Who chooses keywords for positioning?

As we indicated in the introduction to this article, despite the growing strength of the website positioning trend focused on increasing overall visibility, without focusing on specific keywords, positioning on specific phrases, combined with their regular, daily monitoring is still important. That is why the selection of keywords stored in the positioning contract is so important. We know from experience that the results and presence of keywords in the top 10 are one of the bases for assessing customer satisfaction with positioning services, along with increased visibility and website traffic.

Our clients have unique knowledge about what part of the range is crucial for their business, what people interested in their offer ask, what phrases they use, etc. This information is very useful in the context of creating a set of keywords. That is why in-depth customer interview regarding keyword expectations is so important.

A good set of keywords is the result of knowledge of the client and the account manager. The first one is the person who knows his business best, knows what brings him the most money, which is an important and profitable niche worth promoting, which products will soon disappear from the offer and as such are not worth advertising, etc. Paraphrase-Online customer care specialist is a specialist who has an overview through search engine trends, has access to tools dedicated to keyword selection, knows from practice what works in promotion, observes changes in Google search engine (e.g. the issue of local positioning).

Due to this, it is worth cooperating with each other in the selection of keywords – for the common good, it is not worth underestimating the knowledge of both the client and the account manager.

What characterizes a good set of keywords?

Despite the specifics of each positioned website and the uniqueness of the set of keywords matched to the promotion, one can distinguish a pool of common features that characterize well-chosen keywords. We will present them at this point:

A. Matching keywords to the offer visible on the website – this is related to the construction of the Google search engine itself, which in matching pages to the results displayed in the search engine is based on the content of websites. In short: if something does not appear on the website literally (this applies primarily to the content and appropriate meta tags), then Google’s web robots are not able to match such a page to the query – keyword. Therefore, it is not possible to effectively position yourself for phrases absent from the site or “on stock” (unless a sub-page announcing the appearance of a new product or service in the offer is available – such a pre-premiere presentation). For the same reason, it is also not possible to effectively position yourself on competition-related phrases (apart from the ethical overtones of such a situation).

An interesting case related to the selection of phrases is the situation in which some customers searching for a given product or service uses the incorrect term – colloquial, not professional, with a spelling mistake, etc. In the ancient past SEO in the positioning of keyword sets appeared keywords with popular spelling mistakes, but today Google is good at understanding the intentions of the user and correcting spelling mistakes. It looks a little different in the case of synonyms, colloquial names, etc., which are often considered incorrect from an industry point of view, and the customers themselves do not want to have them because of the “unprofessionality” used on their website (although they also want to promote them) efficiently). Their Google robots are not so good at matching terminology yet. In such a situation, a compromise solution is e.g. the use of these colloquial phrases in the texts in the blog part, and not on the product category subpages. The blog entry formula allows for greater freedom and clarification in the entry of the relationship between colloquial and professional naming. This is a compromise, although not perfect solution. However, it allows a meaningful link between the website and the desired keywords.

B. Keyword diversity in length – general, specific and long tails. We have already described the topic of phrases with long tails on our blog. In this post, we also want to present in more detail the trend regarding the length of typed phrases in the search engine. The relationship between shorter and longer phrases definitely indicates the reverse of the “one-word” trend.

C. Matching phrases to business location – this is particularly important for local service businesses. The place names appearing in the keywords must correspond to the real seat of the company (head office, branch, store, stationary point etc. – what has its stationary address). Positioning on a “uncomfortable” town will not be effective. Due to Google’s preferences in matching the displayed results to their location, it is definitely worth placing your stationary address on the website, even if the service is largely provided away or at the company’s clients.

D. Linking phrases with each other – if you decide to position your website on related passwords (forming a kind of family) then you can count on a better effect than in the case of several unrelated terms. It is good to bet even on several groups of terms referring to different elements of the offer than on unrelated passwords. When planning a set of keywords, it is worth consulting a mentor who, based on his experience, will advise on the right set of keywords, supporting the positioning process and properly presenting the offer of the promoted company.

E. Competitiveness of phrases and pace of entry to the top 10 search engine results – it is worth focusing on such a set of keywords that will ensure website visibility at the first stage of the positioning process. For this reason, it’s also good to have less competitive terms in the set, which will quickly enter the top 10 search results and ensure visibility and traffic on the site at an earlier stage of the positioning process. For this reason, it is not worth betting on the very highly competitive phrases, in which we will have to wait for the results, and thus the benefits associated with them.

Selection of keywords – what do people enter in the search engine?

Contrary to popular belief, general passwords are not the most popular and are not the most frequently entered. Research indicates that as much as over 80% of keywords entered in a search engine consists of 2 or more keywords. It should be noted that these more elaborate expressions with long tails are less often described as separate queries (which is a logical consequence of their greater diversity), but in general they constitute the majority of phrases that are typed in the search engine. Therefore, it is important to properly interpret the results for keywords after which potential customers reach the given website. Phrases with long tails will not be at the forefront of such results, but this does not mean that you should give them up.

There is also the question of readiness to buy from a potential customer – the person who enters a more precise password is closer to throwing the product into the basket than the one who searches for approximate general terms.

General or specific keywords?

In this case, a lot may depend on what budget allocated to the positioning service we have. The budget largely determines the planned and feasible actions. That is why it is so important to determine at the outset the amount that can be spent on SEO per month.

It happens that our clients suggest that they find the most general phrases among their keywords, considering that such phrases catch the largest number of their potential customers. General and very varied (unrelated) phrases are best in small quantities, because it will be cheaper – a set of terms such as “windows”, “doors”, “gates”, “drives”, “blinds” – this is the recipe for ineffective positioning .

In the case of a small budget, it is better to bet on varied phrases, among which there will be ones that will bring the effect and visibility faster, and thus more quickly reveal their potential in attracting customers. We write about a small budget because it places the biggest restrictions on positioning and choosing phrases. It is also worth realizing that the concept of “small budget” is relative and something else will be a small amount for a local business from a small town, and something else for an online store. That is why it is sometimes necessary to realize that some amount may be too small to be able to carry out effective positioning activities. In this situation, we inform our potential customers about it, not wanting to expose them to unnecessary and unprofitable expenses. The same way we inform our clients before signing the contract about the fact that a given page is extremely unadapted for positioning and before the SEO specialist starts working with it, it should be looking forward to its new version.