Keywords: How To Find The Most Relevant And Previously Unused?
Usually searching for keywords involves a set of standard actions and the use of special tools. Due to strict adherence to the rules, you can overlook dozens of very useful elements in the semantic core. We have covered how to find them in our tips for researching new keywords.
The Importance of Proper Keyword Selection for SEO
Keywords define the topic of content on a page for search engines. In fact, it is with the collection of keywords that SEO begins.
As practice shows, the number of relevant keywords can reach several thousand. Some of them are taken from traditional ways of searching, using tools like SEMrush, and others are using non-standard approaches. They will both be discussed in this article.
How does Google rank sites for keywords?
Top tips for Google research take into account the site architecture, the absence of broken links, the presence of verified external links, and relevant keywords.
Google’s current search algorithms using the Google Knowledge Graph are considered to be as human-centered as possible. Keyword-laden text no longer produces the desired results. The presence of exact search matches is a starting point for users to visit your site organically.
Why Is the Traditional Approach to Keyword Search Not Enough?
Traditional ways of searching for keywords using different tools and viewing frequent searches in the Google search bar do not allow you to cover the volume of words that can bring profitable traffic to your site. For the maximum filling of the semantic core, it is recommended to try alternative approaches without forgetting about the main ones.
3 Tools You Can And Should Use To Find Key Tags
Let’s take a look at the top 3 software solutions that will help build a basic semantic core.
- Google Ads Keyword Planner. This is a free tool that will provide access to the latest data for the last 12 months. Remarkably, all of these words can be used inextricably with your Google Ads campaign. The presence of advanced filters can help you select the keywords that are most successful for a specific advertisement and target audience. Two significant disadvantages of this solution are the inability to find keywords used by competitors, as well as the limitations on the number of results.
- SEMrush is a paid solution that boasts an impressive database of keywords. It has almost 9.5 billion keywords for over 450 million domains. The filter system in SEMrush allows you to search for keywords based on the geographic location of your target audience. The availability of a tool for searching keywords among competitors is also encouraging. Of course, one cannot fail to note the convenience of the UI. As for the shortcomings, some tariff plan options limit users in functionality. The basics of using this tool are outlined in this short video:
Read the related article – SEMrush Review.
Alternative Methods for Finding “Missing” Keyword: 7 Effective Ways
Method 1: find new topics that are interesting for your target audience
Are you sure you covered all the topics that interest your target audience? There are probably gaps in the content of the site that can be filled.
To do this, check for which keywords you find the most competitive sites. In the case of SEMrush, the Keyword Gap tab comes in handy. In the input field, you need to insert the name of the found competitors’ domains.
As a result, you will get a list of relevant keywords you can use to expand the semantic core.
Keep in mind that the data for certain time intervals may not be very demonstrative. It is better to simply analyze those keywords that appeared at the top of the SERP tab.
Method 2: looking for pages with a lot of organic traffic and a small number of backlinks
Although the current Google search algorithm uses backlinks to rank sites in the SERP, they are considered sufficient but not a prerequisite for a page to rank in the top SERPs.
There are web pages with a minimum number of backlinks that still occupy good positions in the search results. In order to find the themes and keywords that made them so popular, you need the Explorer tab in SEMrush.
You need to specify the topic of your site and filter out web resources that have a large number of unique users every month. There are no exact indicators here. For some sites the “large number” is about a thousand users. For others, it is over ten thousand. Browse web resources with a minimum number of backlinks and feel free to choose keys from there.
The keywords you need will be in the “Organic keywords” tab. Note that it is important to choose those sites with a consistent high popularity level over the past 4-6 months.
Method 3: we explore sites with high activity of Internet users (portals, forums, thematic publics in social networks)
This method consists in finding low-frequency keywords. High-frequency keywords rarely determine the quality of textual content. Threads on forums that can be found at the top of search results cannot be considered when finding new keys for the semantic core. As a rule, such branches have thousands of visits per month, and the keys in them are not distinguished by high indicators of complexity.
Instead, you will have to search the forums for relevant topics and evaluate the results obtained in one of the tools in the Explorer tab. Indicate the subdomain, not the site itself. You also need to exclude branded keys from the list by setting the appropriate filters.
As a result, you will get a list of high traffic pages where you can borrow new keys. To find additional features, view advanced reports to find synonyms and context-sensitive keys.
When searching for commercial keywords, the prefix “VS” is especially useful.It helps to conveniently add new product names to the list. They can be considered in new blog articles.
Method 4: Turning to Google Search Console Help
Google Search Console is also a great tool for finding new, unused keywords. You will need to sort the keywords with the most impressions that cover topics that are new to the site.
Semrush
The pages that make it to the top of the SERP determine the most ranked results. Further, they should be focused on non-commercial topics, such as tutorials and life hacks. Those topics are interesting to users in the context of obtaining new information.
This gives you new space for topics for future blog posts, as well as a set of keywords that will give you good SERP rankings.
As an alternative to Google Search Console, you can use one of the above tools if you are confused by the insufficient amount of data. With Google Search Console, you will receive a thousand links to pages. Read related articles – What is Google Search Console, and How is This Tool Used?
Method 5: researching competitors’ sites
You can continue to search for additional keys using the reverse keyword search method, by analyzing competitors’ keywords. This is done using the selected autosearch tool. The three most popular were discussed above. These three approaches can help you in your search.
The first is when you know which sites are competing for you in organic search. In this case, you can analyze them for popularity in order to understand which pages attract the attention of users more than others. You will need to look for keywords.
If you have no idea what sites are competing with yours, you can simply use the tab where competing sites are displayed. Once you have selected your first site and ensured that it is generating a lot of organic traffic, you can start researching it. This approach is most effective when a certain semantic core has already been collected and implemented for the site.
There is also a third way to search for keywords by competitors. Enter a keyword that is typical for your topic in the search engine. After that, select sites from the search results, which is in the first position.
Check in one of the above tools that the selected resource has the proper level of traffic and carry out a search for keywords on it. You can also additionally study the competitors of this site to get even more keyword options.
Method 6: we select commercially profitable “tails” to already existing keywords
When implementing this method, you will need all those keywords that you have already found using the standard search. You need to turn them from high-frequency to low-frequency by adding words such as “best”, “review”, “new items”, etc., and indicating the localization of potential visitors.
To find these keywords, you will have to go through the trivial process of working with Explorer in any of the above tools.
The only drawback of this approach is the large number of steps that must be performed before finding at least a couple of hundred new keywords. Therefore, it is better to use what algorithm of actions here:
- Select one of the competing sites and enter Explorer in the line.
- Open a tab in statistics with the most visited URLs.
- Set filters by specifying the words “best”, “review”, “new items”, etc., separated by commas.
- Open the list that appeared after the search, and select pages with maximum traffic.
Method 7: looking for keywords that are not directly related to what you are promoting
Finally, there is one more tip rank for keywords that will help fill in the semantic core. You just need to find topics that indirectly overlap with interests of your target audience.
Let’s say your site is selling car tires. In theory, the site’s blog is dominated by topics related to reviews of tires from individual manufacturers, with recommendations on how to extend their service life, the importance of regular changes, etc.
You hardly wondered about how to attract with the help of articles those users who are not interested in buying tires, You are looking for informational content on this topic. It may be something related to the history of the type of product, the formation of individual brands, with cases when a regular tire change saved someone’s life in an accident, etc. After you find the most visited pages on cross-cutting topics, using the same Explorer, you will have to extract relevant keywords from them, and compose your own content for the reader.
This method of selecting keywords began to work very well after the emergence of the human-centered algorithm Hummingbird, which ceased to attach such acute importance to the exact occurrence of keywords in the text on the analyzed page. Read the relevant article on the topic – Google Algorithms That Affect SEO.
How to Weed Out Keywords that Will Bring Good Traffic?
Once you’ve used our research tips, you’ll have to filter the keywords that generate the most organic traffic.
Semrush
To do this, you need to learn search concurrency (in the context of the above tools SEMrush). It is this metric that helps you figure out how easily you can achieve page ranking using the selected keyword.
Note that the metric is not the same as the concurrency of searches in Google Keyword Planner. In the case of the Google tool, competitive searches are those that appear in the paid SERP results. It’s important for us to use keywords that will bring organic traffic.
In order to determine the competitiveness of a search, you need to study the search results for keywords and compare them with the number of sites that link to the top pages from the SERP. The more backlinks you see, the more relevant your chosen keyword is.
The relationship between the number of backlinks and the scale of request complexity is not linear. We have already indicated that even one high-quality backlink can sometimes bring a lot of organic traffic. Read the related article – Build High-Quality Backlinks in a Scalable Way in 2020. Therefore, it is better to focus on these two indicators separately, giving preference to keywords that are doing well on both metrics.
We hope that our tips for keyword research helped with the replenishment of the semantic core and will indirectly contribute to an increase in the conversion of your web resource.
Do you have any custom ways of finding keywords of your own? Our readers and we will be very grateful to read your experience in the comments below.
