SEO KEYWORDS: A NO-BRAINER TO DRIVE QUALITY WEBSITE TRAFFIC

here are many ways a website is valuable to your company, a measurable highly dependent on both the amount and type of web traffic heading to your site. So - how do you make sure the right internet users find you? A key foundational strategy is Search Engine Optimization, or using effective SEO keywords.

Simplified, SEO means using relevant keywords to attract people searching for the information you offer on your website. There are many ways to implement SEO strategies, and we’re going to take a look at a couple of things to consider when getting started.

The approach we are discussing here is commonly referred to as “organic” SEO, in other words free. No paid advertising or other fees are required to use strong keywords and see results.

Before you can implement any SEO strategy, though, you’ll need to have a strong understanding of just what those SEO keywords that your audience will use include.

Tools for determining SEO keywords

Many tools exist to research SEO keywords, some paid and some free. Keep in mind that you can get lost in a sea of SEO keywords; as you explore options keep a track record, and dedicate up to a few hours before making a decision to start. From here, you can test different keywords’ effectiveness and conduct any additional research as necessary.

• Google Keyword Planner: This free tool allows you to discover new keywords related to your business and see estimates of the searches they receive and the cost to target them using Google Adwords.
• Google Trends: This free tool offers a visual to analyze trends in search behavior, as well as compare key terms against each other.
• MOZ keyword research: A free tool to explore common search terms.
• Answerthepublic.com, AlsoAsked.com: Tools that allow you to enter a keyword and learn more about what people are searching for related to the topic.

At Steel Mountain, we are a partner agency of Hubspot, which provides us access to a robust suite of tools that we can use to determine the best approach for implementing a winning SEO strategy for our client accounts.

How to use SEO On your website pages

The pages of your website are all indexed for search engines so that people seeking the terms related to your content will land on your website. There are best practices to implement in order to see higher results from the organic - or unpaid - search traffic that hits your website.

Consider the search terms that will be most helpful to people to your website while deciding which website pages to include. In general, each page will have a focus keyword that is intended to be the main keyword driving search results. This keyword should appear in:

• The website page name and URL
• At the top of the page, in heading font and regular font
• Should always appear naturally in content (search engines are smart enough to understand when a keyword is overused just for the sake of driving traffic)

You can also use secondary keywords organically in the content as possible, yet it will be impossible to use all the keywords that you know will inevitably be searched for in regards to your work. This is where blogging can help.

Why blogging helps with SEO

Blogs are recognized as fresh content on your website which helps you to rank higher on a more consistent basis in search results. Blogs can also be developed around a set of keywords that don’t appear as frequently on the rest of your website in order to add relevancy for that term to your site.

Read our post about effectively writing content for your website, or contact us today to schedule a free consultation about improving your website’s SEO and traffic.

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