Stuck on Keyword Research? Do This Instead.

Beyond Keyword Research

If you’ve ever asked for advice about how to optimize your website to get the most clicks, then no doubt the first thing you were told to do was keyword research. That is important! However, it’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole of looking for the perfect keywords, spending precious hours on different activities to discover that fabled “perfect combination.”

We’ve got some news that can spare you a lot of trouble: keyword research is only part of the puzzle. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), or the process of organically growing your site, is a series of best practices that goes far beyond just using the right keywords. 

So if you’re in a rut, follow these pointers that’ll get your articles noticed by search engines – regardless of what keywords you’re using. 

Headings…

Headings…

Headings!

Have you ever read a book with tiny print and paragraphs that seem to cover an entire page without ever pausing for an indent? No matter how good that book was, its poor readability surely made it difficult to stay invested. That’s what we’re trying to avoid with our articles. 

The best way to organize your piece and break up text is with headings. Most word processors give you the tools to create headings (you’ll probably see them listed as H1, H2, etc.). 

Your largest heading size (H1) is where you should put your primary keywords, and your smaller headings are where secondary keywords or subtopics go.

Breaking Up Text: Part 2

Headings aren’t the only way to increase readability and improve your rankings. Another key way to break up text is by adding lists. There are multiple benefits to implementing a list in your piece.

• Lists make your content more readable
• They increase your chance of being featured on a Google snippet
• They improve navigation 
• They help you present specific content that your reader is looking for 

Along with lists, highlighting important points in bold can help improve user experience. This directs readers to what information they should take away from your piece, and it keeps them engaged by catching their eyes in a sea of normal font.

Paragraphs should be kept short and sweet. A sentence or three is usually plenty before you should indent again. This makes it easy on the reader’s eyes and keeps the article clipping along.

To illustrate what a difference these tips can make for your website’s readability, consider an excerpt from another one of our articles below, and see how less inviting it is without using these strategies.

Title and URL 

Along with the H1 and H2 type headings, there is also a Title option. As you can imagine, that is the font for the title of your piece, and you’ll want to create a headline that’s catchy and unique. Too long, and Google might truncate it on the list of options. Too basic, and it’ll get lost. 

Just like you can get caught up doing too many keyword research activities, it’s easy to get stuck trying to create the perfect title. Remember: it isn’t an exact science. Just focus on creating something quick, informative, and engaging — adding numbers or making it a question are two good techniques – and you’ll have a solid title. 

Your primary keywords should appear in your title if possible, preferably near the beginning. This will help Google index it and make sure the audience you want can discover your article. 

Similarly, you should employ your primary keywords when you create the URL for your piece. You also want to keep the URL short, and separate individual words with dashes. If you’re writing multiple pieces, try to avoid repeating the same keywords in your URLs so each piece can have its own niche. 

Links

You might have noticed that many articles you read, this one included, use a lot of blue hyperlinks. This is a deliberate strategy. There are numerous benefits to using links in your article, such as:

• Citing a source
• Directing readers to other helpful articles
• Boosting traffic to different parts of your site
• Breaking up the monotony of the text
• Increasing your own organic ranking on Google

When you’re creating a link, anchor it to 2-6 pertinent words. Having about one link per heading “section,” or about every couple hundred words, is the ideal number. As always, finding the balance is key. Too many links makes the article look spammy but too few and you’ll slide down the search engine rankings.

There are two types of links: external (to another website) and internal (somewhere else on your own website). When you’re publishing your piece, make sure to set either type of link to open in a new tab, so that readers won’t leave your original piece each time they want to learn more. 

External Links

Linking to other websites follows the principle of game theory: when many websites are linking to each other, everyone benefits from increased traffic. Most of your links are going to end up being external. 

When you’re evaluating whether to link to another site, consider if you’d want to be directed there as a reader. Linking to credible sources is always better, and you don’t want to send your readers to a virus hub or somewhere that’ll attack their screen with ads. 

While it’s not always feasible, linking to sites with .edu, .org, or similar domains that take time or money for the sites to get is going to increase your search engine rankings and your piece’s credibility. 

Internal Links

Internal links are extremely useful for showing readers the different types of content your website has or for offering services that you want the reader to use. These links bolster your site as a whole, as well as the individual piece in the search engine index – increasing the SEO ranking for the linked pages. 

You’ll want to be careful about overdoing internal links though. Make sure informing the reader takes precedence over self-promotion. If your content is helpful, then readers will want to see what else your site has to offer. Too many links can cause:

• Readers to struggle to read the page and click off 
• Confusion about which information is relevant
• Link dilution (the SEO value goes down with too many links)

Using Keywords

I know, I know… I said we were escaping the rabbit hole of keyword research activities. But I promise this has nothing to do with research. This is using the keywords themselves in your piece. 

Ultimately, Google can’t know that your keywords are your keywords unless you actually use them. By strategically sprinkling those primary and secondary keywords throughout your piece, you can get your piece on the search engine’s radar and vault up the rankings. 

I did use the word “sprinkling” very deliberately. Like anything else, this can absolutely go too far. Consider this example article about swimming pools.

If anything, it’s your eyes that will start to swim when you see the keyword stuffed that many times into one paragraph. Overusing your keywords will turn off your reader and can even penalize your SEO ranking. 

Images

We live in a visual world where a million things try to pop off the page and grab your attention. Adding colorful images to your piece is one of the best ways to stand out, increase readability, and encourage people to keep scrolling. 

Your picture needs will vary piece to piece, but there are a few rules of thumb to keep in mind. 

• Keep the pictures bright and colorful
• Include people when you can 
• Don’t be afraid to use social media posts 
• Make sure the pictures are a good size for PC and mobile (especially mobile)
• Use original pictures if possible 

Alt Text

Not everybody reading your picture can load the pictures or even see at all. To make sure your article is accessible to everybody, your images will need alternate text. This is what readers will see or hear in place of the picture. 

When you’re creating alt text, be sure to include your primary or second keywords when possible. First and foremost, however, it needs to accurately describe the image – and without being long winded. 

Videos

Embedding Youtube videos, social media clips, or similar pieces of media can greatly enhance your SEO rankings and increase dwell time – or the amount of time a reader stays on your page. Of course, keep in mind that adding a movie’s worth of video can make your page impossible for readers to load. 

The Most Important Tip…

While you should implement the strategies we just listed out whenever possible, there’s only one tip – one law – you must follow. 

Write good content. 

With so much AI generated filler out there, and so many pieces of content produced only for the sake of producing content, you’ll shine like a beacon in the darkness if you put time, thought, and effort into your work. 

Ultimately, readers are going to the web to be informed or entertained. All these SEO best practices are designed to help you make informative, entertaining content that consumers will want to read, but the one indispensable ingredient is that the content needs to be good. 

Follow this tip and put it together with all the best practices we’ve gone over, and you should be able to escape the prison of never-ending keyword research and see amazing organic growth for your website!