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(This is a direct transcription please excuse any Typo’s.)
Today I am going to redress the balance search of engine optimization (SEO).
It comes on the back of a recent conversation with one of our GrowthAccelerator clients who deliver their own marketing and we coach them through it, helping them think through the strategies that they can use.
We got into the subject of content and keywords, how keywords are working now and how they work with relation to Google and how it prioritises content.
A potted history of Keywords
Let’s give you a short history lesson about how keywords work.
Many moons ago when I first started my online marketing journey, it was relatively easy to get your web pages and your content to rank. Fundamentally, Google was looking for relatively good content that it could match with the searches and enquiries.
Say I was looking for ‘red cushions’ online, Google would then go out and find all the web pages with the words ‘Red cushions’ in various parts of the web e.g. pages and blog posts.
Today things have moved on. Google is now looking for content that is related to that keyword and also gives the user a better experience and rightly so.
When someone searches on ‘red cushions’, they might want to know about other things so it is very logical that web pages would have other words and phrases within the body of the content that relate to ’Red cushions’.
As we are talking about cushions, it could be words like ‘interior design’. It could be other home related things like; curtains, carpets, rugs and furniture. It could be a whole raft of things that would be logical to include in an article about, red cushions
I’ve used this as an example everyone can relate to; this is how Google now works. When we write content for our clients or when we are coaching or training them we suggest they find their related keywords to the keyword phrase that they are hoping to rank for.
- Career advice
- Dress code
- Questions
- Presentation
- Preparation
- Planning
- CVs
- Competency based questions
Let’s say you were writing an article on ‘interview skills’. All you will need to do is make sure you use those words ‘interview skills’ on various parts of your website. Let’s use blogging as an example. On your blog you will probably use it in your title, you’d use it in the first sentence, and you’d use it 2 or 3 times throughout the article depending on the length of the article.
There was always something known as keyword density and you try to keep your keywords at a density of about 1 to 3%. Now that’s all well and good however, the content was not exactly fantastic because if you can imagine, you’ve got to sandwich in ‘interview skills’ all those times, it doesn’t exactly flow.
As the Google algorithm has developed over the last few years, the thing to do with your ‘blog’ is to theme your content and you will find that Google will rank content that is themed much faster and you stand a much better chance of appearing in the search engines much higher up on page 1 and page 2.
So what am I talking about when I talk about themed content? Imagine if you are writing about ‘interview skills’, you are going to want to use other words and phrases. We think we’d might want to talk about communication. If we were a recruitment company, it might be logical for us to talk about candidates. It would be thoughtful to talk about clients. ‘Interview skills’ might include words like preparation, CV. For our American friends it would be resume. There will be all these different words and phrases that you would want to include in your article.
There is software that can help with this; however, you can do this yourself.
Sit down and brainstorm. If I was writing about ‘interview skills’ or having a conversation about ‘interview skills’ what would be the words and phrases that I would add into that content to make it sound logical.
Here are just a few that Google might be looking for #hintusetheseinyourarticle
- Career advice
- Dress code
- Questions
- Presentation
- Preparation
- Planning
- CVs
- Competency based questions
There is a way of doing this. You can go into Google, type in your keyword or phrase, and have a little look and see what some of the content is like that people have on the first page and second page of Google. You’ll see certain words that will jump out at you.
There’s a technique you can utilise through a plug-in on your web browser and it works really well. It works both on Google Chrome and on Firefox it’s called SEOquake.
Image courtesy of SEOQuake
It’s a free tool, when you use SEOquake you can find out some of the top phrases and what keywords are on some of the top pages. If you do that, I guarantee you will be writing good quality content that Google is going to like and as I’ve talked about before, Cialdini’s principles of influence, then the more consistently you do this, the more content that Google finds on your website, the higher you will get ranked.
We do use a piece of software that does this for us, for our clients so we can get it a little bit more accurate. However, it is easy to do it yourself.
All you need to do is think about it logically and think “If I am writing an article about ‘interview skills’, if I am writing an article on how to write a great job spec, if I am writing an article on talent management, what might be the other words and phrases? If I was having a conversation with my mate down the pub over a glass of wine, what would I saying? What phrases would I be using?”
Implement the suggestion we give you and you will soon be a content keyword ninja!
Show Notes:
30 secs – What today’s topic is all about
1:41 – History lesson about keywords and how they work
1:50 – How things were before
2:10 – Example: Santa Cushions
2:27 – But today…
2:59 – Other keywords related to ‘Santa Cushions’
3:24 – This is how Google now works
3:40 – Example: Interview Skills (the old way)
4:00 – Use it on a title, first sentence , 2 to 3 time in the body..
4:12 – Keyword density
4:19 – The content was not good
4:36 – The thing to do with your content – theme your content
5:00 – What is themed content?
5:32 – What I always suggest
5:50 – What would be the words and phrases that I would add into that content?
6:11 – Google your keyword or phrase
6:30 – Ninja trick: SEOquake
7:10 – Cialdini’s Principles of Influence
7:40 – It’s easy to do it yourself!
8:09 – Wrap up
This podcast was hosted by Denise Oyston. Follow us on Google+
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