So far I have shown you that it is very much possible to rank highly on Google for keywords that are not your target keyword and are just other words that reside in your content in various areas. Now I will give you a couple more examples plus one where a comment helped with the search result.

I DID NOT USE THESE KEYWORDS

In the above image you see 3 keywords, “Matt Lloyd Scam, My Online Business and ACN Donald Trump.” With the exception of the middle keyword I never used the keywords “Matt Lloyd Scam” or “ACN Donald Trump” in either of their respective reviews.

Though I did use the name “Matt Lloyd” and the word “Scam” within a couple of related reviews, I never used those words together, yet I am ranked on Google page 1. The same goes for the letters “ACN” and the name “Donald Trump” but as shown in the below image I am ranked on page 1 in position 5.

If you were to type my target keyword “Is ACN a Scam” I am ranked in the number 2 spot on page 1 but for the keyword I did not even use I am ranked in the number 5 spot. This is more proof that Google ranks you not always on your target keyword but mainly on the entire context of your content.

YOUR COMMENTS CAN EVEN HELP WITH RANKINGS

There are a few instances on my website where I received high Google rankings for a keyword or popular name found within the comments and replies of my website content. This is yet another reason why getting a lot of comment interaction on your content can help your Google rankings. Google also indexes your comments.

In the above image I am being ranked on Google page 1 for the keyword “Legitimate Affiliate Marketing Jobs” even though I am not using that entire keyword anywhere within my content for the related post. I am using the words “Affiliate Marketing” several times within the content and the word “Job” twice but the word “Legitimate” is not used at all.

So where did Google find this word in my content? In the image above in the description snippet of the search result “Legitimate” can be found in the following text. “…check out my website to make sure I am legitimate and not some scam website,…” however this text does not appear anywhere in my content.

I searched all of the comments and found this statement in a reply to someone within the comments thread. In this case Google found the word “Legitimate” within the comments and included it within the search results snippet for this keyword I never used. They also could have pulled it from my domain name.

NEXT UP = What to do if you cannot find a target keyword



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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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