To improve SEO, there are three things you need to consider before you choose your keywords
- Keywords Intent
Let’s say you want to write a guide for new university students.
You’d think that using “university guide” as your keywords is a great idea. However, Google results for those keywords show a list of best universities. That means that the users’ intent with these keywords is to find a good university, which isn’t what you’re aiming for.
Instead, use “university tips”. Those keywords will display articles that give tips for first year university students, which matches what you’re writing about.
Make sure your keywords match user’s intent, otherwise it will never rank highly no matter how high your blog quality or number of backlinks you have. - Search volume
The next step is to check out the search volume for the keywords. If you choose keywords that no one searches for, it would be like opening a restaurant on a deserted island.
But generally, the higher the volume, the higher the competition which brings us to the next point. - Keyword competitiveness
When you’re just starting out, you won’t win against websites with high domain authority. And since 99% of Google’s first page gets the traffic, you’ll be better off targeting smaller queries.
It’s suggested to aim for keywords with 200-2,000 searches per month. This way, your article ranking will be higher as you slowly build your website’s domain authority.
Ultimately, the right keywords will have the right intent, search volume about hundreds to low thousands, and other articles using those keywords having similar domain authority to yours.
