Ep 199 // 5 Things to Consider When Doing Keyword Research for Optimum SEO

Summary

Episode Summary: Ep 199 – 5 Things to Consider When Doing Keyword Research for Optimum SEO

Podcast: Simple SEO and Marketing: Business Growth, Organic Marketing, Copywriting, Online Business, Blogging, Content Creation
Host: Faith Hanan, Marketing Strategist, Copywriter, Christian Business Coach, Barrel Racer
Release Date: October 31, 2024

In Episode 199 of Simple SEO and Marketing, Faith Hanan delves deep into the essential elements of keyword research, a foundational component of any successful SEO strategy. Building upon her mini-series on keyword research, this episode outlines five critical factors entrepreneurs should consider to optimize their SEO efforts effectively.

1. Search Volume: Understanding Keyword Popularity

Faith emphasizes the importance of evaluating how often a keyword or phrase is searched, referring to it as the "size of the keyword." She explains:

Faith Hanan [04:30]: "If something is only searched five times a month, right, like it's not worth your time and effort versus something that is searched 500 or 5,000 or 50,000 times a month."

Understanding search volume ensures that your SEO strategy targets keywords that have substantial search activity, aligning your content with what potential customers are actively seeking.

2. Keyword Difficulty: Assessing Competition

The second consideration focuses on the difficulty of ranking for a chosen keyword. Faith advises:

Faith Hanan [15:45]: "How many people are going for that keyword? How difficult it is, is it to rank for that keyword?"

She recommends using SEO tools to gauge keyword difficulty but also encourages leveraging personal insight to evaluate the competitiveness. By analyzing the number and strength of competitors targeting the same keyword, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions about which keywords to pursue.

3. Analyzing Top Competitors: Who's Currently Ranking?

Faith stresses the importance of examining who ranks at the top for your chosen keywords. She states:

Faith Hanan [22:10]: "If all top 10 spots are filled with big brands like Forbes or Harvard, don't try to go for it."

Recognizing whether established brands dominate the search results helps determine the feasibility of ranking for specific keywords. If industry giants are prevalent, it might be more strategic to target less competitive keywords where your business can more easily establish authority.

4. Evaluating Competitors' SEO Street Cred: Backlinks and Social Shares

The fourth factor involves assessing the "SEO street cred" of top-ranking competitors. Faith explains:

Faith Hanan [29:55]: "Do they have a bunch of backlinks? Do they have a bunch of social shares?"

By analyzing competitors' backlink profiles and social engagement, entrepreneurs can gauge the effort required to compete. Tools like Ubersuggest's keyword gap feature can help identify areas where competitors excel, allowing you to tailor your SEO strategies to bridge these gaps.

5. Content Feasibility: Can You Create Authentic Content?

The final and arguably most crucial consideration is whether you can realistically and authentically create content around the selected keyword. Faith advises:

Faith Hanan [37:20]: "Can you realistically and authentically create content around that keyword? If you can, then it makes it onto my list."

Authentic content creation ensures that your business provides genuine value and expertise, fostering trust and authority in your niche. Faith encourages developing comprehensive, high-quality content that showcases your knowledge and meets the search intent of your audience.

Key Insights and Takeaways

• Foundation of SEO: Keyword research is the cornerstone of an effective SEO strategy. Skipping this step can undermine all subsequent SEO efforts.

• Balanced Approach: Combining data-driven insights from SEO tools with personal analysis provides a balanced approach to keyword selection.

• Competitive Analysis: Understanding your competitors' strengths and strategies allows you to position your content more strategically.

• Authenticity Matters: Creating content that reflects your expertise and genuinely serves your audience's needs is essential for long-term SEO success.

Conclusion and Next Steps

Faith wraps up the episode by reiterating the significance of thorough keyword research and encourages listeners to implement the five considerations discussed. She also promotes her upcoming live training session, offering actionable strategies to significantly boost website traffic through effective SEO practices.

Faith Hanan [50:00]: "These are the things that have worked with client after client after student after student. Straight, simple, real, actionable advice for the everyday entrepreneur."

For entrepreneurs seeking to enhance their SEO strategy, incorporating these five considerations into keyword research can lead to substantial improvements in website traffic and lead generation. Faith's practical advice empowers business owners to make informed decisions, optimize their online presence, and ultimately grow their businesses sustainably.

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Notable Quotes:

• Introduction to Keyword Research Importance
  Faith Hanan [09:15]: "Keyword research is the foundation of your great SEO strategy. So if you don't do it right, you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot."

• Assessing Keyword Match with Search Behavior
  Faith Hanan [12:40]: "Don't make Google work harder than it has to or make your people work harder than they have to to find you."

• Evaluating Content Creation Capabilities
  Faith Hanan [37:20]: "If you can honestly bring the heat, bring some value about that keyword and create some content around it, then yeah, I'm probably going to tell you, let's make a plan to go for it."

By following Faith Hanan's expert guidance on keyword research, entrepreneurs can lay a robust foundation for their SEO strategies, driving more organic traffic and generating high-converting leads for their businesses.

Transcript

[Faith Hannon]

All right y'all, are you tired of fiddle farting around with your website traffic and SEO strategy? Well, I have a gift. Just the thing for you. I have a brand new free live training coming all about how to 300x your website traffic in three simple steps. So mark your calendars for Friday November 1st, go to faith hannon.com 300x and save your spot for one of three time slots where you will get to learn live inside the one hour training. You're going to learn the best way to do keyword research for massive traffic growth, expensive tools or a ton of time and experience. You're going to learn the easiest way to set up the back end of your website for SEO success in a day, no coding and no website guru required. And you're going to learn the proven system to building a traffic generating machine in two hours a week or less. All with simple actionable needle moving homework. It only lasts an hour and just implementing one of the homework tips I'm dropping will save you at least 1010 times that our investment over the course of the next quarter. Go to faith hannon.com 300x choose the time slot that works best for you and get your booty in a seat and I will see you live on Friday, November 1st. All right y'all, I am so excited to bring you today's podcast with the five things that I want you to consider when doing keyword research for optimum SEO. So on Monday we talked about how the number one thing that screws up most businesses SEO strategy is to not do the keyword research, right? And then on Tuesday we talked about the most unconventional but highly effective first step to keyword research. And then yesterday we talked about keyword difficulty, explained the easy way. And today I'm going to wrap up this mini series with five things to consider when choosing keywords for optimum SEO. Because as we've discussed, as I've shared with y'all, keyword research is the foundation of your of a great SEO strategy. So if you don't do it right, you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot. Okay, so five things to consider when doing keyword research for optimum SEO. And btw, if you are not signed up for the workshop the live training tomorrow, three different times, three different live trainings offered tomorrow November 1st. If you're not signed up, pause this episode and go sign up right now. Faith hannon.com 300x I will be dropping the three steps that you need to work through to 300x your traffic in a Year y'all. These are the things that have worked with client after client after student after student. Straight, simple, real, actionable advice for the everyday entrepreneur. Okay, now, thing number one I want to talk about to consider when doing keyword research for optimum SEO is this. I want you to consider how often a keyword or keyword phrase is searched. Now, I will often call this the size of the keyword because it will show you in post keyword research tools how often a keyword phrase is searched, and they'll show you that as the first piece of data. Because if something is only searched five times a month, right, like it's not worth your time and effort versus something that is searched 500 or 5,000 or 50,000 times a month, right. You want to be building your SEO strategy around things that are actually searched. Because if people are not typing a search query into Google or DuckDuckGo or whatever the way that you are phrasing it in your strategy, then there's gonna be some misalignment. Now, Google is getting better with semantic keywords, but still, the more right on the money you can be with your keyword that you're going for in comparison to how people are actually typing it and searching it, the better off you're going to be, Y'all. Don't make Google work harder than it has to or make your people work harder than they have to to find you. Okay? So consider how often a keyword, phrase, or keyword is searched. The number two thing is I want you to consider how difficult it is to rank for that keyword. Now, yesterday I did a whole little training on keyword difficulty the easy way. Explain the easy way, right? But how many people are going for that keyword? How difficult it is, is it to rank for that keyword? Okay, how big are the brands that are currently ranking for that keyword? Most SEO tools will give you a difficulty ranking, but as I explained in yesterday's episode, I want you to use your brain as well and do a little bit of spying out on the competition. Okay? Okay. Now, number three, in addition to spying out the competition, I want you to consider who's ranking at the top. Okay? If you're trying to go for a keyword phrase on investing, so to speak, like, we'll use that as an example. And all of the top 10 articles are from websites like Forbes or Harvard or MIT or Bank of America or whatever. These huge businesses, huge brands. If all top 10 spots are filled with big brands like that for the keyword that you're considering Then don't try to go for it. Okay? You're going to have to build a lot of street cred, a lot of domain authority to, to outrank Forbes for a keyword that Forbes should realistically be ranking for. Okay? So I want you to consider who is ranking at the top. Now I don't want this to scare you off if you're like, oh, there's, you know, so and so and so and so, but they're just like big and I'm just little. No, don't have false humility. But also don't think of thyself higher than they ought either. Because if you have a baby brand and you're just starting out, you're not going to outrank, you know, Forbes, and that's okay. But you also, you need to have a plan to get there if that's like really the thing that you want to be found for. But don't just shoot yourself in the foot going for a giant keyword that you're not going to rank for right now. Okay, Realistically evaluate who's ranking at the top. Okay. And kind of spy out their strategy. Like, what are they doing? How many backlinks do they have? Could you do some on page SEO work and some off page SEO work and try to bump yourself up there? You know, in the next six months, look at who's ranking at the top. And number four, I want you to also look at what is their street SEO, street cred. Okay, While you're looking at all of that, I want you to see, okay, do they have a bunch of backlinks? Yes or no? Do they have a bunch of social shares? Yes or no? Okay. What else are they creating content on? Okay, yes or no? And this is actually one of my favorite features of the paid ubersuggest plan is you can look at the keyword gap section and you can look at this keyword like samesies category. It's like the same keyword keyword gap. They don't actually use the word samesies, but they should. Okay. It would make it way more fun and just kind of evaluate like, okay, these giant brands that probably have tens of twenties of thousands of dollars going towards their SEO and content marketing every month. What are they doing? All right, it is okay to spy a little bit when you're looking at doing keyword research for optimum SEO. And the number 5th tip is honestly one of, if not the most important. And it's this, can you realistically and authentically create content around that keyword if you can't that's okay. I don't want you to go for it. But if you can, if you're like man, this keyword phrase, like I could really create some great content about this keyword, then I want you to go ahead and make a plan for that keyword. Maybe you need to create, you know, a jam up blog like I call it, maybe one of your better blogs. Maybe it needs to be like a, you know, 2000, 3000 word blog, depending on what your research shows. But if you can realistically and authentically create content around a keyword, then it makes it onto my list because I want to be creating content that I have something to offer on or my clients have something to offer on. And I want it to be something that we have some E E a T around, some expertise, some experience, some authority and some trustworthiness. Because if you can honestly bring the heat, bring some value about that, about that keyword and create some content around it, then yeah, I'm probably going to tell you, let's make a plan to go for it. Okay, so those are the five things that I want you to consider when you are doing keyword research for optimum SEO. I want you to consider how often a keyword or keyword phrase is searched. How big is it? Number two I want you to look at how difficult is it to rank for that keyword? Okay, keyword difficulty. Most SEO tools tools will give you that. Combine that with the tips I dropped yesterday and number three, who is ranking at the top? Number four, what is their SEO street cred? Can you not come off the top? And number five, can you realistically and authentically create content around that keyword? And if you can, I'm probably going to help you go for it or give to you a plan to go for it. Okay, if you're a client of mine. So those five things take them into your keyword research time and make sure that you are signed up for and attend the live Training tomorrow on 300xing your traffic in three simple steps. Be there or be square. There are three times to suit your schedule and I'm going to be outlining the best way to do keyword research for massive traffic growth without expensive tools or a ton of time and experience. The easiest way to set the back end of your website up for SEO success in a day, no code or website guru required and the proven system to building traffic generating machines in two hours a week or less. So make sure y'all that you are signed up. Faith hannon.com 300x get there and be ready to take notes and learn because I'm excited to teach y'all how to do this for yourself so you can start getting that traffic that you deserve as a business owner. Because if you're not getting it, your competitors are. And I want you to be able to serve your people the way that God has gifted you to do that. And to do that, you need eyeballs and traffic to your website. All right, y'all, we'll chat with you next week. Hopefully I will see you live tomorrow in the training. Bye. Thank you so much for listening in today. Hopefully this episode gave you some really tangible tips for better SEO and marketing to get get more leads and more sales from your website. If it did, can I ask you a quick favor? Would you please share this episode with a friend and then just take 10 seconds and go leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. That is the very best way to help more Jesus loving entrepreneurs scale their businesses so that they can help more people with their gifts and make an even bigger impact for the Kingdom of God. And guess what? We now have a Facebook community where we can learn, hang out and laugh. Go join the Facebook group now it's linked at the show Notes and all the other things, courses, coaching and copywriting can be found at my website, faith hannon.com until next time. God bless and I'll talk to you soon.