Finding the right keywords should be one of your main strategies to getting traffic to your website.
The right keywords will…
- bring you targeted traffic
- bring you leads that you can convert into sales or readers
- get links to your site from other blogs and websites
- bring you extra traffic through variations of your keywords
Tools for keyword research
Keyword research works best when you use a variety of tools. For most keyword research, I like to use 2-3 different sources and then I also scout out competing websites.
Free tools
Google Adwords Keyword tool – This isn’t just for adwords campaigns. If you type in a keyword you are interested in Google will tell you a bunch of variant of it and their approximate searches per month. For the non tech savvy, this is probably the best tool to use.
Google Search based tool – The Google search based tool shows you keywords based on your current website. I haven’t really used it much this way, but I like to go to the specific categories and check out what they have listed for top keywords. Here’s the fitness category…
Google Insights – Insights is a pretty cool tool, it shows you trends for what countries are searching for the keywords you’re using. It also shows you related searches, like this one for how to lose weight….
SEMRush.com – SEM Rush is my new favorite tool. You can type in competitor’s sites or keywords and they’ll bring up a list for you. I really like how they show you how much of a site’s traffic is due to a certain keyword. Here’s one I did for Mike Mahler’s site…
Other resources
Competing sites – Check out the competing sites in your niche by going to Google and typing in keywords you are interested in. When a site comes up check out the keywords they are using on each page by looking at the title tags of the browser.
Keyword logs – If your site is getting lots of searches for a certain keyword, you should probably add those keywords into your article for that page. Sometimes you are trying to rank for one word and you end up ranking for a better term. In this case, add that new keyword to your title tags, H1 and throughout the page.
Paid resources
SEOintelligence – One of the guy’s in my mastermind group runs this site and it’s freakin sick. They have keyword tools, link tools, page scans… everything really. It’s like $39 a month (well worth it). If you head there they have a FREE 2 week trial, so give it a whirl Im sure you’ll like it.
How to use keywords
So once you find some keywords that work for you, you need to find high volume keywords that match your website. Don’t try to rank for weight loss pills if your target audience believes weight loss pills are a scam. This will kill your readers trust in your brand.
I like to try to rank my home page for 1-2 big keywords, and then have 4-5 pages that rank for high volume keywords as well.
Where to put keywords on your site
You should put your keywords in your title tags (thats at the top of your browser)
You should also put them (or a variation of them) in your H1 tags (title of your post in Wordpress)
You should put variants of your keywords in your H2 tags throughout your page
Keywords should also be in your article or copy.
Questions or Comments?
Did I explain this well enough? Hopefully…. Leave me a comment and share your favorite sources for researching keywords or any questions you might have…
-Justin
{ 6 comments }
Nice post bruddha
Nothing like ranking for TONS of highly targeted money phrases in your niche
Great post Justin. I hope your doin well man. I will be posting your interview in a few days on my site. Been slammed with training and studio stuff this month. Barely able to get a blog post a week. Keep up the good work man. I really appreciate your transparency. Gym Junkies is quality stuff as well
Hey Justin,
Good information here. I have a dumb question,though. You define in your post what an H1 tag is. What’s an H2 tag?
becky
Justin, how’ve you been man. Yeah I have a couple more questions on this topic as I’m starting to get more interested in this internet marketing stuff.
How important is it to have keywords in your actual URL – For example, if I was opening personal training company and wanted a main website, should I just name it the name of the company, or should I try a variation of “X area Personal training”?
Also, how do you weed down the keywords and actually make an an informed decision on which two MAIN phrases you focus on, and then the other five like you mentioned in the blog post?
@ Becky – An H2 tag would be the sub heads in your article. Your article should kind of flow like an outline. Try to have 2-3 H2 tags in your article….
Heres an example – http://www.gymjunkies.com/build-muscle/
The large red fonts in the article are H2 tags. You can make H2 tags in wordpress easily in the editor part when you are writing an article. Its in the dropdown part on the left.
@ Doug – It really depends on your situation. If this is for a local website, it depends on what kind of brand recognition you have in your area. If eveyrone in your area refers to you by your gym name, or by your personal name, then make your URL that (ex… douggroce.com) If you have NO brand equity in your area, it wouldnt be a bad idea to get CityPersonalTrainer.com or CityFitness something like that.
I like to go for branding more. On the local level you can rank pretty easily no matter what your domain name is.
Use a keyword tool like the Google adwords tool above (free) – and get a feel for whats popular and also the type of lead you want in your area. Go for that as your main words.
If you want personal training clients, go for personal training keywords. If you want bootcamp and group classes then go for those… You can also go for both by putting them bothin in the title tags and on the page, or by making seperate pages for them on your site…. like this…
DougGroce.com (personal training in Bella Alabama)
DougGroce.com/bella-alabama-bootcamp (Fitness bootcamps in Bella Alabama)
Hope this helps…
-J
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