Keyword research is a crucial first step when creating content for your website or business. Choosing the right keywords to target can determine whether your content ranks high in search engines, drives qualified traffic to your site, and ultimately converts visitors into customers.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the key factors to consider when conducting keyword research and how to prioritize which terms are worth creating content for over others. Choosing which keywords will drive traffic, leads and revenue can help your efficiency. You won’t write about subjects that are likely a lost cause and won’t drive any traffic.
Keyword research prioritization takes into account three main elements: search volume, difficulty, and relevance. When used together, these metrics allow you to laser focus your content creation on keywords that align with your business goals.
Assessing Existing High-Value Keywords
Before conducting wider keyword research, your first priority should be expanding content depth around existing high-converting terms.
Analyze Google Analytics and sales data to identify previous blog posts, landing pages, and keywords that have demonstrated success at generating leads and revenue. Look for pages ranking well organically with strong CTRs and on-page conversion rates.
These proven winners deserve increased focus and optimization efforts. Create supplementary blog content and internal links centered around those valuable terms. Beef up pages by interlinking related products and offers that visitors have historically engaged with.
Doubling down on established keywords with traction makes the path to increased revenue clearer rather than over-optimizing for unproven long tail keywords. Start with what’s working and scale out adjacent topics. Traffic and conversions from new secondary terms may pale in comparison if your core money pages aren’t fully fleshed out first.
Assessing Search Volume’s Role in Prioritization
The first factor to evaluate is search volume, or how often a keyword is searched on average per month. This indicates how much demand exists for that term and the potential traffic up for grabs.
Tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush provide search volume data and are a good starting point for gauging interest around a topic. Focus initially on uncovering keywords with high search volumes, typically over 1,000 searches per month. The higher the search volume, the more searches you can potentially intercept and drive to your content.
Also explore long tail variations of your target keywords. While search volumes decline as keywords get longer and more specific, they also tend to convert better since they capture users further down the purchase funnel.
For example, “content marketing” receives 22,200 searches a month, whereas long tail version “content marketing strategies for small business” gets a more modest 430 searches. But that long tail traffic likely contains more qualified leads actively exploring content solutions for their company.
Evaluating Keyword Difficulty
After identifying high volume keywords, the next step is assessing difficulty. This estimates how competitive it may be to rank for a given term.
Keyword difficulty is scored on a scale of 0-100. Lower scores indicate easier keywords, while higher scores are more challenging to rank for.
I recommend focusing your efforts on keywords with difficulty scores under 30 initially. This makes it more attainable to start ranking in the top 5-10 organic results without a massive content production or link building effort.
There are a few helpful indicators that factor into a keyword’s difficulty score:
- Domain Authority of Ranking Pages: The higher the DA, the more authoritative sites you need to outperform
- Number of Links Pointing to Ranking Content: More backlinks equals increased difficulty
- Keyword in Title Tags and Content: Exact match keywords in titles and content are tougher to outrank
- By sticking to low competition long tail keywords when first creating content, you make it more feasible to rank quickly and capitalize on existing search volume.
Evaluating Relevance and E-A-T
The third critical element is ensuring your target keywords are highly relevant to your website, offer expertise in the topic, and build authority on the subject matter. This concept of E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) is key to Google’s search quality evaluations.
Conduct an analysis of your existing website content and areas of expertise. Make a list of 2-3 primary topics your brand focuses on and keyword research should align with those themes. Staying laser focused on your niche allows you to demonstrate expertise and rank well over time.
For example, an outdoor clothing company would want to pursue keywords relevant to hiking gear and extreme weather apparel rather than attempting to rank for vague fashion terms better suited to other sites.
You also need to ensure you can create content that offers true value to searchers. Don’t pursue informational keywords if your site primarily sells products with little unique advice to offer. Search engines will perceive a disconnect between keywords and on-page content, leading to lower rankings.
Your Website’s Rankings and Keyword Prioritization
Also examine keyword terms your site currently ranks on the first page or two for but hasn’t quite broken into the top 5 organic results. With minimal additional optimization efforts, you may be able to surpass competitors barely edging you out.
For example, if a blog post ranks #6 for “content marketing strategies”, creating one or two more supporting articles interlinked to that page may help it leapfrog the current #5 spot. Or providing on-page optimization that focuses on that keyword could help. Because you’re already ranking decently, only marginal SEO improvements could drive outsized traffic gains.
Targeting existing middle-of-pack rankings with low difficulty keywords makes further content production and links very actionable. Rather than starting from scratch going after new terms, double down on what’s already working reasonably well. With Google rewarding sites demonstrating E-A-T expertise, best to consolidate authority around core topics first.
Optimizing with PPC Ads
For high value keywords that may be challenging to initially rank for, PPC ads can help bridge the gap in the short term while you build up relevant content and backlinks.
Tools like Google Ads allow you to target keywords that match your products and services and instantly put your site in front of high intent searchers. PPC also enables testing demand for keyword variations.
The key with PPC is monitoring conversion rates and ROI as you scale spend. If certain keywords are driving a high volume of traffic but little revenue, they may not be a fit for your business.
Use PPC to identify your most profitable keywords guiding visitors to purchase. Then double down on creating dedicated landing pages and content optimized specifically around those high converting searches.
Over time, you can potentially wean off advertising spend as your organic presence and rankings improve for your best keywords. But low cost PPC can be maintained indefinitely to attract qualified visitors.
Good Example of Keyword Prioritization for Content Creation
An outdoor apparel e-commerce site originally focused keyword targeting and content creation efforts around broad terms like “hiking clothes” to attract more search volume. However, keyword data showed more long-tail specifics like “lightweight hiking pants for women” converted visitors at a much higher rate.
They adjusted their priority to rank for these precise product keywords before attempting to compete with larger online retailers for more general outdoor terms. Traffic was lower but more targeted, leading to a better ROI.
Bad Example of Keyword Prioritization for Content Creation
A financial planning blogger originally created content around industry thought leadership terms like “financial advisor marketing ideas” and “investment strategy examples”. However, his site lacked credentials and was outranked by authoritative finance sites.
He would have been better served targeting less competitive keywords clearly matched to his niche like “financial blogging tips” and “solo financial advisor startups”. Attempting to rank for high-level keywords far too difficult for a new site wasted resources.
Prioritizing your Money Terms
Conducting thorough keyword research and prioritizing based on volume, difficulty, and relevance sets your content marketing efforts up for success. Rather than playing catch up trying to rank for highly competitive keywords, smart prioritization allows you to incrementally improve search visibility by targeting less crowded long tail versions ideal for your brand. Compelling content matched to user intent will win in the long run.
Supplementing your organic efforts with PPC in the short term also enables you to capitalize on valuable search demand. Use ads to identify your site’s most profitable keywords and build content around those money terms over time.
What keywords will you make a priority this year?