How To Know Which Keywords You Should Prioritise In SEO?

If you are new to SEO then you have likely heard the term “keyword” being thrown around a lot. This is because targeting the appropriate keywords is crucial to any successful SEO campaign.

But, how do you know which keywords you should prioritize in SEO and which will largely be a waste of time? Read on and let’s find out!

Start by defining your business and marketing goals

The first step is to really think about what your long-term business and marketing goals are. What do you want to get from your SEO efforts? Is there a specific product or service you would like to push?

Put it this way: if you have an eCommerce store and you sell hundreds of different product types, creating content for—and pushing –all of them at once will be a huge job.

However, focusing on a few key products (say, with the highest ROI), could allow you to yield better results in the short-term, thus giving you more available budget to feed back into your SEO for further product and keyword expansion.

Every business is different, so take your time and consider what it is you wish to achieve; that’s the key to measuring your SEO success.

Extensive keyword research

Of course, you can’t just pick some random keywords that sound right to you; next, you’ll need to conduct extensive keyword research. You can do this by:

• Using Google Search Console and other similar software.
• Conducting Competitor research.
• And Customer research.

Knowing what your competitors are targeting and what they are not can provide you with some highly valuable insights. Just as it is incredibly important that you deep dive into your ideal target audience and better understand what makes them tick:

• What are they searching for?
• Why? What is their search intent?
• What problems do they have that you can solve?

Prioritise conversion keywords

Your biggest priority with your keywords should be conversions. You want to focus on high-value keywords that your perfect customers are typing into Google when they are actively searching for the products and services that you offer.

For example, “New York City SEO”, could indicate a relatively warm prospect as the user is likely looking for a local agency they can meet in person for a consultation. Just “SEO” on the other hand would indicate that the user is simply looking for information.

These conversion keywords vary significantly from industry to industry, however, your extensive keyword research can help you identify which are most likely to yield the highest conversion rates for you.

Find the right balance of search volume and keyword difficulty

Remember that certain keywords with incredibly high search volumes will be highly competitive and thus difficult to rank for. As such, you need a balance between high and low search volume keywords, and indeed high and low competition levels.

You need long-tail keywords that have low search volumes with high relevancy and conversions; just as focusing on some short-tail keywords can help build relevancy.

Don’t neglect the awareness stage of your marketing funnel

While conversion keywords should be your top priority, make sure you don’t completely neglect users in the awareness stage of your marketing funnel.

You see, SEO is not just about getting as many sales through your website as possible, but also building a loyal audience that is likely to return to you time and time again.

As such, targeting keywords that attract users who likely aren’t quite ready to buy isn’t a bad idea – especially if you have a high-value lead magnet to capture their email addresses and filter them into an email marketing campaign for further nurturing.

This is why defining your long-term goals is so helpful in the keyword research process. For example, while you likely want to make as much money as possible, you may also want to target certain informational keywords and develop high-value content so that you can enter Google’s featured snippets thus bolstering your brand authority as well.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the first step to keyword prioritization is research. What are your goals? Who are your competitors? What are your ideal customers actively searching for? Following that, you must prioritize conversion keywords, while not neglecting informational keywords to further nurture your audience, provide high-value information, and bolster your brand authority.

We hope you’ve found this article insightful and wish you the best of luck! If you are struggling or have neither the time nor desire to do all this, we highly recommend outsourcing your needs to a reputable SEO agency instead.