Is your business website not ranking well in Google?
Two reasons your business website might not be ranking well are problems with your keywords and focusing on producing a high volume of blog content instead of quality.
Keywords are words or phrases people use to find information about a product or service online, so knowing which ones are best suited for your business is essential. The most effective way to identify these keywords is through keyword research, which involves analyzing data from Google AdWords and Google Trends and other sources.
Once you’ve completed this process, you can create a list of the most relevant words and phrases your potential customers are using. The next step is choosing the best keywords from your list of hundreds or thousands and creating content around them. Keywords by themselves are useless, but an engaging blog post that appeals to your customers’ needs and strategically incorporates strong keywords makes all the difference in how often your website pops up in search results.
Before we look at how to find the best keywords, let’s first identify two common problems that cause websites to underperform in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).
If you aren’t familiar with the basics of SEO (search engine optimization), check out this article for an in-depth look at best practices for SEO.
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is the practice of repeatedly including specific words or phrases in your content to gain better rankings. In the early days of search engines, this included extreme examples of people writing keywords over and over on their website and then hiding them from site visitors by making them the same color as the page background. Search engines have become far more sophisticated and are now able to identify these deceptive practices and take action against sites that use them.
Keyword stuffing is black hat SEO, and it will get your site penalized or even banned by Google (especially if you’re an e-commerce site). The problem with keyword stuffing is that search engines are smart enough to know when content contains unnecessary keywords. Instead of improving your site’s ranking, keyword stuffing weakens your website’s authority and makes it less likely to appear in the top SERPs.
The easiest way to spot keyword stuffing is by looking at the density of targeted keywords on a web page. If there is more than one occurrence of a specific word, you’re probably dealing with keyword stuffing.
If you want your site to rank well in Google, you must create targeted content that focuses on providing value to your readers and potential customers.
Churn and Burn Blogging
While keyword stuffing is bad for your website’s search engine rankings, churn and burn blogging can harm your business’ reputation altogether.
Churn and burn blogging is characterized by publishing many posts without creating quality content. Using this method, website owners sometimes publish up to ten blog posts daily, focusing only on publishing new content and not on creating helpful information for their readers.
One reason entrepreneurs do this is that creating mediocre or poor-quality content can be easier than writing well-researched pieces, which take a lot of time to develop. Other bloggers publish lots of content to earn as much money from their websites as possible, even if the information isn’t relevant or useful for users.
The problem with churn and burn blogging is that Google knows when someone is using spammy techniques to try to rank well in its search engine results pages (SERPs). When you publish a lot of content that doesn’t provide value to your readers, Google will penalize you.
The good news is that you can learn how to develop a successful blog that won’t get penalized and won’t have its rankings negatively impacted by Google. The best way to create valuable blog posts is by using keyword research and creating original content around the resulting keywords.
Improving Your Search Engine Ranking
If you want your site to rank well in Google and other search engines, you must create targeted content that focuses on providing value to your readers and potential customers. The best way to create valuable blog posts is by using keyword research and creating original content around the resulting keywords. A simple 3 step process to help your online content rank well in Google is to 1) research keywords, 2) create valuable content and 3) keep at it!
Choosing the Right Keywords
When choosing keywords for your website or blog, there are several sources you can use to determine what people are searching for and which keywords will give you an edge over your competitors.
To get started, check out these three important resources: Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordPlanner) – Google’s Keyword Planner is an entirely free tool that lets you choose up to 1,000 keywords to improve your website’s visibility in search engines. Customize the results based on location and language, and you’ll get the top keyword suggestions for your site or blog and an estimate of how much traffic you can expect to receive for those keywords.
If you’re using Google Analytics, ensure the “Search Console” feature is enabled so that your site’s search engine ranking data will be integrated into your reports. This will make it easier to see which keywords your readers use to find your site and which aren’t working well for you.
Google’s Keyword Planner and Analytics tools will give you an idea of what keywords your audience is searching for. Still, many other sites can help you refine your list further: Google Trends (https://www.google.com/trends) – When it comes to keyword research, nothing is more valuable than Google Trends. It’s a free, comprehensive service that helps you find keywords people search for in the U.S., UK and Canada.
Google Trends gives you an idea of how often people search for specific terms and the geographical locations from which they originate. So if your business focuses on a particular location or industry, you can use the Google Trends data to better understand which keywords will be most valuable for your site.
Google AdWords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) – This tool isn’t free but gives you access to hundreds of keyword ideas you can check as often as you want.
You can use the AdWords Keyword Tool to find long-tail keywords related to your website and get suggestions for which terms you should include on your site. Once you have a list of what people are searching for, it’s time to choose the top ones you’ll write blog posts about.
Churn and Burn vs. Quality Content
Now that you know how to find the best keywords for your site or blog, you need to develop the content around those keywords to be relevant and useful to your readers. When people visit your website because of a specific search term, there should be more than just a few paragraphs and an image waiting for them—they should be able to get the information they’re looking for quickly and easily.
Blogging is a lot like online dating—you’ll attract more visitors to your website or blog when you make sure that something in your profile appeals to most of them. If you post content about whatever comes to mind, then it’s highly unlikely that you’ll attract many people to your site.
Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, find niches and sub-niches that interest you and make sure that you put in the time required to create valuable blog posts to those specific groups of people. By regularly providing them with the information they’re looking for, you’ll build a loyal following that will want to hear more from you.
For example, if you plan on starting a blog for moms, your niche is “parenting,” and your sub-niche is “moms.” You could choose keywords related to parenting, like child development or early childhood education, but the words most valuable to you are those related to your chosen sub-niche.
So if you’re writing about finding the best diaper for newborns, then Mommy’s Favorite Diapers is a better keyword than Best Diapers or Essential Baby Gear – no matter how popular these terms may be. Some of the most successful bloggers and website owners dedicate entire pages or blogs to one keyword.
Suppose you have limited resources to create content or struggle to develop relevant topics. In that case, it can be easy to fall into the “churn and burn” trap, where you try to post as frequently as possible without focusing on quality over quantity.
While more content may attract a few more curious readers, that’s unlikely to result in more sales or signups—and if you’re not building your site to grow your business, then there’s no reason to keep generating content.
Instead, focus on creating as much relevant content as possible and be patient with the progress you see over time. Some of the most successful blogs and content marketing campaigns took years to reach their current level of success, so be prepared to invest a lot of time into your website once you’ve chosen the right keywords.
Keep At It!
Choosing keywords for your website can be a challenging task, but it’s an important one. After all, if you’re not ranking well in Google search results when someone searches for that specific topic, then the chances of them clicking on your site are slim to none. In this article, we’ve discussed how choosing good keywords is just as important as creating quality content around those topics so people will want to visit and share your content with friends and followers.
Although these strategies can take time to produce results, focusing on keywords and quality content will surely improve your ranking in search engine results and generate more traffic!
