On this and the following page I am going to show you how I am ranked on Google page 1 for keywords I did not even mention anywhere within my content. Some of the keywords are partial, meaning that two of the four or more words are together but the remaining words are not. Let me show you what I mean.

THIS KEYWORD DOES NOT APPEAR IN MY CONTENT

Going through my Google Search Console queries list I found a keyword I was ranking on Google page 1 for. The keyword is “21 step business review” but nowhere within my content does that four-word keyword appear. I do have “21-step” appear together but never “21 step business review.”

But Google is showing me that I am ranking on page one in about position 2 from 23 people who had used that search term. So what I did was to click on the little square with the arrow next to the keyword so I could see the Google search results. You can see those results in the below image.

Google will always bold the words of the particular search query keyword. As is shown the words “Business 21 step” and the word “Business” again and the word “Review” are highlighted in bold font. The actual keyword I searched for does not appear as typed, only in a random order, but Google is still ranking me for it.

If you look at the above image taken straight out of the scam review on my website, the part I have underlined in green is what appears in the search results description snippet. The remaining words of the description snippet Google used was pulled from various other areas of the review.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN

I know that many of you have come across keywords while doing keyword research with high searches and low competition but are not grammatically correct. Even though we are to always use grammatically correct keywords when creating content, we can still get ranked for the keywords not grammatically correct.

This is because when people search on Google they are not always grammatically correct with their search queries. And if a high amount of people are searching for the same grammatically incorrect keyword and finding / clicking on your content in search results, you will be ranked for that keyword as well without even using it.

Because Google is ranking you based on not just your target keyword but also your entire content, there will be plenty of times that you will get ranked for other keywords that you never even considered. These keywords could appear in whole or in partial order anywhere within your content.

NEXT UP = More examples of non-target keywords ranking me on Google page 1



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Amelita Premium
This has been quite helpful. I have been here as a premium member for almost a month now. After spending many hours a day to learn and enjoy the WA community, it is helpful to have a refresher course in using key words and how google ranks/indexes. Your explanation of how "content is king" is very helpful and that phrase makes more sense now. Thank you for this great tutorial.
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boomergp08 Premium
It was my pleasure to help you and the WA community to better understand keywords, content and how Google ranks our content.
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WLG Premium
Greeting Robert,

You always provide us with useful, important information that's useful and need to become the entrepreneurs we All desire to be.

May Our LORD And Savior Continue to Shower His Abundant Blessing UpOn You Always.

To God All Glory Is Given;
Praise His Holy Name;
Your Brother In Christ;
William
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boomergp08 Premium
Thank you William. I always try to provide training that has not yet been presented to the community and that can help everyone to create their websites a little better. If I know something works well, I feel the community should know and benefit from it too.
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WLG Premium
Thank you once again, Robert, for sharing this most important valuable information with us.

I Pray that Your Journey is both Profitable and Pleasant and Our LORD And Savior Jesus Christ Who Bled And Died On The Cross For Us Continue To Shower His Abundant Blessing UpOn You Always.

Have A Blessed And Safe WeekEnd;
To God All Glory Is Given;
We Should Always Praise His Holy Name;
Your Brother In Christ;
Respectfully;
William
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RobinTheresa Premium
Thanks for the reassuring article. I have just posted an article today without strong keywords. It is information rich with a lot of help. And relevant to the rest of the Website. I will be checking the analytics in the next couple of weeks. I am writing for a local business and sometimes the information I write is important for the business but has hardly any key words or there is so much competition for the keywords it is hard to rank high. I was really hoping to rank for anything that might bring more traffic.
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boomergp08 Premium
You are welcome Robin. Content will always be the deciding factor when it comes to rankings, but at least you are providing some keywords none the less. If the content is information rich and relevant, rankings should improve on it eventually, especially if you get comment and social engagement on it.
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MikaelM Premium Plus
This is great. Thanks for another great training.

A question about the snippets Google show in the search results:

I was of the impression that the meta description decides the snippet google use in the SERP. But from what I can understand in this training, google can also randomly select words and sentences for the SERP snippets.

Is that correct understood, and if that is the case, when will the meta description then be used over random sentences selected by google?

Thanks,
Mikael
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boomergp08 Premium
Google will only use the meta description you create if it is compelling enough and / or it is a good enough description for the search query.

Google will always substitute your meta description with what it feels is a better description based on what query is typed into search. It is all based on the search query.

Watch the video from Matt Cutts as he describes how Google uses the meta description. The video is at the bottom of the page on my training tutorial at the link below.
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MikaelM Premium Plus
Really appreciate it. That is great to know and explains a few things for me I have been wondering about:-) Think you very much.

Mikael
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boomergp08 Premium
You are welcome Mikael.
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immistermike Premium
@boomergp08 Excellent reference material, Rob, and well-written and easy to understand!

Here's my question: when I look at the query keywords, are those only what Google users have typed in to get my page(s) in their SERP? Reason I ask is I don't see any target keywords that I used for any of my posts. Do you know of a way to find out the keywords Google indexed with?

Mike
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boomergp08 Premium
Thank you Mike.

To answer your question...

Yes, those are the keywords people have used to find your website. As I have said, many times our content will be highly ranking for keywords that are not our target keyword.

That being said, over time as your website gets more exposure, especially if you share on social media regularly, you will start to see some references to your target keywords.
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immistermike Premium
Good to know! I appreciate you getting back to me on that!
Mike
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boomergp08 Premium
No problem Mike. It is always good to ask questions when you are not sure of something.
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