Use queries in SEO rather than just keywords

There is now an increasingly large number of queries (19.45% to be exact), Google shows “rich results” that include the best answer at the top of the results:

As of 2019, don’t expect your website to end up on the first page of Google simply by creating keyword-focused content. Tom Anthony from Moz concludes, “We need to stop looking at keywords and starting looking at queries.”

In short, you must consider what your users are looking for rather than coming up with different ways that users can phrase a search query. Here are two things, in particular, you should consider:

Know your target audience

What kind of content you’ll create will depend on your audience. The better you know them—their location, age, and likes—the better the content you’ll create (and the better your SEO).

For example, suppose your keyword tool shows that “android” has a lot of search volume. People searching for it could fall into several categories:

• Mobile users searching for Android help
• Star Wars fans looking for droids
• Robotics enthusiasts looking for information about androids

Without knowing your target audience, you might end up creating content for all these topics, which would win you neither readers nor good rankings. By building a detailed buyer persona, you’ll be better able to zero in on topics that matter to your readers.

Organize content into themes

Instead of focusing on standalone keywords, organize all your content into different “themes.”

For example, if you run a website about WordPress, you might have three types of readers:

• Casual bloggers who are taking the first steps with using WordPress
• Experienced users who want to learn WordPress tips and tricks
• Entrepreneurs who want to use WordPress to build their businesses

To target each of these types of readers, you can organize your content into different themes that cover multiple topics, such as:

• How to Use WordPress for Business (topics: WordPress marketing plugins, marketing advice, etc.)
• How to Optimize WordPress (topics: WordPress customization, WordPress development, etc.).
• How to Build Your First WordPress Blog (topics: Installing WordPress, essential WordPress plugins, etc.).

This is far more reader-friendly than simply creating content for specific keywords.

Research Keywords – and Use Them Sparingly

At the same time—keywords still matter. Organizing content thematically is very important, but it’s a mistake to ignore keywords entirely, given that they serve as signposts to Google’s spiders, signalling topics and giving hints as to the nature of the content on the website.

Still, the keyword aspect of SEO is becoming increasingly difficult with Google Adwords hiding volume data.

Luckily, there are a number of tricks and tools that can help marketers find topics and volume data. Google itself is a good way to get related search ideas. Just type “sushi restaurants in San Francisco” into the search bar of Google Chrome and you’ll be presented with carousels of related images at the bottom of the page, such as the names of specific restaurants or dishes to order.

This is a strong hint for developers to include these topics in their content or to create pages to leverage these related images.

Researching and analysing keywords in what our SEO company based in Norwich excels in, should you want cost-effective results.

Building on your current content

Writing 2,000+ words for every blog or post is not for everyone; it’s an intensive, time-consuming process. Instead, it’s much easier to take a page from 1,200 words to 2,000 words than to go from 0 words to 2,000 words.

Existing content already has the authority and an established readership. So rather than writing something entirely from scratch, it’s much simpler to find a post of yours that is already doing well on Google, refresh it with updated information and extra content, and rely on existing signals to make it rank for your keyword terms.

Blogging is a great way to write natural organic content, you should make this part of your weekly SEO strategy.

It’s quality, not quantity.

As always, go for quality and not quantity when using search terms in your writing. It’s better to get 10 conversions from 100 visitors than it is to get 10 conversions from 1,000 visitors. Rather than casting a too-wide net, focus on keywords and topics that are within your niche, ones that you can optimize for and be the authority on. Fill in these gaps and establish yourself as an expert in this smaller field before tackling larger and broader keywords where the competition is much fiercer.