AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT - MAY CONTAIN ERRORS
Introduction to Keywords
Hi, . So today I want to talk about keywords and keywords are one of the things I'm very passionate about. Understanding keywords, understanding what people are actually searching for in your business, around your business, around the topics that you talk about in your business.
And is fantastic. It can help with all areas of your marketing and help you whether you're doing, whether you're concentrating on your SEO or you're using it for social media or YouTube or Pinterest. Understanding keywords and what they are and how you can make the most of them can really help to give you a competitive edge and help you to stand out with the content that you're creating.
Importance of Understanding Keywords
The reason that, understanding keywords is important is because it helps you to align your content with what people are actually searching for. And we can often, when we're in our own business and we're the expert and we understand what we do to the sort of professional level, then it can be quite hard to connect with what our potential customers are actually searching for around what we do.
And I often, when I do keyword research I find that When we look for the terms that they think they should show up for on Google or whichever search engine, we look at them and then we discover that's not what actually people are looking for. And then we look and we can find some nuggets for the things that people are actually searching for that could then potentially provide a lot of traffic to their website if we can optimise it for those particular keywords.
So keywords are essentially, Anything that people type into Google or anywhere where there's a search available. So you can use keywords, you can think of keywords in anywhere that's got the potential to search. So even within, if you're in an online course platform and there's a search function, and you're looking for something, then it's keywords that you are using to look for that.
The same with social media, the same with YouTube. Essentially, all it is, is a term that people are searching for that you then align your content with. And the term keywords can actually be a little bit misleading, could, yeah, it can mislead a bit, because it's, When we talk about keywords, we don't just mean one word.
Majority of time when we're optimizing websites for keywords, we actually mean a key phrase. So that's something that's three or more words and it's more like a sentence really. So a keyword can mean a whole sentence, which is something that once you kind of get your head around that, then it makes it easier to find those terms that aren't quite so competitive to search for.
The reason that we focus on keywords, first and foremost, is it allows us then to create content that actually makes sense for what people are searching for. So rather than just creating content for the sake of it, it means that we can have a structured approach to our websites and to what our pages need to be optimized for to make sure that everything aligns and everything isn't competing against itself, basically.
Types of Keywords: Seed and Long Tail
When we think about keywords, we have two types of keywords. So we have seed keywords, and then we have long tail keywords. Seed keywords are really broad terms that often are just one or two words, and there's usually a lot of people searching for them, so there's a big search volume, but there's also a ton of content out there around them as well.
So in my industry, a seed keyword would be SEO. So I do need to cover SEO on my website, I need to talk about SEO on my website, but I'm not going to be showing up in position one on Google. For SEO, unless it's somebody literally who's next door to me and they're looking for a local SEO consultant, then I may, but realistically, even then, actually, you would still be competing against big companies with lots of authority, lots of content, and those, they're going to show up for those seed keywords.
The, the sort of the reverse of that is long tail keywords. So a long tail keyword is something where, as I say, it's a phrase, so it could be a sentence. It could be up to, you know, it could be a big, long sentence that could still still be a keyword. And that is happening more and more with AI search.
I'm going to talk about that a little bit later. And the AI search is making it that. Keywords and key phrases are actually a lot longer now because we use more conversational um, search terms when we're using things like our smart speakers and the voice assistants on our phones and everything. So for my business, a long tail keyword could potentially be SEO consultant in Bedfordshire.
. There's not going to be as many people searching for that each month, but I would have a lot more chance of actually showing up for that keyword. Because I can create some content specifically around that and there's not as much competition. And that's where actually doing the, doing some keyword research makes a big difference because we can then determine whether people are actually searching for SEO consultant in Bedfordshire, or whether it's something, something related, but actually there's, there's a different term that people are using.
which could be getting more traffic to my website that's where understanding this can, can be massively, massively helpful.
Optimizing Content for Keywords
One of the big things to understand about keywords is for each of the pages of our website, we want to try and determine which keyword or key phrase we're trying to optimize for, because otherwise, if all of your pages talk about all of the same things and you're stuffing whatever keywords you've made a sort of decision.
Okay, these are the keywords my business needs to focus on. If you stuff those into every single page of your website, then the search engines of Google and other search engines don't know which of your pages is the most relevant to that particular topic. So if I talk about SEO consultant in Bedfordshire on every single page of my website and you can mention words on through every page.
But if I don't actually optimize that page, so using that, those keywords, that key phrase in particular areas of one page, Google's not going to know which page of my site is the most important and which page it should deliver in the search results. So you end up with your, your content competing against itself and nothing is seen as that Definitive answer to this question.
And that's how you can then become the best answer to that question.
Foundations of SEO
Show up in the top results in Google and get people clicking through to your website this is all about putting the SEO foundations in place. So we work out which of our pages on our website is the most relevant for that particular keyword, and then we optimize our content around that.
And. I think this is one of the things that often does get neglected on websites where I, like I was talking to somebody yesterday who's had a website since 2018. She's a service provider and she wasn't showing up for, for any of the services that she actually offers. And I think understanding where, what place, places in our pages to put the keywords so that we show up for the basic things.
This is, this is just putting the basics in in place so that that can be working for you in the background. Whilst you're busy off doing all other sorts of marketing. And even if you don't want to go into really deep SEO for your website, this is all about the foundations. You've created this website and you don't need too many tweaks to then make sure that actually you are showing up for the things that you actually do, for the problems that you solve for your clients, whether that's local.
And particularly if you are a local business, that's really important because it's so much easier. There's a lot less competition. than if you're competing against the rest of the world, if you are a sort of global business, and even if you are a global business, you can still optimize for your local area because people are still more likely to buy from local companies.
think it's important not to kind of ignore that part of it really. This is putting the foundations in place, making sure that our site is working for us in the background as much as it can be really. And it's, this doesn't have to be really technical. There's lots of technical things you can do around SEO and keywords, but this doesn't have to be really technical.
This is just about having a bit of a plan in place. for what people are searching for and what pages on our website are the most relevant .
Real-World Examples and Common Mistakes
I have one client who deals with PTSD, , in particular chronic PTSD.
So she helps people who are dealing with real serious trauma. And when she was doing her training, . She'd been told that PTSD was a really competitive term, so that she shouldn't be putting that on her website, or that she wouldn't show up on Google for that.
And that's true. It is. It absolutely is. But what that ended up doing was put a mental, block in place that she then didn't mention PTSD anywhere on her website. So she didn't have even one page or one mention of it, literally didn't put it anywhere, didn't mention PTSD. And it's one of the things that she does the most.
Most of her work was referrals and word of mouth at that point, but she was trying to get to a point where she, she wasn't having to just rely on that. She wanted to get some traffic coming through organically through, through searches on Google. And. It was a bit of a lightbulb moment for her when we actually realized that, hold on a minute, you're not talking about your most popular service, the thing that people absolutely find so valuable that you're working with, the amazing work that she was doing as well, this was really, really valuable work to the world, and the more people she could get out and help with that, the better, but because this, she'd had this like little just a Worm put in her brain of, oh, you can't rank for PTSD.
She hadn't mentioned it anywhere on her website. But actually what we could then do was do some keyword research and understand some of the less competitive phrases around and related to PTSD. So she still needs to cover PTSD as a topic, but we could then find some, some terms that weren't quite so competitive that she could then show up for and optimize her website around that she would then still show up for PTSD.
But then , it would incorporate that within that longer, long tail keyword. And yeah, that was it. That was a real sort of light bulb moment for her. But actually, oh yeah, I need to be talking about the thing that I actually do. And that's quite common. I find that with a lot of people that we kind of think of, we need to create all this creative marketing and all of the things that we kind of think with our, our funnels and our sales pages that we need to make it so complex. And then we often do forget about the basics, the basic terms that people would be typing into Google related to our business that would help people to find us.
And that's what this is all about. This is all about making our website more visible, or wherever we are talking about optimizing for keywords, making us more visible so that people can find us and understand what we do
So.
Getting Started with Keyword Research
I think the thing to before you start getting started and thinking about keyword research. It's really important that you understand. I kind of always say this, that it's really important. Whatever you're doing, whenever you're thinking about starting to do some work on your website, really important to understand what you do, how you make people's lives better, and the kind of language that they're using around that.
I would always say to make sure that you've , you establish your. So you understand what the main sort of three to five areas you should be talking about in your business and that's kind of think of that as like your top level navigation for your website. So those are the main things aside from your home and about page that you would see on your navigation menu.
But if it's maybe it's if it's your services, it could be that you divide it into that. If you're selling products, it could be the categories. It's something that's different for every business and every industry. And I go into this in episode. Nine of the podcast. I talk about establishing your core topics and how you can do that.
I've actually just released a freebie on that this week as well. So I will drop a link below. So it's a free guide that takes you through the process of establishing your core topics. Cause that's not always easy as well. And they may evolve over time. So for my business, SEO, conversion rate optimization and content optimization.
So those are the three areas where I know if I'm creating content, whether it's for my website or for social media or for the podcast, then these are the things that I need to be talking about. And then you get branches within that. So keywords are a branch within SEO that I need to be sort of talking about really.
But if you've got those core topics, it just helps you to focus. So you can do some Top level research on those keywords about those main topics firstly And what that does as well is it helps you to establish authority. So if you understand the different ways that people are searching and the different related topics that people are searching for in relation to that kind of top level, then you can create, a website that makes you an authority on that subject.
So by me creating a blog post, a main piece of cornerstone content around SEO, I can then create other pieces that are more related to things like podcast SEO and keyword research and best tools for SEO and all the different things that I can then create smaller articles of content around. That then all links back to the SEO, they're all linked together as well, where they are related.
And it really helps you to become an authority on that topic. And what that does then is when you do release some new content around that, Google or whatever search engine understands that you're, you are a trusted authority on that, , topic. And also you're, you know, Audience understands that as well.
If you are talking about things and showing how, why, you know what you're talking about and how you can help them, then when you release new content, it helps it to perform better and helps them to, to get more, more visibility in the search rankings as well.
So, a good way to get started, if you don't have any SEO tools or anything where you, you know, particularly can do keyword research, then I would say get started with just typing into Google, go to a Google search page and type in that seed keyword.
I actually take it back a step from that. I would say to begin with, start off by writing down, so literally get a piece of paper or a notepad or a digital notepad or whatever and start writing down, write down your core topics and write down the kind of things you think people could be typing into Google.
that's related to that subject. So get all of those ideas out of your brain firstly and then take one of those. See if you can group them together as well, cause that's always helpful. If you can have groups of keywords, then go to Google, a Google search page and type those in type in each seed keyword and see what comes up, see what comes up in the related searches in the people also ask section, see what kind of content is coming up on the page.
So whether it's a Lots of YouTube videos or if it's lots of service pages, this then tells you the search intent of that particular keyword. And that's something that's really important to think about. I think we, in the past, you SEO is often just focused on volume, search volume. So if there was loads of people looking for it, then they would optimize a page around that.
But now we really need to be thinking about the search intent as well. So we, so Google is so much clever. The, all of these search engines are so much more clever now that they understand what people are actually trying to achieve when they are actually searching for something.
So they, they will know whether people are likely to be looking for a YouTube video. If somebody's searching for yoga routine, are they looking for a YouTube video or they're looking for a yoga teacher near me? And Google knows that they're more likely to be looking for that. be looking for a YouTube video or, uh, you know, something along those lines, basically.
So it's worth thinking about that around the intent and, thinking about the relevance as well. So what you, what content you are trying to optimize your keywords for, is it relevant? And is it Going to be helpful to those people. Thinking about what is somebody's trying to achieve when they're typing that keyword into Google.
If you're thinking about what are people trying to achieve here and how can I create content that is helpful for them for that? And also. , is it going to be better than what's there already on the pages? So if you're typing into Google and you're seeing loads of big brands there, then you potentially need to look for a different keyword to optimize your pages for.
And it's worth sort of noting at this point that when you are thinking about, your website, there will be pages that you create content around. That you are never going to rank for on Google, as I say with me, I'm not going to be showing up in position one for SEO, but I still need to create content around that because then that gives that authority to everything else that I do create around those less competitive terms that then might bring more traffic into my website.
So when you are. doing this when you're getting started, There's a few tools that you can use, which are free and you can, I would definitely suggest getting them set up sooner rather than later.
Using Google Search Console
The big one is Google search console. And the reason I would suggest doing it now is because even if you're thinking I'm not going to do anything about my website and my SEO right now.
If you have it gathering data in the background then when you are ready. to make some progress on this, then your future self will thank you because you've already got some data there you can then, use to work out what people are actually finding you for already.
So Google Search Console is great because it will tell you , what Google understands about your website. So it will tell you the things that you're already showing up for, it will show you the, show you the number of impressions, which is the number of times times you've shown up in a Google search for that particular search term.
It will tell you what the search terms are as well, and it will tell you the number of clicks you've had through to your website. So it will tell you the average position as well that you've shown up for in that particular search, which then allows you to look for low hanging fruit. So if you see that you're getting lots of impressions for a particular search term, and you're showing up in position 20, say, it will also tell you which pages are showing up for that as well, so you can then look at those pages on your website and work out how you can optimise them better to show up in those, in those particular search terms.
terms. So it's, it can be really, really powerful. It also helps you to understand what Google isn't understanding about your website. So if there are search terms that you know, you should be showing up for, and you're not, then it helps you to then think about, okay, what pages on my website talk about this in the right places.
If it's nothing or if it's all of them, then what can I do to streamline that so Google understands this is the best page on my site for this particular search term. It will also tell you if there's anything major that is blocking your site from being shown on Google.
So things like you can look at your site map and you can look at any errors that are on your pages. But even if you don't dive into that, because that can be quite techy. If you have it set up, then you can see those search terms and the number of impressions you're getting from Google for those particular search terms.
Think about your existing content and think about your, once you sort of establish some keywords that you would like to try and rank for. then what what content relates to that and what's the most important thing that relates to that. I would definitely recommend setting up like something like a google sheet.
I have a keyword map and planner that's available on my website which helps you to map out all the pages of your website and work out what particular content Certain keywords you're trying to rank for on those particular pages, which is good to do because it then just helps to keep your focus. So you then end up not having all your content competing against itself.
It also then will allow you to put your page titles and descriptions in there. So that you can work out if they're the right length, which is really important. So I would definitely say having something like that there, just to help you with a plan and have a structure for your site. So it makes it easier for you to understand what's going on, but also then to set it up in a way so that Google understands what's happening with your website.
And then thinking about how your content can link together as well. So the, how those keywords, what are the related keywords and should those related keywords be linked together? be on the same page or should that link out to a different page on your site? And it's one of those things that. We have to think about this as an evolving thing.
Keyword Research Tips
So keyword researchers say it's not just the same as before where we used to just think about search volume and just try and go for the, whichever page, whichever terms have got the biggest search volume. We're thinking about trying to find those opportunities for The search terms where there are a lot of people searching for it, there's not much content out there and we have a chance of standing out.
There's not a lot of high authority pages that are showing up on the first page of Google for that. And one of the things that I was taught when I learned about keyword research is that you can never do too much of it. And I do think this is true. I think it's good for market research.
So even if you're not thinking of SEO, if you're thinking of releasing a new, product or new course or new service. Doing some keyword research before that can help you determine whether there's the demand there and in what direction the demand is as well. So it can help you with writing sales pages.
It can help you with creating social media content and captions and hashtags and things that would then allow you to get in front of the right people with that particular content. So I was always taught that you should do it until your eyes bleed. So, and I feel like that. I felt like that over the last few weeks.
I've been doing a lot of keyword research with clients and you do feel like, okay, have I done enough? And then. you do a bit more and you do a bit more and you do a bit more and you always end up uncovering some more terms that could potentially then be really valuable. But I think getting the basics in place and that again, that that's something where it can end up being too much of a massive job, but just getting the basics in place, understanding some, some important keywords for your business can be really helpful.
And then it's something that you will revisit. So as I say, when you're launching a new product or when you just think, okay, I've got my SEO to a certain point, I've got, I've got a certain amount of traffic coming to my website, right? Where do I need to look? And you, what will happen is you'll start to see in Google search console, you'll start to see Google associating your website with terms that some of them might be relevant.
Some of them might not, but you'll start to see it associating with some related terms as well. And that's where you can then think, okay, I need to go in and do a bit more keyword research around that term because that could be something that potentially could be good to go after.
Conclusion and Future Topics
So in future episodes, I'm going to talk about some of the tools you can use to help with keyword research, some of the tools both free and paid that can make it easier.
And also the key places to use your keywords on your website. But I do have a free SEO checklist which goes into some of this and you can get that from my website. I'll drop the link to that as well below. And I hope that's been really helpful for you. I will be back as I say to talk about keywords in future episodes and I hope you have a great weekend. Bye.
