SEO Masterclass : 3 Day (Holiday ) Training. Day 2

Now that you learned how search engines work, and how you can see if your website is crawled and indexed by said search engines, it is now time to understand how and which keywords you should use in your web content. If you missed day one where we covered this, you can read it here.

The key to finding the right keywords to use is  knowing your target audience. Once you understand your audience, you will get to know what they are searching for and how they are searching for your products/services.

As mentioned on day 1 of this masterclass, the aim is to write for humans, rather than search engines. You need to have a balance, for you to satisfy both users (humans) and search engines.

What is Keyword Research?

A keyword is a word or phrase that users enter in search engines to find out what they are looking for. Eg if you were looking to make some extra money in 2022, you might type in " how to make extra money in 2022". Even though the search has more than one word, the whole phrase is still a keyword.

There are 2 types of keywords you should consider in your SEO journey:

Short-tail keywords that are general and contain one or two words. Eg "money"

Long-tail keywords that are more specific and contain more than 2 words, as seen in our example above.

When it comes to SEO, it is recommended to use long tail keywords that are more specific to your industry and audience.

Short tail keywords are popular and have a high search volume, meaning they have more competition and it would be quite hard to rank for.

Here is an example to use for comparison. Let's use a keyword like "payroll"

More specific keywords: affordable payroll software for small business in kenya

General Keyword: Payroll

You'll notice that unless your company is huge, it is difficult to get to the first page of Google using general keywords.

So how do you come up with these keywords? 

First, know your audience and put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself "what do customers search for when they are in need of your service/product?" 

Once you have some ideas, they probably will start off as short tail keywords. You can get more specific keywords by using a keyword research tool.

There are quite a number, both free and paid, but the most popular are:

1. Ahrefs (Paid)

2. Moz (free)

3. Keyword tool

4.KWfinder by Mangools (paid)

5.Google Keyword Planner (Free)

6. SEMRush  (paid with 7 days free trial)

7. Ubersuggest (has free keyword tool)

All these tools will help you come up with the best keywords to use in your content.

Choose keywords based on:

Search Volume. How many people are searching for that keyword? Choose keywords that are relevant to your business. 

Search Intent. This is the "why" behind the search. Let's have an example. Today in the morning I wanted to cook something special for my family. But, I needed to do it within 30 mins because I had a scheduled demo meeting. So, I went to google and typed in "quick breakfast ideas" The first result is okay, but it takes an hour to prepare, which meant I would be late for my meeting. 

The first result did not satisfy user intent ( which was to find a quick recipe)

So I close that web page and look for something else. The second web page I come across is perfect. It gives me a recipe that will take me 20 mins. 

This one satisfies the user intent.

So, if a number of us are looking for "quick breakfast ideas" then the second webpage will get a good ranking. Why? It satisfies the user intent and Google will choose to push this page forward.

Keyword difficulty. Take a look at the keyword difficulty. Most keyword tools rank keyword difficulty on a scale of 0-100. If a keyword has a high keyword difficulty, it means that it will be hard to rank for the keyword.

Where should you use Keywords in your web page?

• Include the keyword in the title tag
• Include the keyword in the URL
• Mention your keyword throughout your page
• Add keyword for alt images

Many keyword tools will give you suggestions of keywords to use and will even go further to show you the top ranking web pages with these keywords. Why is this important?

You will get to know what people are searching for and tailor your content in that direction.

That brings us to the end of day 2. As we prepare for day 3, go do your research for which keywords best suite your organization.