Hiring a keyword research service is one of the best things you can do for your SEO strategy. And with over 160 trillion web pages known to Google alone, SEO is more important than ever. But how do you know if you’re using your keyword phrases to their full potential?
Here’s a quick and easy guide to optimizing your site content with keyword phrases. So you can rest assured you’re getting the most out of your SEO service.
What Is a Keyword Research Service?
The practice of figuring out what users type into a search engine when performing a search is called keyword research. It’s one of the most important elements of any SEO service. Any site optimization or SEO campaign starts with needing to know what keyword phrases to try and rank for.
A keyword research service will brainstorm a keyword list, run those keywords through SEO planning tools, and analyze your competition. The end goal is an actionable report handed to you with keywords specific to your industry and business.
From there, it’s up to you to use those keyword phrases in targeted, optimized ways in your posts.
But how do you do that? Here are a few methods to get you started.
Use Keywords in Your Blog Post Title
The post title is one of the first elements on the page and semantically the most important. Including your keyword phrase in your post title is one of the best ways to incorporate it.
Just make sure not to sacrifice your title’s clickability. If readers aren’t motivated to click through to read your whole blog post, it won’t matter how much work you’ve put in.
Also, keep in mind how your URL will format with your chosen title. SEO friendly permalinks are a must. While some businesses, such as 1031Gateway, go the extra mile by including a sitewide keyword in their domain name, even just keeping the path to your post optimized will help boost your rankings.
Use Only One or Two Keyword Phrases
Search engines love concise, targeted content. So it’s important each of your posts only targets a maximum of two keyword phrases at a time. Too many different keyword phrases tend to look like spam, to your readers and search engines alike. Looking like spam is a death knell in terms of SEO.
Instead of trying to blanket target keyword phrases, consider targeting long tail keywords. Any good keyword research service can help you with that.
Use Keywords Throughout Your Post
It’s a good rule of thumb to use your keyword phrase within the first paragraph of your content, and then several times throughout the post itself. Just make sure you’re not sacrificing readability for the sake of your keywords.
Use Keywords in at Least One Subtitle
Breaking up your posts with subtitles is a great way to improve readability. But it also opens up the opportunity for prioritizing your keyword phrase one more time in your HTML markup.
Blog post subtitles are generally h2 tags. This means they’re the most important element after your post title. Search engines will rank them over your content when deciding whether your post is relevant to a user’s needs. So including your keyword phrase in one subtitle is a great way to further optimize your post.
Avoid Keyword Stuffing
More is not more when it comes to keyword phrases. There was a time when keyword stuffing — using the keyword phrase as many times as possible — was the industry standard for on-page SEO. But search engines got savvy to that practice super quickly.
These days, your post can actually be penalized if your keyword phrase appears too many times. It’s important to find the right balance in your number of keywords.
Make the Most of Your Keywords
Knowing your optimal keyword phrases is only half the battle, the rest is targeting them. With these tips and tricks, you’ll be using your keyword phrase, and your keyword research service, to its full potential.
Now that you know the ins and outs of keywords, check out these 10 tips for better content that aligns with your overall SEO strategy.