce rates, CTR's, engagement etc. of the posts already ranking on page one for that keyword and has determined they are highly relevant and engaging posts even though the keyword is not an exact match.
However... other times this will work in your favour.
You may find that the content being delivered by Google is thin, unhelpful and not entirely relevant to what the searcher is looking for... even though somewhere in the article the exact match keyword is being used.
They may have included the keyword you're targeting as a subheading somewhere in the article but only given it a paragraph or two of attention.
The QSR may be relatively high... meaning the exact keyword is found in a relatively high number of posts, but it's not the primary keyword being targeted.
In that case, you have a great opportunity. You can create specific content dedicated to that particular keyword and you will have a very good chance of ranking well, possibly in the top spot because your post is one of the few that expands on that specific topic.
I've actually lost traffic for this very reason, lol. I've had posts that were ranking well because there were other keywords I had touched on throughout the article, but someone else came along and created an entire post around the topic I only briefly mentioned.
So Jaaxy is great in helping you narrow down a list of potential keywords with good metrics, but that should be followed by SERP research to further qualify them.
Thank you Jay, always incredibly helpful in your responses! I've been targeting keywords a bit one-dimensionally it seems. So it looks like I should be using Jaaxy to get an idea but then use Google search and SERP to expand on that? As Phil mentions below, it seems like each time I'm researching a keyword, I need to actually check page 1 and review the existing articles appearing to get an idea? I think you're suggesting the same thing above?
If so, I guess the process to choose a keyword to write about is going to be more lengthy - so I should target then only ones that hit really high on the SEO ranking (high 90s)?
Yes exactly. It is a more lengthy process, but it's quite intuitive once you start doing. It sounds like a long process but when you know what you're looking for you can scan the SERP's quickly and often within seconds you'll get a good feeling for your keyword.
I pay attention to the AVG and QSR in Jaaxy, but to be honest, I don't pay too much attention to the SEO ranking number. Not that it's not helpful, I'm sure it is... I just don't understand it, lol.
I think of it a more organic way.
The important thing with keyword research in my opinion is first understanding what Google wants.
Google's primary goal is to provide high quality, relevant information to searchers. That's why they are the number one search engine and it's why they remain that way.
But if in some parallel universe they dropped the ball... and some low quality, less relevant posts started appearing in the SERPs (a good example would be blackhat strategies exploiting an SEO loophole and getting junk posts onto page one), people would quickly move to another search engine because the results they were getting Google wouldn't be helpful.
So it means everything to Google to deliver the best content to their searchers. Google depends on it. Searchers depend on it. And as content creators, we depend on it.
Because of that we know two things...
One, if we want to rank our articles, our goal must be the same as Google's, and...
Two, Google has already done the heavy lifting for us.
In other words, when we have a keyword we're researching... we already know what Google is looking for because what they know what their searchers are looking for... which are the posts already ranking on page one.
With that knowledge we can design content that delivers what Google and the searcher wants... even better than what's already there.
Quite often, that's not possible or worthwhile (which you'll find out during your SERP research).
For example, you might have a keyword with a low QSR but when you do your SERP research you find out the top 10 articles are 5000+ word posts with original research. Original research would be something like an in-depth case study, interviews or surveys conducted by the content creator and so on.
If you were in the health niche for example, you could write about a particular diet trend and maybe you could rank very well... but it would be difficult to outrank the article written by the doctor who developed the diet with a team of other doctors and a clinic that collected results and data from hundreds of patients over the course of a year... just an example :-)
So whenever I'm targeting a keyword I always ask myself, can I create an article that "deserves" to rank on the first page?
Sometimes I can't. Or at least, I'm not willing to.
Of course you can spend weeks on a post and hire writers and editors. You can create inforgraphics and videos and conduct our own case study, interview people and so on... but as independent site owners, it's usually just easier to find a new keyword.
More often than not the content I find on page one is nothing special. In that case I know I can easily create something better. I can take every point made by all of the top 10 posts in the SERPs, plus go deeper by adding a few of my own points that no other article has even mentioned and then construct an epic piece of content.
It won't always pay off, but the ones that do can generate income for years. As I'm typing this I have Analytics open on my other screen and there are active users on posts I wrote years ago. I can't even remember those posts, lol. In fact, 9 out of my top 10 posts this week were written in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
And that gets back to my first point about our goal being the same as Google's.
Google has become very good at knowing what their searchers want. So we can piggy back on that knowledge by studying the SERP's and aligning our goal with Google's goal which is giving searchers what they want.
That's my thought process when doing SERP research.
Thanks os much Jay, this has really made me look at keyword research differently! But it's better to put more time in up front to get the right start than write posts that might never rank!
Appreciate your help on this; will be adding the above into my Keyword Research Bible! ;)
Cheers,
Gareth