If you’re a business owner or someone who uses a website to gain clients, it’s easy to wonder if you’re choosing the right keywords to attract visitors and adequately represent your products and services. Are you performing the correct keyword research for content optimization, paying attention to keyword density in content writing, and learning all you can about where to place headers for SEO visibility?
Fortunately, there are a few tips you can use to perform keyword research with confidence. Read through the following guide to learn more about common mistakes you may encounter when optimizing keywords for content.
Common Mistakes in Keyword Research for Content Optimization
Understanding the details surrounding SEO can feel muddy and unclear as you’re learning the ropes. It helps to focus on a few guidelines rather than trying to tackle the entire topic at once. Here are a few common mistakes to look out for when you begin your keyword research:
1. Not Picking Keywords With Enough Search Volume
At times, the keywords that sound right just don’t work well. Fortunately, there’s a quick way to check on how your keywords are performing. Keyword volume metrics, for example, reflect how many times per month somebody searched for that particular keyword.
It takes some understanding and finesse to pick the perfect keywords, so don’t be discouraged if you find that your keywords aren’t performing as well as you’d like. Learning more about which keywords are working and which aren’t being searched for is a great first step in your research.
2. Not Researching Keywords Often Enough
Once you’ve found keywords that you think will drive traffic to your site, you may be tempted to move on to different tasks. However, keyword research must be performed consistently if you want to outperform your competition — it’s never a one-and-done event if you want to stay relevant in the digital realm.
Because search terms and language evolve quickly, you need to keep up by updating your keywords and keeping a close eye on your content optimization for SEO. For example, if one of your products or services relates to a holiday or local event, updating your service pages with keywords that relate to this topic would help potential customers find your site when they searched for those terms.
3. Not Researching Customer Questions First
What brings people to your website? A very common mistake that both first-time and experienced business owners make is writing or blogging about what they think they should tell their customers rather than focusing on what their customers want to learn. It’s a subtle distinction, but it’s a crucial one.
Focus on what questions your customers are asking — whether it’s finding a local restaurant with vegan options or sourcing a particular product with expedited shipping — and include these terms in your keywords to widen your net. Look at reviews, develop customer personas, and talk to your customers themselves to ask how they found you.
4. Not Focusing on a Wide Variety of Keywords
It seems simple that your keywords should reflect the majority of your customer’s purchases. However, with this strategy, you’re neglecting to include the wide variety of long-tail keywords and keyword phrases that may help bring customers to your website. Using partial keywords, or keyword phrases that are very similar to your keyword, may be a more optimal choice.
Let Us Help You Find the Right Keywords
At Unwired Web Solutions, we understand the importance of optimal keyword placement and the urgency of creating clear, concise marketing copy. Get in touch with us to discuss your project, concerns about your website, or questions about increasing customer engagement with smart, targeted keyword placement. We look forward to helping you solve any issues related to keyword research for content optimization!