Digital marketing is a complete world on its own. The countless options and techniques that make part of digital marketing only make one wonder. While many people think that digital marketing is all about advertising on Facebook, they fail to realize that it is much more than that. Ranking your website above others and reaching the right audience at the right time isn’t as easy as they sound. Although many tools exist to aid you with your research, it’s all about strategy. But the most important thing is the hunt for keywords. And the different keywords to target at different stages of your business cycle. For example, a start-up might have to target long-tailed keywords like ‘where to find black shoes.’ On the other hand, a well-established business might get away with using a short-tailed keyword like HughesNet Internet.
Whatever the case may be, this blog is a guide for all aspiring and current digital marketers on how to target different keywords at different stages.
Analyze the Search Volume
If you are a start-up, you should keep one thing in mind. Fame won’t come your way overnight. And you won’t get the desirable ranking that soon either. You will have to put in a lot of effort for that. And adopt a strategy. So, here’s a simple tip that you should follow if you are a beginner:
AIM TO MAP YOUR WEBSITE ON THE WEB
And this won’t come easy. Initially, you may have to target keywords that are ‘low search volume.’ But are relevant to your business, nonetheless. A low search volume keyword is the one that is not searched that often by the users. But it gives you a way to map yourself on the web. Once you have gained all the ‘fame’, you will be ready to play it big. To help you with your initial keyword related research you can resort to Moz Keyword Explorer. It will guide you regarding the number of times a keyword is searched by a user. Apart from this, it will also give you relevant keyword suggestions. Once you put this practice to use, your website will gain the initial ignition that it needs. And after that, you can target the popular keywords as well, depending on how well you can please the Google algorithm.
Volume and Competition
Talking about search volume, it is not as easy as it may sound. There is a lot more to this two-letter word that you can imagine. As mentioned earlier, as a newbie you should target the low search volume keywords. But this term to has varied implications. Apart from the volume of the keyword you are targeting, you need to keep in mind the following:
- Demographics
- Nature of business
- Quality of content
However, the two main metrics that you should keep in mind remain volume and competition. You should also keep in mind that as a newbie you won’t be able to participate in the high competition. You will have to play safe for some time. And that time will last till you garner a considerable amount of organic searches. Once you have reached that level, you will be ready to get out of the safe zone. And step into the zone of high search volume keywords. And the only way by which you can rule out the high searing competition in that zone is by producing high-quality content.
Content is King
The importance of high-quality content cannot be emphasized enough. However, individuals tend to confuse high quality with the use of difficult to comprehend words. A high-quality content has the following traits:
- It is unique.
- It has an original storyline.
- It is SEO optimized.
The last point is very important to consider. Because Google introduces new algorithms every now and then And the content on the websites is ranked based on the ability of it to meet the algorithm requirements. If your content fails to please Google, it will fail to rank on the result search page. Hence, you should come up with unique topics to write on. Google does not like plagiarized or replica content. However, it should also be relevant. Google ranks your content based on the following:
- Quality
- Relevance
Once you fulfill this criterion, you will make it to Google’s good books. And the search engine will rank your website above your competitors’.
Know Thy Enemy
Once you have cleared stage 1 i.e. ranking well on low search volume keywords, you can take a step forward. However, before that, it will be necessary for you to analyze the websites and blogs of your competitors. You will have to closely analyze what is it that your competitors are doing differently. In case, they constantly rank better than you. Because if you are putting in the same effort and your website has a similar interface as your competitor’s, something must be different. And it can be any of the following:
- Your competitor is allocating more budget to social media sharing
- Your competitor is earning a higher rank through referrals
And if your analysis reveals that your competitor is indeed very active on social media, you will have to reevaluate your social media strategy.
However, none of this should worry you. Because there are tools that can help you to analyze your competitors. A very famous among them being Ahrefs. This tool allows you to measure the success of your competitor based on the following:
- Organic keywords
- Backlink profile
- Organic traffic
And once you sort this out, you are ready to roll.
However, you should ignore the importance of access to the efficient Internet. And that too at a reasonable price. I find the HughesNet cost pretty reasonable. But you can have your own preference. The reason that I am mentioning this is that you need to stay in constant touch with the world. And for this to happen, you cannot afford any interruptions. Therefore, as a beginner, allocate some part of your budget to subscribing to a good Internet service provider as well.