Many newcomers in digital marketing operate under the wrong assumption that SEO marketing simply involves putting up a website and producing content. Well, it’s not as simple as that. There are many other factors that need to be considered to create a website that brings in revenues. First and foremost in this endeavor is how to create an effective keyword list for growing website traffic & revenue.

Who is your reader?

Before anything else, you should keep in mind that SEO marketing should be treated like any traditional marketing campaign. Start by formulating a plan. Decide what you aim to achieve with establishing a website. You may either want to increase traffic or improve sales. Whichever of these you prioritize will influence how you choose and optimize keywords. If you’re going for the former, your strategy should be keyword targeting, wherein you target popular keywords in your website in order to lead more people to visit your site. However, if your goal is to increase sales, then your strategy should focus on converting clicks into sales. That means you should focus on long-tail keywords.

A crucial aspect of SEO marketing—of any marketing—is deciding who your target audience is. Different types of audiences tend to type in different keywords in the search bar, so knowing target audience is crucial here. After all, how can you improve your keyword search results if you don’t know who you want to search for you? We’re not necessarily talking about demographics, rather what kind of products or content do your target audience want? For example, are you targeting people looking for cheap bargains or for high quality products? Answers to these questions will tell you how to find keywords for SEO that are high-potential and unique.

How to do keyword research

There are many keyword planner tools you can use to research keywords. You can use Google Adwords, SEM Rush, Keyword Tool, and many others. These tools can help you start your initial research, as well as narrow down your keyword list. They will show you keywords that are related and relevant to your topic, as well as each one’s competition level, search volume, and relevance. The logical thing, of course, is to choose keywords that have high competition, search volume, and relevance. However, experts advise newcomers to start with medium to low competition so they can build website traffic ranks. It’s hard to compete for keyword traffic with established websites.

You can start by conducting an initial research through Google Adwords. Key in a word that is relevant to your topic and Google Adwords will show you the list of keywords that are frequently searched. You can add filters depending on your needs. You can create your own list of the keywords that are most suitable for your website.

You can run a similar search in other applications like SEM Rush and Keyword Tool. These tools can give you more specific keywords, and even some insight into the keywords frequently used by your competition.

How to improve sales

Your initial keyword research will render a lot of results. So, while you have all these applications, you will still need to filter the keywords manually. Try to take into account your goal, strategy, and the tips mentioned earlier in choosing the keywords.

Now, let’s talk about a keyword I mentioned earlier—long-tail keywords. These are keywords that contain 3 words or more. Long-tail keywords tend to be more unique and therefore have low competition and higher chances of converting clicks into sales. This is most important for those who want to increase sales. The reason why long-tail keywords deliver sales is because people with the clear intent of buying typically make use of specific key search that match what they are looking for. If you have exactly what they are looking for, it’s good to come up in their search.

Depending on your goal, you can opt to choose more long-tail keywords (combined with some short ones) or vice versa.

Increase website traffic ranking

Your website’s traffic ranking is affected by many factors within your website. This is called on-page SEO. More than a good keyword list, you need to take into account your entire website. A good keyword list is of no good if you don’t know how to properly utilize it. Your main keywords should appear in various parts of your website such as page titles, meta descriptions, content quality, headings and content formatting, URL, images and other media, and internal and external links. Search engines also consider comments, page loading speed and mobile friendliness of your site. These are things that search engines consider when judging the usefulness and relevance of your content. As you can see, you can’t focus on just one thing—successful keyword marketing is a combination of different techniques.

Optimize content SEO

It goes without saying that the content of your articles should be useful and relevant. An example here is the content at CustomEssayMeister. But keep in mind that SEO takes “relevance” to a different level. Search engines now evaluate content relevancy and topic relevancy. So, websites can no longer rely on keyword targeting along. Rather, for content relevancy, the meanings of the keywords are evaluated against each query. If the meanings of your keywords match the query, your website will be shown in the results. In this case, LSI keywords are useful. LSI keywords are words that are frequently associated with your keywords. Using them along with your keywords would be a great help. On the other hand, topic relevancy is anchored on backlinks. Citing links that are topically relevant to your website boosts your website ranking.

A strong keyword list is the foundation of a great website and SEO marketing. Learning how to create an effective keyword list for growing website traffic and revenue is only the first step—make sure that you execute these tips every time you make a new post. These are guaranteed to keep your readership growing.