What is search engine optimization (SEO)? Have you ever wondered that despite having great content on your website, you do not get enough traffic?  Why does a search engine like Google does not show your site when searched for information which is already present on your website? People visit your site still why you are not getting enough business conversion?

The simple answer to the above questions is that your website needs SEO. SEO helps in increasing the quality and quantity of organic traffic to your site.  We need to understand search engine working and why do we need SEO before we know the SEO process itself.

How does a search engine work?

A search engine is a software that searches your search keywords in all the content which is available on the internet. Search engines evaluate billions of material available on the internet like web pages, images, PDFs, videos, etc. and assess them on many factors in advance by “crawling” and “indexing” process. They also order them based on the relevance to the queries by “ranking” process. In short, these three processes prepare a catalog by discovering the content on the internet. These help search engines to return the most relevant results for someone’s query in a short time.

Understand search engine results pages (SERP):

We also need to understand search engine results pages (SERP). Below are the few features of SERP –

• featured snippets (an organic result that displays an answer inside a box),
• People Also Ask boxes,
• Image carousels, etc.

Few SERP features on Google are organic and can be the right areas for better SEO. These include featured snippets and related questions (a.k.a. “People Also Ask” boxes).

Know what type of content People is searching for?

You need to understand the answer to following to understand questions that people are searching and solution content that you are providing –

• What are the things that people are searching for?
• What are the keywords that people are using for online searches?
• How many people are searching for that keyword?
• What answers are they trying to find or expecting?
• What type of content do they wish to consume?

Why do you need Search Engine Optimization?

You need to understand your website goals mean what you will do when you get more traffic. Also, know your user’s needs. It gives more insight into focusing on the right area for SEO. It would help if you also determined factors (Key Performance Indicators) to measure improvement after SEO on your website. Below are a few examples of KPI of SEO –

• Sales
• Downloads
• Email signups
• Contact form submissions
• Phone calls

You can also define additional KPIs for your Google My Business listings:

• Clicks-to-call
• Clicks-to-website
• Clicks-for-driving-directions

It would be best if you made your goals specific and measurable.

How to do SEO without spending money?

Keyword research (Analyze Keywords):

You might be an expert in your field and can right excellent content, but you should also understand what content people are searching for? It would help if you found the right intersection between your content and what content people are searching for. In your article, you need to include words that are most searched by people. You can use Keyword research tools like “Google word planner” or “UberSuggest.”

You should check below parameters for choosing the right keywords:

• higher volume – Search volumes mean how many times a keyword was part of the search.
• high CPC (Cost per Click)
• SEO difficulty (SD) score under 40

You should always target information and transactional keywords to increase traffic and convert them to business.

Content Optimization:

Add statistics Content: You should add statistics to your content.  “www.statista.com,” “www.ibisworld.com ,” “www.helgilibrary.com” are great websites for it.

Add Visual Content:  You can use visual content to tell your story like charts, videos, graphics, etc. You can use www.canva.com. Use Alt text (alternative text) within images for web accessibility, and it describes “images” to the visually impaired via screen readers.

Avoid Duplicate or Copied content:  Your content should be original and plagiarism free.

Reduce Site Load Time:

It would be best if you worked to make your site faster. You can use a responsive design for your website so that it renders on any device smoothly. You can use Google’s “Lighthouse tool” for measuring the performance of your website. You should compress the images which you use on your website. Use GIF format for Animations and JPEG for images. You can use a PNG format for pictures if you want to preserve image resolution.

Submit Site to Google Search engine using Google search console:

Google search console is the best place to check if a particular page is indexed or not. If not, you can request indexing on it. It also gives you a report of web pages that are having errors and opportunities for optimization.

Build Right Back Links:

When a web page links to another page, it is known as backlinking. When a webpage links to any of your articles or your website’s homepage, it passes “link juice.” This link juice helps with the better ranking of the material and improves your domain authority in search engines. If many backlinks are coming into your website, but if they are from only one domain, then they will be considered as one linked root domain. Backlinking should happen from different and unique domains. It also helps search engine bots to find new web pages from backlinks of existing pages. It helps in fast indexing.

Build your social media network:

It would help if you were actively promoting your content on social networks. More times, your link gets shared; more are the chances of getting it ranked high?

MetaData:

Configure appropriate Meta description and title will help search engines.

Google Analytics:

Enable Google Analytics on your website and check more details about users visiting our website. Some of the features are country, gender, age group, etc. These are helpful to understand the trend and decide basic appropriate word usage on pages.

Conclusion:

In this article, we covered some basics of SEO and briefly covered how to achieve it. SEO is a vast topic, and mastering, it needs some patience and continuous improvement. If the implementation is correct, then it will give you bonus traffic over time. I will cover each of these in more detail in the subsequent articles.

For content and information that remedy is basically to search engine optimization or SEO. Search Engine Optimization is a hot topic for webmasters who want to keep the traffic meter on their website as high as possible and diffuse their content as much as possible. Here we are going to talk about just that important feature of the online world.

What is SEO?

For beginners, it is better to start at the very basics. Now when the question arises that what SEO is, most straightforward answer would be that it is just a complicated process that is used to affect the position or visibility of one’s website in the rankings of the unpaid search engine. What it means is that by using search engine optimization, you can achieve the top spot in the search engine so that when visitors search about something, your website is the first one they see and visit. That will increase the traffic on your website. Now just the definition of SEO will not be that helpful as there remain various questions like how it works? What is good and bad SEO? How much time should be paid on SEO? Etc. However, as a webmaster or business owner, these questions are not very useful now. You only need to focus on how to use SEO to keep your traffic meter high, and we are going to focus on just that.

Why is SEO important?

Now, if the next question that comes to your mind is “is the SEO even important,” then the answer would be it’s not just important, it’s one of the most important factors. Why? Because for a particularly relevant topic or issue, there can be a lot of traffic in the search engine, which can be turned into a business. Not just because the numbers are randomly high but because that traffic is very specific and high intent.

For instance, suppose you are trying to sell something, and you need to advertise it. Would you rather buy a billboard so that it can only attract some people of a particular area or have your advertisement come up every time someone searches about that specific thing? Obviously, the second one sounds more appealing. That is also because those people are not just randomly searching for something, but they are in need of that thing, which makes them potential buyers of you. So SEO is the key to your successful business.

People are always searching for the things they need online. This makes traffic coming to your content directly important to you, and this traffic also allows you to connect with visitors. If you are able to tickle their interests, answer their questions, you will also be able to establish yourself as a trusted partner. That helps a lot in the business in the long run.

It is seen that buyers are always more likely to buy things from a website that is trusted and has a good brand value than some random nameless site. It makes them feel safer about their products and the business deal.

What drives the traffic from the search engines?

Though it is needless to say google is the undisputed king of the search engine market and therefore, most of the traffic is directly linked to Google. However, it may depend on personal preferences, but most people want their businesses or websites to show up in Google.

However, no matter which search engine you are using, the search results are continually changing. Nothing is stable. For instance, Google has started to rank the websites in a very strange manner, which has made it quite risky for webmasters to get their pages in ranks in the simplest or cheapest ways.

Google has very complicated algorithms to decide their ranks. A lot of research is needed to be done to understand them deeply. But the summary is that Google rewards the contents that are high quality and that has a satisfying answer to the questions posed by the audience.

One of the main ways of determining the relevance of your content is by reviewing the keywords. The algorithm automatically goes through the keywords to determine the relevance of the content. The quality, however, is determined by several things. For example, Google can check the number of websites that have used links of your website in their content which can make your chances high.

There are various other factors also that can make your site less search engine optimized. For example, Google looks for additional details to determine the rankings,   as the feedback of the audience who have visited your website. It tracks the number of viewers who stayed and read your content and those who have entered your site and then returned to the search page and click on another link which indicates that your website did not fulfill his or her query. It also sees your loading speed that can determine the user-friendliness and ranking of your website.

That is why starting to understand these changes before they become overwhelming is really important. This is especially important for the webmasters who want to keep the traffic on their websites steady and moving upwards. As 2019 comes near to an end, let’s look at the SEO trends of 2019 to understand better how the website graph moves.

Voice search

This is not a big surprise, though. It is one thing that everybody saw coming because there is so much talk about it in the market. With the growth of mobile internet, people are really moving out of old textbook typing and towards voice search options.

Big players are investing in teaching the machines about how to get instructions from voice commands, which ultimately is leading the path to voice search SEO. It is very much possible that by 2020 more than half of the commands or queries will come from voice search, so the only way to keep that traffic meter high is to get a hold on good voice search SEO.

Understand your audience

In the year 2019, understanding the needs, queries, and interests of the audience has become a big talking point. According to many experts in the Search engine journal, understanding the audience is now more than necessary as the competitions get steeper. The reason being, as time passes, it is becoming eventually obsolete to copy some search words to make an article SEO friendly. Now the search engine demands that the queries and interests of the audience be fulfilled throughout the whole content. So if the entire content can keep the attention of the audience intact, Google will reward you, and the client will invest in you.

Try to see beyond Google search

When it comes to search engines, Google has been the undisrupted king for many years now. At this moment, it is tough to believe that in the near future, there is any possibility of any other search engine giving a fierce competition to Google. But to take you by surprise, many SEO experts seem to believe that Google may start to get real competition from the likes of Amazon and Apple real soon. They may cut into and take a big bite out of the region that was once known as Google’s kingdom. 

Now SEO basically means showing up in any place where people are searching for something. Therefore webmasters need to buckle up and start seeing beyond Google in order to make their contents and eventually websites highlighted.

Good quality content

So this might sound like a cliché, but this is one thing which does not change over the years. This thing is trending for so many years, and 2019 has not been an exception either. The reason for that being the superiority of quality of the content over any trick. So maybe the SEO will bring the audience to your article, but it doesn’t have the capability of keeping them glued to it. The quality of the content will eventually do that. Therefore the whole content needs to be focused on pointed customer needs and interests. In this way, many things, including attracting the audience, making them interested in your content, and keeping your traffic meter can be achieved easily.

Data markup(Structured)

Structure data is the new favorite of the experts when it comes to online content and SEO trends. As far as search engines like Google are concerned, with the growing importance of artificial intelligence, structured data markup is becoming equally, if not more important. According to experts in the near future the more search engines shift towards artificial intelligence, the more structured data markup will help it to track relevance information. No matter how much-optimized content is, if it does not show up first or makes it too hard for the engine to let it out, it will never be able to achieve its full potential as the AI needs fast processing of the contents.

More technical SEO

More technical SEO means more business. Websites are growing very fast to become very complex places, thus making way for technical SEOs to be a success. There are some key areas on which the professional writers can focus. For instance, speed is one of those areas on which the technical side of SEO will be leaned. According to experts, sites have already started investing in their speed as search engines like Google has begun to reward them solely because of their mobility. 

Another area of interest would be javascript because the new year means that the websites will be much more javascript driven. Therefore webmasters now need to get a little bit more familiarized about javascript and how Search engine optimization is made to achieve their full potential with websites that are java script-driven. The final one to think about is PWA. PWA means progressive web apps. In 2019 these were a big talking point. So, to keep up with the running winds, people will have to think about how their websites can become PWAs in the future. Not just the transformation but also the sustainability of that website is also important, like why would your clients want to keep your PWAs on their web screens.

There are so many trends that have been set in 2019, and if you want to make it as a successful webmaster, then you have got to make yourself savvy with these changes. Cheers!

Have you always been interested to understand how your product results are performing in search? Time to enjoy! As Google declared that now you can pierce deeper to know how your product rich results are doing in search. On Nov 20, 2019, Google announced the addition of new filters in Google Search Console that help merchants to see how well their products are performing in products rich results search. According to this Google search console performance report, the merchants will be given stats of product rich results.

Google Search Console is an instrument that helps webmasters realize how the websites are doing on Google’s organic search. Google can network with webmasters to give information about site errors, penalties, and other issues associated with individual websites with a registered Search Console account. Google Search Console has brought in numerous changes supporting webmasters, which we will talk about here in brief.

What are Product Rich Results?

People visit Google for surfing, researching, and getting knowledge of products and brands to decide whether they should buy the item or not. Google Search Console has been assisting webmasters across the world with insightful information concerning the number of impressions, clicks, and other helpful metrics that support them in making crucial changes to the website, for instance, the devices used by the potential uses, geography and the queries.

If your e-commerce site has added Product Rich Snippet schema appropriately, starting today, you can perceive a new search appearance type “Product Results.” An extra-deep dive into this sector will give an entire breakdown of how your products performed on Google search. The data presented on the “Product Results” area of the search console will aid you in appreciating how the rich result features, for instance, the ratings, price, and accessibility of the product, helps in bringing the traffic. Product rich results are information carriers of specific products that help users in making their decision about a purchase.

Besides this, you will also find a comprehensive insight into the type of queries the target viewers used to get to your website. This can be a considerable accumulation to your audience research, as you can evaluate the most recent trends and turmoil in the shopping activities of the users. Below is a quick screenshot of what a product rich result looks like to give you some idea, but you can learn more about this in this developer document.

Speed report in Search Console – 04-10-2019

Google, via its official webmaster central blog, declared that the new Search Console has started showing the Speed report as one of its Enhancement traits. Google has been analyzing the speed report for a while. The preview edition of the same was exhibited during this year’s Google IO conference. The latest search console update is a sign of Google giving more significance to site speed. 

As said by the official announcement, the new Site Speed Enhancement Report will help webmasters to make out site speed issues as and when they arise and come up with proper fixes before the prospective users experience it. Google has made the study easy for webmasters as each page on a website will be provided with a speed result of “Fast,” “Moderate,” and “Slow.” This information is derived from the Chrome Users Experience Report, which is based on the metrics collected from the experience of actual users who use the Chrome browser.

The report is created for individual URLs, which makes it effortless for webmasters to turn up with fixes based on the particular inputs provided by the Search Console Speed Report. If you come across a site with a more significant part of its pages labeled as moderate or slow, it’s seriously advised to confirm the reasons that are causing the delay using the Page Speed Insight tool.

Once the problems that cause the slowdown is fixed, webmasters can ask for the Search Console to confirm the fix and amend the speed score. This provides the webmaster the explanation on whether the fix executed to speed up the page was conquering or not. The Speed Score is allocated to websites based on the total time taken for First Contentful Paint (FCP), which is the time it requires for the browser to turn into the first noticeable component on the page.

Google Search Console Includes New Reports for Video Results – October 08, 2019

Google is apparently making video searches on its platform more unproblematic for people. The search engine giant introduced two new tools to help webmasters realize the performance of their videos in search and recognize opportunities to develop video markups. People come upon videos in Google through these three useful ways:

· The major search result page

· The “videos” option in the search result page

· Recommended content in Google Discover feed

Where Can You Find New Search Console Performance Report?

If you have enlisted your website or it’s eligible for Product rich search results, then you can find these metrics by clicking on ‘Search Appearance’ and later on ‘Product Results.’ Here you can segregate the traffic to look over your product search performance. Here’s the screenshot of how the new Product Search results performance report looks like:

Why should you care?

The more performance data on ‘products result,’ the better for webmasters to understand the impact your products are creating on ‘Product Rich Results’ search query. Also, Google says, it’ll help you find out answers for:

· How much traffic is your website gaining from rich data like description, availability, or price?

· When traffic is dropping for your product, and for what search queries traffic is going down?

But other things go on changing in an endless spiral. Now we need to come across the best ways to stay efficient within the structure formed by Google.

1. Zero-click searches are the new standard 

Thanks to such SERP features like featured snippets, Google’s Local Packs, Knowledge graphs, and so on, over half of all searches are at present “zero-click searches.” That means that the user’s inquiry is answered on the SERP itself, without them having to click away anywhere.

What do we do?

• Don’t fear. Consider what type of searches these are: those are people seeking your address and phone number. Or people in search of an answer to a quick and straightforward question. Those picky clicks perhaps wouldn’t alter anyway, and so shouldn’t be fretted over.
• Discover that keywords can bring you clicks. Using Rank Tracker in combination with your Google Search Console account, you can evaluate what keywords of the ones you’re optimizing for truly get you clicks. That way, you bank yourself a whole lot of time and attempt. Optimize for queries with keywords, for example, “when,” “how many,” “what year,” and so on.

Those are essential for content, yes, but shouldn’t be the central point of your SEO plans.

2. Try your best to optimize for Rich and Featured snippets

In the circumstance where zero-click searches are so frequent, the information shown on the SERP itself is now more significant than ever. Two great ways to be noticeable is to get Rich snippets or Featured snippets.

Rich snippets — those that, besides title and description, show images, stars for reviews, prices for products, etc. — are simpler to get, but they will also bring lower CTR improvements compared to a Featured snippet. Your result will be more visible, though, even if your place in a SERP will remain the same.

Featured snippets — a whole block of information that is shown at the top of a SERP — bring significant increases in CTR. But getting one is quite a bit trickier.

What do we do?

• Getting both of these types of snippets needs most of all, that your data be prearranged. Turn to WebSite Auditor and confirm if the information on your site is already structured.
• If it isn’t, look into this guideline on how to use structured data.
• Apply Rank Tracker to find opportunities for Featured snippets. Do not just research the keywords you’re ranking for. Watch out particularly for keywords for which your competitors already have a Featured snippet.

• Always remember that nothing, counting ranking first, in fact, guarantees you getting Rich or Featured snippets. Simultaneously, the possible gains are worth optimizing for them.

3. Local SEO is changing 

A vast number of the abovementioned zero-click searches are local searches for which the outcomes are demonstrated on the SERP itself, in so-called Local Packs. A single Local Pack might occupy as much space as a full SERP shown to a user for mobile devices.

What do we do?

You can cover a considerable number of searches, generally, those containing keywords, for instance, “near me” or “address” plus “phone number” in one fell swoop, by making a Google My Business page for your company.

But that should only be the start of your efforts. A considerable number of searches will not end on Local packs. People who want to evaluate products, search for more thorough information, etc. will still go on your website, and that’s where the usual SEO practices become vital.

So, having a detailed backlink profile is supreme. Search for what type of backlinks your competitors get, and aim to get those for yourself. A particular feature of local SEO is that you need to have not just any backlinks, but the ones that Google thinks locally authoritative.

And obviously, keep in mind to track your local ranking performance. Remember that the least alteration in location will persuade the type of results that the user will obtain. To search for rankings for keywords down to a street and a house, you should make use of a keyword research tool like Rank Tracker. For more detailed instructions, look into this local SEO guide.

4.  The machines are here to continue

For years now, Google’s been applying learning algorithms to develop its users’ experience with search and avoid keyword-stuffed webpages. In 2020, this will be essential than ever with Google’s latest algorithm, named BERT.

Now, as much as we know, Google uses three mechanisms: first is Neural Matching, which figures out the meaning of the query. Second is RankBrain, which adjusts the SERP’s depending on the collected data about users’ performance. The 3rd, the newly-implemented BERT, is the algorithm that is used for evaluating the structure of a search to appreciate better the framework in which keywords are used.

What should we do?

As much as Neural matching or BERT go, there isn’t much we can do about those algorithms — Neural matching is Google’s inner kitchen, and BERT indeed requires you to write good content.

However, RankBrain really should be accounted for very cautiously. The objective here is not only to rank for whatever keyword. Currently, and more and more in the future, intent matching is vital for creating flourishing content. Because at present, just ranking without matching intent will cut you off from a vast number of SERPs.

To comprehend the accurate search intent, you need to keep your hand on the pulse of what’s ranking at present. Using Rank Tracker software, scrutinize the results to see what content exactly Google considers related to the searches you want to rank for. After appropriately determining the goal behind the search queries you want to rank for, produce the content to go well with your users’ intent in their search.

Let’s look at the perspective from an SEO professional – according to them, they find it hard to communicate the importance and the value of the search-related activities, and making them a priority in the development can be quite tiring.

And what about the point of view of the developer?

For them, SEO can be a hurdle in their way – or, in another way, an annoyance, that stops them from delivering their work on time.

And that is something to be concerned about – today, the web technologies are becoming more advanced by the day, and which means, the SEO is also becoming technically sophisticated. Thus, it’s of utmost importance that SEO professionals should learn to work harmoniously with the development team.

Healing the wounds left by the lousy SEO experiences of the past

Today, SEO is based on the initiatives on how to best meet the searchers’ user intent while providing high-quality content, but even then, the developers will find it hard to trust the SEO professionals.

The days of bulk buying of links and stuffing of keywords have long passed by, but gaining the trust of developers can be difficult because of what developers had previously seen and experienced.

In the words of JP Sherman, who’s a manager of Search and Findability, at Red Hat, gaining the trust of the developers is harder than it seems, if they had been hurt previously by bad SEO experiences. According to him, the SEO professionals shouldn’t make demands to the developers on what needs to be changed and updated from an SEO’s point of view, rather they should talk it with the developers. Let both the groups share and establish their common goals, and put a plan in action, that they both can achieve while overcoming the common frustrations that a website can face.

Involving the developers with SEO

One of the best ways to let developers get engaged and involved in the SEO activities is to host a hackathon.

According to the Head of Search at Delete, Polly Pospelova, organizing a hackathon is one of the best ways to involve the developers and letting them get interested in the SEO practices, just like she had done for their website.

The main goal was to get a perfect score in Lighthouse, which the developers did get, and the good news is that this shared objective laid the foundation for the speed optimization work that P. Pospelova was able to present to many of their agency’s clients.

Engaging yourselves with the developers of the client’s agency

From the point of view of an agency, it’s simply not enough to get a list of SEO recommendations and send it to the developers of the client’s agency. Clear instructions will need to be provided along with the SEO recommendations, or else, there’s a good chance of them getting lost among other things.

In the words of A. Hellemans, who’s a consultant at OnlineMarketThink, SEO professionals should make an effort to embed themselves with the developers of the client’s agency for a long term relationship. They should talk it out with the developers and try to understand them, their challenges and priorities, how they work, and so.

Knowing what to send at the right time

For a fruitful long term relationship with the developers, for SEO professionals, it is quite important to note that they shouldn’t overwhelm the developers with too many considerations at once.

According to the Technical SEO Manager at Zoopla, A. AbuAli, it is beneficial for both SEO professionals and the developers to focus on a few priorities at one time, before moving on to the next one. Doing this will help to maximize the impact of SEO, plus the developers won’t also be overwhelmed with too many tasks at once.

Understanding and emphasizing with the developers

Want to work effectively with the developers as an SEO professional?

Consider understanding and emphasizing with the developers for the technical challenges and frustrations that they face – at least that’s what an E-Commerce consultant L. Carthy says.

According to him, it’s essential to have regular meetings with the developers to emphasize the problems that they face – and doing this will lead to a robust and fruitful long term relationship.

Upgrading the technical skills

If, as SEO professionals, you learn to speak the language and know the challenges of the developers, then you can rest assured that half of your work is done.

It’s one thing to be able to identify the technical issues of a website, such as crawling and indexing. But if you can debug the technical problems of a website, it’s far more valuable, and only then can you offer solutions to various problematic issues.

According to AbuAli, it’s very important for SEO professionals to have technical skills and hone them – this will help in analyzing large datasets as SEO professionals, plus, it will also empower you to have more productive conversations with the developers.

Establishing yourself as an authority

If, as SEO professionals, you want to build trust with the developers, then, in the words of Sherman, you need to host regular presentations or in-person meetings, if possible. Encourage interest and engagement amongst the developers by promoting education on ongoing SEO practices that otherwise won’t keep up with recent SEO developments.

This, on the other hand, will tout you as an expert in your field, thus helping in building a trusty long term relationship with the developers.

Involving good SEO practices from the start

One of the most common frustrations between SEO professionals and developers is that SEO professionals get involved in projects too late. And when they enter the picture, it’s almost a guarantee that the developers will have to make last-minute changes based on SEO practices, of which the developers don’t see any importance.

From the point of view of SEO professionals, if they get involved in a project late, then it is a sure sign that they will have to engage in a war with the developers for the last-minute changes that will impact the performance of a website.

In the words of C. Green, who’s the Head of Marketing Innovation at FootPrint Digital, it is for this reason that the SEO professionals should get involved in the project very early, and that means right from the start.

According to him, the SEO professionals are not exactly the favorite people of many on projects. But this can be avoided if they get involved very early in the project and sharing in common goals with the developers and putting a plan in action, on how to best proceed for the success of the project, while also maintaining a great relationship between the two.

But a recent study showed just the opposite – according to it, more than 60 percent of the people love researching keywords, regardless of their profession.

However, in the words of Alberto Carelyn, a freelance SEO professional, keyword research is actually quite hard and is considered to be one of the top three hard tasks that they have to undertake as an SEO professional. Only a few percents of people will only do and take the task if it’s of utmost importance.

That’s not surprising

According to A. Carelyn, researching keywords can feel quite daunting, and many pitfalls only lead to this outcome. But he’s seen to agree on one thing – yes, keyword research can be quite easy to manage, if only these pitfalls (or rather, mistakes) are avoided.

Lara Cox, also a freelance SEO professional and one of the top talents on the popular freelance platform ‘Upwork,’ too seems to agree with A. Carelyn – both beginner and experienced marketers make the same mistakes when performing keyword research. If they are avoided, then keyword research can be a child’s play.

So, then, where are we doing wrong?

Both A. Carelyn and L. Cox agree on one thing – when making mistakes, almost all of them are the same, and hence, has listed a few of them, which they say, are what we should look out for.

Searcher Intent

‘Searcher Intent’ is one of the biggest mistakes committed in the name of the keyword research. According to Cox, what is the use of ranking a website or even content for a query, if it doesn’t match with what the user will look for?

Many marketers fail to notice this when they are busy driving traffic, and this – according to Carelyn, is where the searcher intent comes in. In short, searcher intent means what the user is looking for when they search online. In the words of Carelyn, the content on a website must be what people will look for and, if possible, ensure that the right content is added to the site for the right traffic.

Long-tail keywords

Don’t ever dismiss long-tail keywords – in the words of Cox, they may have lower volume since they represent the funnel’s lower stage, but this means that a user is quite close to conversion.

According to Carelyn, long-tail keywords should be targeted, as there is very little competition, plus, it means that you are answering an exact query. This will prompt the searchers to trust your brand more as compared to the others and will show you as an expert in that field, and this often comes in handy, when the searchers come back (and they are most likely to do so) and make a purchase.

SERPs

Carelyn advises to look out for SERPs – and this is because he has seen people avoiding them like the plague. According to him, this is because people spend almost all of their time with the tools, and hence, they forget about the keywords and how they rank.

A recent study also showed the same – and they have provided a way on how to best solve this problem. Damien Ekbai, the lead researcher under whose direction the study was undertaken, has mentioned that one should look out for the content type that is ranking for that particular keyword and should model the content based on the keyword for best results.

Talking to real people

In the world of SERP and SEO, it’s quite integral to talk to real people when dealing with keyword research, Cox mentions.

Ekbai too, agrees with Cox – talking with real people, it will give you a chance to know what language they use, and what are the issues that they have and how they overcome them. Plus, you will also get to know about the type of questions that the customers ask and how to best solve them to their satisfaction.

Know where your audience looks

According to Carelyn, an SEO professional should have an idea of where people would go looking for answers to questions that they have.

In his words, you should check out the actual SERP of the content that the users are looking for answers to their questions. Ekbai also recommends keeping an eye out for other platforms such as Reddit, Twitter, and even non-Google platforms.

Focusing on broad topics

In 2013, a study was carried out amongst some of the new websites that were created at that time. Guess what they found out?

There were 120 websites in total on which this study was carried out – and now, after six years in the year 2019, except for 9, all of the other websites fizzled out.

And what was the reason for them getting abandoned?

In the words of Angelica McHugh, the lead researcher who conducted this study, and a professor of Media Communication at UEASD at Germany, mentioned that most of the websites that they have studied, almost all of them didn’t focus their attention on broad topics. Then, the websites failed to generate new content because of a lack of ideas.

According to her, the websites should always include broad topics, and this, in turn, will lead to brainstorming new and unique ideas, and thus, making the site look more natural by helping with the flow of an individual piece.

Ekbai also nods his head to the above study’s conclusion, and he also recommends that the websites should always create their content to include topics that go beyond the usual keywords – this will help in expanding the capabilities of the material.

Being an SEO professional is not that hard; it is the people who make them hard, simply because they fail to notice the points mentioned above. In the words of Angelica, being an SEO professional is only hard because we make it like that. During keyword research, she recommends looking out for the above points, as they are the biggest mistakes that she has seen many do during their keyword research.

And Carelyn seems to agree with Angelica – SEO is only as hard as we make it. Look out for the pitfalls, know how to avoid them, and you will come out as the winner.