How to find the right keywords for your WP website

December 17. 2020

Dealing with a competitive SEO ecosystem can be tough in general. Mostly because optimizing the entire website and making it rank high is hard. To start, you need to find the right keywords for your WP website if you want to achieve a better position in the search results pages. And, that is only a fragment of the entire optimization you need to do. However, it’s one of the essential elements, and SEO optimization could not be complete without it.

Find the right keywords to improve your WP website

There are dozens of plugins and tools you can use, that can help you with SEO. From optimizing images to increase the speed, to analyzing your backlinks to improve the domain authority. They can even provide you with reports and the status of your website for given keywords. And also to give you insight into user behavior. However, plugins and tools can’t choose the proper keyword for you. This is something you have to do yourself. And you can accomplish it by doing keyword research first. But first, you need to understand what keywords are and what to do with them.

What are keywords?

Simply put, keywords are phrases we type in search engines when looking for something. It can be a single word, but in most cases, it’s a combination of several words. If you optimize your content for a particular keyword, you increase the chance that your content will rank high on SERPs. And with that, you will bring your website closer to the audience. Which, in the long-term has many benefits.

In the early days, you could just spam your content with keywords, and you will quickly increase in ranking. But those days are long gone. Today, there are dozens of rules you need to follow before even thinking about achieving rank at all. The thing is, you need to implement keywords in content so they appear natural. Not only to search engines but to users as well.

The most common types of keywords

• Body keywords – the most common type of keywords, usually containing three words.
• Head keywords – highly competitive keywords that consist of one word.
• Long-tail keywords – these are generally more complex phrases of at least four words.

Usually, the best results can be achieved by combining all of them in the content.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the process of selecting the proper keywords for your content. And by proper, it means those with the most chance your targeted audience will type in search engines. However, it’s far from simple. Usually, it’s a complex procedure involving the use of several tools and a considerable amount of time and planning. This is not a coincidence since keywords are an essential part of every SEO. If you have no experience, then you should probably consult professionals. Because, with other elements, these factors can directly affect your ranking and increase visibility, traffic, and sales. Meanwhile, you can learn a lot about your audience while researching keywords. Which additionally helps you make the right picks.

How to start keyword research for your WP website?

First of all, there are three important factors you need to take into consideration when trying to find the right keywords:

• Relevance – Google will consider ranking position only if keywords are relevant to the content. And of course, the content itself has to be resourceful for the readers.
• Authority – unless your website has a high domain authority, you will have a hard time competing with others. Search engines appreciate websites that are authoritative in their niche. Picking the keywords without significant authority backup will not help you rank higher.
• Volume – this is a specific parameter that shows how popular are certain keywords. There is no point in choosing phrases no one ever bothers to search for.

Proceed with planning

Define a clear path about what you want to accomplish. In order to select the right keywords, you need to define your goals and the audience you are targeting. By analyzing your audience, you will have a better understanding of what they might be looking for. Next, try not to stray away from your industry niche. Or, from the niche you want your keywords to compete for. Finally, you will need to write down all the search terms that come to your mind, considering the factors above.

Check related search terms

If you still need more terms for your keyword list, related search terms might help you. This is where Google search can be quite useful. All you need to do is to type in the phrase and see what Google is suggesting. Additionally, you can scroll down to the bottom of the result page for more specific suggestions. If nothing else, these suggestions might give you an idea about how to expand your keyword list.

Use tools to find the right keywords

There are many SEO tools you can use to help you with your keyword research. Some of the most popular and most effective are:

• Google Keyword Planner
• Ahref Keyword Explorer
• SEMrush
• Moz Keyword Explorer
• Long Tail Pro
• KWFinder
• Serpstat

Find the right keywords by checking your competitors

There is no better way to do something right than learning from those who are doing it successfully. Basically, you are looking for competitors in your niche and checking what they are doing. Again, you can use SEO tools to see what SEO strategies are your competitors using. Including checking their keywords. For your WP website, you should focus on page rank. If there are many low ranking pages for a specific keyword, it’s your chance to emerge above them.

The next thing to check is the number of referring domains. Basically, if you can acquire more backlinks from other pages than competitors, you are on the good track. However, you need to also take the Domain Authority into consideration. Websites with high authority are hard to compete with. Finally, check the quality of your competitors’ backlinks. If they are coming from suspicious places, you will eventually beat them with a proper strategy.

Keyword research is an essential part of every SEO campaign. By using the right keywords, you will advance in search engine result pages. However, it can be hard until you get a good grasp on how to find the right keywords for your WP website. The good thing is that you can constantly work on improvements and fix previous errors. But this is also a kind of a bad thing. Mostly because you need to constantly work on it in order to maintain your position. It’s an everlasting process but in the end, it’s worth it.