How to Boost Organic Traffic by Improving SEO Keyword Research
Some people know what is now defunct traditional SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and there are those who “Think” they know modern SEO (most people don’t), and then there are those who genuinely understand modern SEO techniques to rank your website higher. Learn more about how to boost organic traffic by improving SEO keyword research.
Those who genuinely understand modern SEO will slump in their chair and furrow their brow at the idea of keyword research. The truth is that keyword research is both useless and useful, it is harmless and harmful, and what’s most important is that if it is applied incorrectly, it will make acquiring traffic harder rather than easier.
Boost Your Organic Traffic by Improving SEO Keyword Research
Rather than boring you with the intricate details of modern SEO mechanics and common SEO mistakes, this article will explain what you should do to boost your organic traffic. Take the advice if you wish but understand that the search engines are now smarter than you, so beware of any online advice claiming it can help you leapfrog to the top of search engine results pages. Google’s own spam policies are explicit that attempting to manipulate Search systems into ranking content highly is a policy violation, and sites that do it may rank lower or not appear at all.
Is Boosting Traffic What You Desire?
Getting more organic traffic is easy. You could scrape free funny images from the internet, put ten on each of your pages, publish 100 pages, and then pay for 10 backlinks to each of them, and pay for 200 people to mention them on social media. After a short time, your traffic will be booming, but do you want a bunch of single-use viewers with no investment in what you offer? That route also runs straight into the link spam and scaled content sections of the same Google policy, so the win tends to be short-lived.
Your traffic should have a purpose. Do you want more traffic because you want them to click on your adverts, attract customers online, or is there another purpose? Have you given people a reason to visit you rather than your competitor? Do you offer something that gives people reasons they should visit again? Before you consider how you may boost your traffic, try to nail down what you want to do with this traffic when you get it.
Mobile and Desktop SEO
There used to be a massive difference between mobile SEO and desktop SEO. Then, there was no difference once responsive websites became popular. Nowadays, there are a few mild differences between mobile and desktop SEO that you should know about, and one of them is no longer mild at all. Google uses the mobile version of a site’s content, crawled with the smartphone agent, for indexing and ranking. If a section of your content only exists on the desktop layout, treat it as content Google may never weigh.
However, do not worry too much about it because your Google Search Console and Google Analytics will tell you if you are getting it wrong. The most common mistakes are having text that is too small to read on a phone and having page elements that are too close together for a person with a touch screen to click or tap, which will impact a good ecommerce experience. Google recommends responsive design over dynamic serving or separate mobile URLs because it is the easiest pattern to implement and maintain.
Boosting Traffic – A Low Impact Website
If you have a low-impact website, perhaps because it is new, then you probably want to boost traffic because you are providing good content but nobody is getting to see it. If your website is new, this can be very frustrating. In this case, working to boost your traffic is acceptable, and you can work on targeting and traffic funneling later.
It is important to know how to use keywords in your internet marketing. Take the traditional route of writing a clear meta description, and include a primary keyword in your title, a header, and more than once in your paragraph text. Include at least one picture where you may put your primary keyword in your image’s Alt text.
One piece of the traditional route is dead and worth deleting from your checklist: the meta keywords tag. Google has confirmed that its web search disregards keywords meta tag completely, and it has never walked that back. Filling it in costs you time and hands your competitors a tidy list of every phrase you are chasing. Spend that effort on the title, the headings, and the body copy instead.
Use Word and Phrase Counting
As for your keyword research, there are two things you should be doing to get your website noticed. Put your website text through a word and phrase counter. Look for phrases and words that appear frequently. If your text is written concisely, then your primary keywords should be the phrases that appear most frequently. Use them where a reader will actually see them: the page title, the H1, the subheadings, the opening paragraph, and the image alt text. Do not paste them into a meta keywords tag, because nothing reads it.
Use Competitor Keywords
Secondly, trawl your competitors, looking for similar content they have created, and look at what keywords they are using. Look at what keywords are in their headers and title. If you understand web coding, you can view the page source and see how they have structured their headings, their title tag, and their internal links.
Boosting Traffic – A Poorly Targeted Website
If you are reading this, then you probably already have a healthy website that receives consistent user numbers every month, and you now want to increase your traffic numbers. You probably want to increase them so that you can make more sales or more affiliate money or advert money. If this is the case, then boosting your traffic is not going to help.
What you need to do to stay relevant to your customers online is to better target your potential viewer. Do this, and not only will your website be more effective, but your viewer numbers will climb organically over the coming months and years. Think of your content in terms of Search “Experience” Optimization by getting to know your target audience and offering them something they want.
This is the same test Google asks publishers to apply to themselves. Its guidance on helpful, reliable, people-first content says its automated ranking systems are designed to prioritize information created to benefit people, and not content that is created to manipulate search engine rankings. A page built around a keyword fails that test. A page built around a person’s actual problem passes it.
Just like with the low-impact website example above, there are two routes you can take (take them both) to improve your chances.
Research Target Audience Keywords
The first is to research the keywords that your target customer or audience uses specifically. Put yourself into your target audience’s shoes and ask what they are typing into Google.
Type in a few things yourself and see what suggestions are being offered. Use the data analytics from Google Search Console. Check your Google Analytics and see which of your pages are doing the best business and see which Google searches led people to you. Keyword tools are a weak substitute for this, so also ask your users, ask people in forums, and ask people to run Google searches on their own computers to see what suggestions Google offers them.
Location matters here, and it is the reason this research cannot be done from one chair. If you type a query into Google, it uses your location as one of the factors that affect your results. Run the same query from a different city, or ask someone who lives there to run it, and in most cases you will get a new set of suggestions and results to add to your research.
However, as mentioned earlier, you should also have your friends and family run the same queries on their computers to see if they are getting different results, because Google doesn’t just use location. It also uses whatever other signals it has about the user, and it helps for you to see what other people are seeing when they type in certain search engine queries.
Make Web Pages More Targeted
The second method is a little trickier. You need to forget about keyword research and keywords completely. One of the most effective digital marketing strategies for reaching targeted viewers is to make your web pages more targeted. This often means being more concise, and very often means specializing. Do not be afraid to alienate people and scare people away with your specialization because, to target some, you often need to scare away others.
As your web pages become more specialized, and as they start appealing to a narrower and narrower audience, the search engines start to send more targeted traffic. The search engines react over time to the content on your pages, and they will send different people based on your new narrower and more concise focus. Traffic numbers may drop at first, but if your website manages to retain your new viewers, the search engines will take notice, and over time your viewership will grow no matter how much keyword research you do.
Improve Keyword Research to Boost Organic Traffic
There is no easy answer to boosting your organic traffic. If you run a very small or new website, then even traditional SEO is going to help boost your traffic and help you stand out in ecommerce.
However, if you have an established website, and especially if you have a website that pulls down good traffic numbers, then there is not much that keyword research can do for you. You can break most SEO rules and the search engines may still rank you highly because your website is still popular and still retains its viewers.
On the other hand, it never hurts to figure out what people are typing into the search engines, and how your website addresses those queries. Yet, instead of using such research to decide upon your next keywords, why not use it to decide upon your content plan? Rather than concentrating on your keywords, concentrate on creating the type of content that would address your target audience’s search engine queries.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the meta keywords tag still help my rankings?
No. Google states that its web search disregards the keywords meta tag completely, and that has not changed since it published the position. Put your primary phrase in the title, a heading, the body copy, and the image alt text instead.
Should I optimize for mobile or desktop first?
Mobile. Google indexes and ranks using the mobile version of your content, crawled with the smartphone agent. Anything that only appears on your desktop layout may never be counted.
Is keyword research a waste of time?
It is useful as input to your content plan and close to useless as a ranking tactic on an established site. Use it to learn what people ask, then decide what to write, rather than to decide which phrase to repeat.
Why do my search results look different from my customer’s?
Google uses your location as one of the factors that affect your results, alongside other signals it holds about you. Ask people in the places and segments you actually sell to run the query and report back.
Can I buy backlinks and social mentions to boost organic traffic?
You can, and it may move the numbers briefly, but it is the kind of manipulation Google’s spam policies target. Sites that violate those policies may rank lower or not appear in results at all.
