{"id":62788,"date":"2019-03-12T20:49:39","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T03:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/?page_id=62788"},"modified":"2023-09-17T16:28:57","modified_gmt":"2023-09-17T23:28:57","slug":"combining-keywords","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/seo\/combining-keywords\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing Keywords for SEO Relevance"},"content":{"rendered":"
SEO Keywords:<\/strong> not all keywords are worth the SEO effort to gain rankings, especially if they are off-target for your content or seldom queried. Your SEO keywords selection process is where you now pick those keywords that are going to give the greatest traffic and where you have a proper balance of very specific multi-word keywords and shorter phases:<\/p>\n So far, in this guide, you’ve brainstormed a long list of potential keywords. These are topics you believe your website is (or will be) about, so those people will be satisfied if they search for them and click through to your site from the search engine results pages (SERPs).<\/p>\n Now what? During this step, you begin to choose the best keywords from your keyword research<\/a> and turn that jumbled list into an organized set.<\/p>\n You’ll learn how to choose keywords and sort them based on perceived importance using one of our free SEO tools. Then, keeping clearly in mind the subjects (or products or services) your website is about, you’ll identify the best main and supporting keywords to establish SEO relevance for those subjects.<\/p>\n Look at the big picture of what your website offers. Is your content a jumble of loosely related items?<\/p>\n Chances are, your site structure can be improved.<\/p>\n First, choose the best keywords that reflect the main content categories, and then use them to organize your site.<\/p>\n For example, this Bruce Clay Inc. website is about “search marketing,” but within that broad topic are categories for “SEO,” “PPC,” “Content” and so on (as shown in the top navigation).<\/p>\n Your content categories communicate what your website is about to both human and search engine visitors.<\/strong><\/p>\n Your site’s current categories may or may not be the best way to organize your site content. A website related to dogs, for instance, could be organized by breed, size, fur type or something else.<\/p>\n Based on your site’s goals and content, do keyword research to see how people search. Also, look at your top-ranked competitors’ site structures to help you decide.<\/p>\n In your keyword spreadsheet (built previously or while following this SEO<\/a> guide), start moving rows up and down to group keywords in topical categories. You can separate categories into different tabs, if that’s easier.<\/p>\n Then begin to sort the keywords in descending order of perceived importance (based on relevance to your site and how often they are searched).<\/p>\n One of our free SEO tools will help you with this in a moment. But first, read on \u2014 there are a few essential concepts you need to know.<\/p>\n Your keyword list likely contains both short and long phrases, and that’s good! Here’s why:<\/p>\n The difference between head and long-tail keywords is easy to understand looking at a graph. The number of searches for each head term is high (shown in blue) compared to each long-tail keyword (shown in green):<\/p>\n In the old days, a webpage that unscrupulously repeated a phrase over and over could actually fool the search engines and rank for that term.<\/p>\n Those days of keyword stuffing are long gone, particularly due to the advent of semantic search.<\/em><\/p>\n Google’s complete revamp of its algorithm known as Hummingbird (launched in 2013) set the standard. Bing and other engines have tried to follow suit.<\/p>\n Semantic search aims to better understand both the searcher’s intent behind the query AND the context and full meaning of web-based content. These are the two sides of the search engine equation. And the goal is to provide searchers with accurate answers.<\/p>\n Keywords are still a foundation for content. But even more important in a semantic search world is having context to support those keywords.<\/p>\n For instance, that dog website won’t be able to rank for “search engine optimization” even if it creates a 2,000-word page all about it. The site as a whole doesn’t support that subject.<\/p>\n Ranking is about more than choosing the right keywords. With the exception of exact matches of unusual long-tail keyword queries, it’s also about which sites<\/em> offer the most thorough, well-supported treatment of a subject.<\/p>\n Q: So how can you build “contextual meaning” to support your keywords?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n A: Choose keywords and expand content around and about them.<\/p>\n On the page you want to rank for a query (and on other linked pages within the site, to some extent), try to answer all questions a person might have on the subject.<\/p>\n Search engines understand things as entities<\/em>, not just as isolated strings of characters (“things not strings”). If you want to be considered an expert, your content must talk about many aspects of that entity.<\/p>\n Writing naturally about your keyword subject generally leads to good variation in your keyword\u200b usage. But covering your semantic bases helps you rank for potentially high-conversion, long-tail keywords.<\/p>\n These activities will help you expand your keyword list and enhance your content. [Bookmark this page!]<\/p>\n Sort the keywords and phrases within each main category in descending order of their perceived importance (i.e., how likely it is that they will be searched and generate traffic). Just go for a rough organization at this point.<\/p>\n One way to determine the importance of a keyword is to view its search volume. As we said in the previous SEO guide lesson on competitive analysis<\/a>, search volume shouldn’t be the only reason to select a keyword. But comparing the relative search activity of different keywords does help you prioritize them.<\/p>\n To get a clearer picture of your keyword statistics, try our free Search Engine Optimization\/KSP tool<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n\n
<\/a>Organize Keywords by Category<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Understand Head vs. Long-Tail Keywords<\/h2>\n
Head Keywords<\/h3>\n
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Long-Tail Keywords<\/h3>\n
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<\/a>Combining Keywords to Expand Your Relevance<\/h2>\n
Semantic Search’s Impact on Keywords<\/h3>\n
How to Create a Semantic Keyword List<\/h3>\n
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<\/a>Sort Your Keywords<\/h2>\n
SEO Tools \u2013 Search Engine Optimization\/KSP Tool<\/h3>\n