Keyword Research – Advanced Web Ranking Blog https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog Join our SEO Blog for tips, strategies and case studies on getting improved results from search marketing. Mon, 14 Nov 2022 11:58:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.1 Meta Tags in 2022: Why are They Important in SEO? https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/meta-tags-important-in-seo/ https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/meta-tags-important-in-seo/#comments Mon, 03 Jan 2022 09:50:00 +0000 https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/?p=12862 Meta Tag Definition: What Are Meta Tags?

Meta tags are part of the HTML tags that describe your page content to search engines and website visitors. The Meta tags appear only in the page’s code and anyone can check them via source code (Ctrl+U).

In short, Meta tags are key things for all search engines that appear in the HTML code of a website page and tells the search engine what the page is about, and they are the first impression and point of contact for all search engines.

Meta tags added in the <head> section of an HTML web page and they are the “Legally” Hide Words on Your Pages for Search Engines.

Every platform has different solutions for adding Meta tags, just like WordPress has free plugins to choose from. I personally recommend the All in One SEO Pack and Yoast SEO plugins. Both are popular and you can choose any according to your need.

Do Meta Tags matter for SEO in 2022?

Yes, they do, but not all Meta tags can help you in 2022.

In my experience, if you want to rank high in Google in 2022 then you also need to focus on high-quality content and user satisfaction. The main goal of this post is to explain which Meta tags are good to go with and which are simply dead and have no use.

(See below: There are a few tags, we can call them the bad Meta tags and we should simply ignore them.)

Meta Tags can affect the way that users see your site in the search results and whether or not they actually click through to your site.

John Mueller, 2017

How to check Meta tags on a site

If you want to check the Meta tags for any page, just right-click anywhere on the page and select “View Page Source”. You can also use tools like SEMrush (specifically the SEMrush Audit Tool), and Screaming Frog to check the Meta tags on any site.

The Most Important Meta Tags For SEO in 2022

I personally focus on the 8 major Meta tags which can improve the optimization of your startup business or running website.

I am sharing my opinions about them all below:

  1. Title tag
  2. Meta description
  3. Canonical Tag
  4. Alternative text (Alt) Tag
  5. Robots meta tag
  6. Social Media Meta Tags (Open Graph and Twitter Cards)
  7. Responsive Design Meta Tag

Title tag

The Title tag is the very first HTML element that specifies your web page for search engines and to visitors. The Title element supports all browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Safari etc.

Always add your Title tag in the <head> section of your site.

<head>
<title>This is Title Sample</title>
</head>

Optimal length for the Title tag: Google typically shows 55-64 characters (keep it under 60).

Title tag optimization is important for search engines and visitors. It shows up in the SERP and in Browser Tabs.

Browser Tab Title Tag shown below for Templatemonster post:

Screenshot showing how the page title appears in the browser.

SERP Title Tag shown below for Moti Hamou – Online Marketing Expert:

Screenshot showing how page titles appear in Google search results.

Title tags are the second most important on-page factor for SEO, after content. – Source: MOZ

You cannot add more than one <title> element in your web page.  – Source: w3schools

Key Points to write a good Title tag:

  • Add “modifiers” to your title tag (How to |The current year | Review |Best | Tips | Top |Find | Buy | Easy)
  • Embed long tail keywords in title tags
  • Add numbers to your title (9 Important HTML tags for your website to improve your SEO)
  • Start your title tag with your main targeted keyword
  • Don’t stuff your keywords
  • Every page should have a unique title tag

Meta description

A Meta Description is an HTML element that summarizes your web page. Search engines typically show the Meta description in search results below your Title tag.

Code sample

<head>
<meta name="description" content="This is a meta description sample. We can add up to 160 characters.">
</head>

Google does not use the Meta description as a ranking signal; still, it has a massive effect on your page CTR because it shows up in search results.

In December 2017, Google increased the length of snippets in search results. Now Google confirms it shortened search results snippets after expanding them last December.

What will be the optimum length for Meta Description?

“There is no fixed length for snippets. Length varies based on what our systems deem to be most useful.” He added, “Google will not state a new maximum length for the snippets because the snippets are generated dynamically.”

Source, Danny Sullivan

The new average length of the description snippet field on desktop is at around 160 characters, down from around 300+ characters.

Mobile characters for the search results snippets are now down to an average of 130 characters.

Google-generated Description in search results

Screenshot with search result snippets.

Key Points to write a good Meta Description tag:

  • Don’t put emphasis on the number of characters, as Google might pull Meta description text from your content based on a user’s query.
  • Do not add duplicate Meta Descriptions
  • Add clear Call-to-action (CTA) in your descriptions like Apply today, Check-out, Contact us today etc. See these CTA keywords for marketing campaigns
  • Add your targeted keywords in descriptions
  • Strategically provide solutions to a problem
  • Write for your users and encourage them to click with specific and relevant content
  • Add any discounts or offers you’ve going on
  • Show empathy while writing your Meta Descriptions

    Canonical Tag

The Canonical tag is an HTML link tag with “rel=canonical” attribute that is used if you have a single page URL that has the same content with other multiple page URLs.

By implementing the Canonical tag in the code, we are telling search engines that this URL is the main page and avoid indexing other duplicate page URLs.

A canonical tag Syntax:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/" />

Where should we choose a canonical URL?

Multiple URLs:

  • http://www.example.com
  • https://www.example.com
  • http://example.com
  • http://example.com/index.php

Google sees all the above URLs as duplicate versions of the Homepage. And to fix this problem, the canonical tag (rel=canonical) was invented.

Session ID URLs:

These are the automatic system-generated URLs and commonly generated due to the tracking URLs, breadcrumb links and permalinks in CMS

http://example.com/properties/villa-331-luxury-rental?partnerID=18
http://example.com/target.php?session_id=rj3ids98dhpa0mcf3jc89mq1t0

Mobile URL:

When using a special URL (m. example.com) for the mobile version of your website.

SEMrush itself has 2 versions – one is a mobile version and the other is a desktop version. For the mobile and desktop version, SEMrush is using the following canonical tag:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.semrush.com/" />
Screenshot from page HTML source that shows the canonical tag.

Alternative text (Alt) Tag

The Alt tag is important for any images, as search engines cannot read them, so you need to add proper Alt text to the images so the search engine can consider them.

Syntax for Alt Text:

<img src=”http://example.com/xyz.jpg” alt=”xyz” />

Key points to consider while creating alt-tags for images:

  • All images should have informative filenames
  • Alt text needs to be short clear and to the point
  • Always use the original, right type of image, as this is an essential step towards success
  • Create an image sitemap
  • Use 50-55 characters (up to 16 words) in the alt text
  • Use an optimal file size without degrading its quality for faster page loading speed

“Adding an alt tag is very easy to do and you should pretty much do it on all of your images. It helps your accessibility and it can help us understand what’s going on in your image.”

Source

Robots Meta tag

The Robots Meta tag is an HTML tag that provides instructions to web crawlers on whether to index or noindex a web page.

The Robots Meta tag has four main values for search engine crawlers:

  • FOLLOW –The search engine crawler will follow all the links in that web page
  • INDEX –The search engine crawler will index the whole web page
  • NOFOLLOW – The search engine crawler will NOT follow the page and any links in that web page
  • NOINDEX – The search engine crawler will NOT index that web page

The Robots Meta tag syntax:

<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”> - Means not to index or not to follow this web page.
<meta name=”robots” content=”index, follow”> - Means index and follow this web page.

Note: The robots Meta tag should be placed in the <head> section of your web page.

Social Media Meta Tags (Open Graph and Twitter Cards)

Open Graph Tags:

Open Graph Meta tags are designed to promote integration between Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and the website URLs that you shared on these platforms.

Here is a sample of how Open Graph tags look like in standard HTML:

<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="og:title" content="TITLE OF YOUR POST OR PAGE" />
<meta property="og:description" content="DESCRIPTION OF PAGE CONTENT" />
<meta property="og:image" content="LINK TO THE IMAGE FILE" />
<meta property="og:url" content="PERMALINK" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="SITE NAME" />

Twitter Cards:

Twitter cards work in a similar way to Open Graph, except you add these special Meta tags only for Twitter. Twitter will use these tags to enhance the display of your page when shared on their platform.

Here is a sample of how a Twitter card looks like in standard HTML:

<meta name="twitter:title" content="TITLE OF POST OR PAGE">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="DESCRIPTION OF PAGE CONTENT">
<meta name="twitter:image" content="LINK TO IMAGE">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@USERNAME">
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@USERNAME">

How both Social Media Meta Tags look like:

Screenshot with how Twitter cards appear in the webpages' HTML source.

Head over to this post if you want to know everything about these tags.

Header tags

A Header tag is used for headings creations, i.e. by using these we can apply font changes.

The heading elements are H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6 with H1 being the highest (or most important) level and H6 the least.

Here is an example of how we can use header tags taken from SEMrush:

<h1> 9 Tips for Boosting the Speed of your Shopify Website </h1>
<p>Paragraph of content</p>
<p>another paragraph of content</p>
<h2>Performance Analysis</h2>
<p>Paragraph of content</p>
<h3>Analyzes the Mobile and Desktop Performance with PageSpeed Insights</h3>

Important Point to consider: Use as Many H1 Tags as You Want

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Responsive Design Meta Tag

The final important Meta tag is the Responsive Design Meta tag, which we call “Viewport Meta Element”. By using the viewport meta tag we can control layout for web pages on mobile browsers.

This viewport element is included in the head section of your web page.

Syntax:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1">

If you want to learn more about this responsive design Meta tags, head over to this nicely written post.

Note: Do not use this responsive Meta tag if your website pages are not responsive, as it will make the user experience worse.

Meta Tags to ignore

Finally, there are a few tags – we can call them bad Meta tags and we should simply ignore them:

  • Keywords tag– Google does not use the keywords Meta tag in web ranking. – Source
  • Revisit after – This HTML tag is a command to robots to return to a page after a specific period. This tag is not followed by any major search engine and has no value in SEO. It is better to avoid this tag and leave it to the search engines to decide how to crawl your website. Syntax: <meta name=”revisit-after” content=”7 days” />
  • Expiration/date – This tag defines the expiration date of your page. Personally I would not recommend this, just remove this if you are using it. Syntax: <meta http-equiv=”Expires” content=”Fri, 28 January 2022 23:59:59 GMT”>
  • Site verification– Just ignore this. You can verify your site using Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster tool.
  • Copyright– Every site puts their copyright in the footer, so you don’t need a separate tag. A big NO for this tag.
  • Distribution – The “distribution” value is supposedly used to control who can access the document, typically set to “global”. It’s inherently implied that if the page is open (not password-protected, like on an intranet) that it’s meant for the world. Go with it, and leave the tag off the page. – Source
  • Generator – Useless tag.
  • Cache control –This tag allows web publishers to define how often a page is cached. Generally, these are not required; we can simply use the HTTP header instead of this HTML tag.
  • The ODP Robots Meta Tag – Google no longer follows this Meta tag. –Source
  • Geo Meta Tag – Google does not use Geo Meta tags to rank pages. – Source

So these are the few HTML tags which we should consider or simply ignore. Now you can easily use the relevant HTML Meta tags intelligently.

Don’t forget to comment below and share your views on HTML Tags. Thanks for reading!

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of Caphyon, its staff, or its partners.

]]> https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/meta-tags-important-in-seo/feed/ 21 https://www.youtube.com/embed/Bo2qthtQTYw English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout nonadult Keyword Research with Advanced Web Ranking https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/keyword-research-tool/ https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/keyword-research-tool/#comments Fri, 04 Oct 2019 03:02:54 +0000 http://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/?p=252 Typically, building keyword idea lists relies on AdWords, Google Suggest, Google Trends or sometimes on even more creative sources like Quora, Reddit and forums. 

While all these sources are great, in this article I’d like to show you a different routine for researching and choosing keywords for website optimisation, that is based on competitor research, keyword indexes and the keywords from Google Search Console. 

I’ll also link-out, at the end of this article, to some good resources for standard keyword research, that we have tried over time and got good results with.

The keyword research process I’ll showcase here is performed, from beginning to end, with Advanced Web Ranking, so be sure to log into your AWR account to follow things through, or sign up for a free trial account, if you’re new to AWR.

Let’s get started.

Project setup for keyword research

As a rank tracker, Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) revolves around keyword lists. So, whether you already have a keyword set to begin with for your website optimisation, and you’re aiming to expand it, or you’re starting fresh, with zero keywords, you’ll find this process of keyword researching and management useful.

In any case, to keep things neat, I suggest you create a new AWR project for this research, where you’ll collect the new keyword suggestions (in addition to your currently targeted set, if available), evaluate, refine and organize terms for further tracking and optimisation.

advanced web ranking, start new project button

Keyword suggestions for your website

Right from the beginning, when you’re setting up a new project, you have the option to request keyword suggestions to choose from. Click the [Show suggestions] button to get started with your research:

By default, the first set of keyword suggestions will be retrieved for your own website, but the system also works with other websites or keywords as well. 

advanced web ranking. keyword suggestions button

So, once you have selected all that’s relevant from this initial set of suggestions received for your own domain, I recommend that you put in all your known/direct competitors and some of your most broad keywords, to gather as many keyword suggestions as you can. 

Don’t worry about selecting duplicates, they won’t be added to the bucket.

advanced web ranking, create new projects, keywords, suggestions tool

Of course, there’s a caveat to that. Adding keywords in bulk at this step may also mean extra keyword selection work later on, when you’ll need to filter out any keywords that are totally  irrelevant for you. So you may want to at least scan through the lists of suggestions before adding them to the basket.

And if you want to play safe you can also set a Search Volume filtering criteria right from the start, to get only high-volume search terms, but I wouldn’t worry about that at this moment. 

Just make sure to filter out any competitor brand terms or keywords that are not relevant for you, and you’re good to move forward to the next step.

Tip: Before completing the project setup, I recommend you to set the ranking update frequency for the project to [Paused]. 

advanced web ranking, update project option.

This will prevent an auto ranking update to run for your research project, and enable you to request a one-time ranking update, with, preferably, a fast ranking data turnaround.

advanced web ranking, on demand update

More keywords from competitors

Although the keyword list is still in progress, you need to run a ranking update at this moment, for AWR to be able to compute the market share distribution. 

This will give you insight on who are the market leaders for the topics added in your research basket so far and where do you stand on that market.

advanced web ranking, market share report.

But more important for the keyword research you’re performing now, is that this report will highlight new, important competitors you can use in the research and steal keyword suggestions from.

To get keyword ideas for these new competitors, you need to run each website through the keyword suggestions gathering process. For this, head over to Settings > Keywords, click the [Add keywords] button and repeat the same process as you did for the project setup.

Keywords that you’re already ranking for 

Next, add to the research the keywords Google provides for your website in your Search Console account.

You can automate their import, by connecting AWR to your Google Search Console account.

AWR will import your GSC data and display it through a dedicated section (Google Data >  Search Console) but the keywords found in Search Console are not automatically added to the project for further tracking. 

You get to choose what keywords are worth pursuing and which are not.

advanced web ranking, google search console, keywords sorted.

For this, you can start by sorting the keyword list descending by Clicks and Impressions, and get the most effective terms first.

Also, you can use the text filters to run through the list quicker. However, you need to make sure you go over the entire list, so you won’t miss any important keywords.

You may find keywords with low position and few impressions, but highly relevant and worth including in your research.

Evaluate, refine and group keywords

Okay, you should now have a consistent list of potential terms to target for your website, so what you’ll want to do next is to prioritize it and trim the list down to a shorter, more relevant, set of keywords.

Run another ranking update for this project and head over to Rankings >  Keywords, to see all the keyword data in one place – GSC metrics, AdWords metrics, rankings.

advanced web ranking, sort keyword list.

This is where you’ll be doing most of the keyword processing work needed to come up with an organized list of the most impactful keywords to target with your website.

Keyword categories are very useful at this point. You can group terms into smaller, more manageable sets, according to the page they’re targeted on, semantics, search interest, performance or any other criteria you find relevant.

Expand the list as you go

Although it is essential to have a thorough keyword research at the beginning of any SEO project, it will not be a one time task. You need to constantly keep track of keyword trends, spot new opportunities and stay on top of the keyword game.

You may find yourself needing to extend the research on some terms, or go back to reassess the market share distribution and research the competition once more.

advanced web ranking, more keyword suggestions.

Give it a try!

So with that, I’ll leave you to explore this keyword research process yourself, and see how it works for your own projects. Please don’t hesitate to pass-on your feedback and experiences.

Do you have any tips or preferred methods you can share with us for researching keywords? 

Join the conversation in the comments below.

And as promised, here are some alternative keyword research resources you may also find useful:

]]> https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/keyword-research-tool/feed/ 4 How to Lower the Bounce Rate & Increase the CTR to Boost Rankings https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/lower-bounce-rate-increase-ctr-boost-rankings/ https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/lower-bounce-rate-increase-ctr-boost-rankings/#comments Tue, 07 Aug 2018 10:38:11 +0000 https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/?p=12963 If you are able to lower the Bounce Rate and increase the CTR of your site, you send Google some very good signals.

Google loves nice content on websites – and there are no better signals than engaged users on a specific site.

The bounce rate doesn’t have a direct effect on SEO, but indirectly it has a huge impact.

In fact, you will be able to escalate the Google ladder only if your site CTR on the SERP and Bounce Rate have good values.

What are the Bounce Rate and the CTR?

The Bounce Rate is a percentage that indicates the number of visitors that lands on your website without looking at other pages.

The lower the Bounce Rate, the better it is. For instance, a Bounce Rate of 90% means that 90% of the people visiting your site are not looking at any other pages. This is pretty bad.

The CTR is the percentage of people who click on your website title on the SERP compared to the Impressions.

The higher it is, the better it is. For instance, if your CTR is 90% it means that 90% of the people that see your website on the search results click on it and visit it.

You can easily figure out that these two entities are related!

In fact, it doesn’t make any sense to have a super optimized website in the search results with the meta tags, title tags, etc… if the visitors going to your website bounce back to the SERP or are not visiting any other page on your site.

The ideal case is that you have super high CTR and very low Bounce Rate. This will tell Google that your website is the one to show in the first spot.

You can spot the precise numbers for these two metrics from Google Analytics and the Google Search Console.

But how to lower the Bounce Rate and increase the CTR then?

How to find your website’s Bounce Rates and CTRs

The easiest way to find out your website’s Bounce Rates and CTRs is via Google Analytics.

The real Bounce Rate applies only to new users – returning visitors need to be excluded from the analytics. To do this you need to add a segment.

You can follow the GIF below or simply add a new segment from the top bar and click on apply after you have checked ‘new users’.

Log in into your Google Analytics and go to Audience ⇒ Overview ⇒ Look at ‘Bounce Rate’

find-out-the-bounce-rate

You can figure out the CTR of your website from Google Analytics too.

You need to go to Acquisition ⇒ Search Console ⇒ Landing Pages, but I find it easier to read it in Google Search Console.

Log into your Google Search Console and go to Search Traffic ⇒ Search Analytics ⇒ Check The Boxes On Top ⇒ Sort by Impressions ⇒ Look where your CTR is low for Impressions.

How to lower the Bounce Rate and increase the CTR | Steps to take

Technical SEO steps to take

If you are a WordPress user you can take action immediately, at least from the technical point of view of your website.

#1 – Website Speed

The first thing you want to ensure for your website is  loading speed. You don’t need to have a college degree to figure out that if a web page takes forever to load after you click on the search result, the user will bounce back.

If you are on WordPress, you can follow the step by step guide on the following link to increase website speed. I wrote this very long guide, but it will increase your website speed a lot and immediately.

You can test your website speed with tools like GTmetrix or Google Speed Insights. I prefer GTmetrix, because it’s easy to scroll over all the errors and try to fix them all to reach a speed of at least 3 seconds or less.

speed-on-gtmetrix

#2 – Install AMP For WORDPRESS

Another thing you can immediately do is to install AMP for WordPress so that mobile users will have an accelerated version available for them.

AMP is an ambitious project from Google that aims to help people living in less advanced countries to have websites loading fast on their mobile phones.

AMP will transform web pages into a simpler code to read for their browsers on mobile so that they will load faster.

Next you want to add internal links to other pages of your blog. This increases the chance that users will click on them and hence visit another page on your site. As a result, your Bounce Rate will be more likely to lower.

Consider that the next step is what will make your visitors more engaged and likely to read your blog post.

You should focus on keeping that user on your website longer, so that the chances to click on other links are increasing as well – so the Bounce Rate drops.

#4 – Aesthetics and readability

Another thing you should do is to make your site more readable. You can use Yoast SEO on WordPress and make the readability check all green.

yoast-seo-readability-check

Try to include nice images, videos and multimedia files to entertain your visitors. Also, limit the use of ads and distracting things like pop-ups and any other annoyances as suggested by our friend Neil Patel as well.

Look how nice the Advanced Web Ranking blog homepage looks!

advanced web ranking-blog-homepage

Analytic SEO steps to take

These are steps you can take, but the effect won’t not be immediate and you don’t have total control over them.

You need to arm yourself with patience and a clear mind to analyze data and optimize your site for the best.

#5 – Figure out the garbage pages and optimize the meta tags

Figure out which are the pages that get more hits and Impressions. Try to improve the meta tags and titles of your page.

To figure out the pages that get most of the clicks, you need to go to Google Analytics and click on Acquisitions ⇒ Search Console ⇒ Landing Pages ⇒ Sort by Impressions.

impressions-on-google-analytics

If you find meaningless pages that get 100% Bounce Rate and are thus useless for your site, just go ahead and delete them.

#6 – Analyze the data and compare from the previous results

Try to understand if your organic clickthrough rate improves after the changes you made to your titles. If it does, look at the Bounce Rate of that specific page and see if it improved as well.

To see the Bounce Rate of a specific page you will need to go to Google Analytics and select the segment you have created before for the new users.

Acquisitions ⇒ Search Console ⇒ Landing Pages ⇒ Sort by Bounce Rate.

bounce-rate-on-google-analytics

Once you are able to see the data, try to compare it with the previous months. You can change the timeline of Google Analytics from the top right of the website.

Compare the CTRs and Bounce Rates from the previous months, before applying the improvements or changes to your meta tags and content.

If you’ve managed to lower the Bounce Rate and raise the CTRs it means that you are on the right path – if not, you need another approach.

#7 – Create articles around interesting keywords

You need to create articles around interesting keywords (point 5 of the link) that might have some purchase or engagement intent.

For instance, creating an article around ‘how to make sushi’ might engage more people compared to ‘is sushi easy to make’.

#8 – Update old content with fresh content

Update old blog posts with new information so that users landing on your page don’t see sign-ups forms to Myspace or outdated websites.

It is proven that updating old content is better than rewriting new articles around the same keyword.

Brian Dean from Backlinko has mentioned this multiple times and I have proof as well that is the way to proceed.

Updating titles, meta tags and the content on your site will make Google very happy.

Conclusions

To lower the Bounce Rate on a website you can take steps that are technical in nature – some of them will have immediate results.

Some other steps you can take are analytical and will take longer to show. You will constantly need to analyze and figure out the numbers that show up in Google Analytics and Search Console.

I have tried to show you the best way to find these numbers and correct their values to your advantage.

improve-bounce-rate-and-ctr

If you know other and more effective ways to boost these values I would ask you to comment below and share your tricks with us.

So remember, something you should immediately take action on is improving your site speed, the meta and title tags, and figure out where you are getting more hits.

I also strongly advise you to host all your sites somewhere reliable and manage your NS server with a cool CDN like Cloudflare. This will improve the way Google sees your websites without a lot of effort.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of Caphyon, its staff, or its partners.

]]> https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/lower-bounce-rate-increase-ctr-boost-rankings/feed/ 2 Building a Winning Video SEO Strategy for YouTube https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/building-winning-video-seo-strategy-for-youtube/ Tue, 12 Jun 2018 11:52:24 +0000 https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/?p=12796 YouTube is not only a social network, it is THE video social network. It also happens to be the second largest search engine.

If we match those two statements with the rise of video as the most engaging type of content on the internet today, working on your Youtube SEO strategy to rank high, should be at the top of any business’s priority list.

In this article, we are going to discuss the best way to go about doing this.

I’ve broken down this post into the following topics:

  • Why your business needs to be on YouTube
  • Keyword research
  • Optimizing video elements
  • Video creation
    • Best types of video marketing to rank on YouTube
    • How long should the video be?
    • How to hook the audience
    • What’s the most important segment of the video?
    • How to create a video for audience retention
    • Using keywords for SEO purposes
  • Calls To Action
  • Playlists

Why your business needs to be on YouTube

In 2019, having an effective online presence means using video marketing to communicate your brand to the world. YouTube should be the first platform that comes to mind when thinking about showcasing your video content. After all, it does have over 1.5 billion monthly active users viewing more than 5 billion videos per day.

If the magnitude of its reach is not enough to convince you, here are a few more facts to help you see why it is important to have your video on Youtube:

YouTube attracts about ⅓ of users on the internet – Having your video on YouTube will not guarantee views, but if you want to start somewhere, it’s probably a smart idea to begin by being where 33% of worldwide users hang out online.

Millennials prefer YouTube 2:1 over traditional television – The word “millennial” is not just a buzzword, it’s more like an indication of where to find the influencers of the 21st century. It’s probably wise to follow their tracks.

By 2025, it’s predicted that 50% of viewers under 32 will not subscribe to paid TV – Yet another reason why online video will rule for years to come.

Keyword research

Now that your video is on YouTube (let’s hope), you have to make sure your content gets found. That’s why it is imperative that you use the right keywords to help you drive traffic to it. Here’s a brief rundown of how to do this:

  1. Make a list of very specific keywords that best describe your content.
  2. Head over to Google’s keyword planner and see which of these drive the most traffic.
  3. Once you’ve identified the most popular keywords, come up with both a title and description that uses said keywords.

It’s good SEO practice to use popular keywords, and you should. However, in order to set yourself apart from the crowd you may want to consider using long tail keywords. For example, if your video is about video cameras, rather than using just the keyword “video camera”, you may want to use “4k video cameras under 1500 dollars” instead. You’ll get fewer search results but the ones you do get will rank you higher on the first results page. There’s also the added bonus that you’ll be reaching customers who are looking for that specific term, which should make it easier for you to turn them into customers.

Optimizing video elements

Tags

Like keywords, using tags the right way will allow you to reach the right audience. So choose words and phrase that best describe your video. One way to do this is by putting yourself in your audience’s shoes and asking yourself which search terms you would use in order to find your video.

Finally, don’t fall into the trap of using generic tags just because they have a larger reach. Being specific with your tags will allow you to reach audiences that will actually engage with your video. Keep in mind that it’s about how much time users spend watching your video and not about how many views your video has.

Video description

This is an opportunity to describe your video with all the keywords you researched earlier. It is also an opportunity to add useful information and links that viewers can later reference.

If it’s pertinent, you can also add links to your other videos. This way, you’ll be making it easier for your audience to reach any useful information mentioned in your video.

Title

The title should be a cohesive snippet that describes the content of your video to perfection. It has the duty of doing this while incorporating the relevant keywords that will rank your video higher in the search engines. So be descriptive but brief.

Thumbnails

Thumbnails are like mini advertisements for your video. You only get one chance with them before users scroll past you, so make them stand out. Use colorful images that best describe what your video is about and avoid abstract looking images.

Video creation

Best types of videos to rank on YouTube

There are many videos you can publish on YouTube. Here’s a quick rundown of the ones I think will give you the best ranking.

Explainer videos

Besides using it for entertainment, YouTube is often used as a resource to learn about new things. At first, during the discovery phase, you just want to watch someone explain things briefly instead of having to read dozens upon dozens of blog posts. A primer on the topic. 

Explainer videos do a great job at this, and when it comes to introducing a new idea or process, having this kind of video on YouTube and tagging it as such will definitely get you some hits.

How-to Videos

Users will eventually want to get into the nitty-gritty of the topic they are researching. To do this, they are very likely to search the term “how-to” and then fill in the blank. Not only is it a popular keyword, it is also a very popular genre of video, which you can later organize into playlists to make it easier for potential subscribers to find.

Product Videos

Businesses will often have a video about their product on their company’s site (especially on eCommerce platforms). This is of course a good idea, but a better idea is to make sure these videos are on YouTube. User’s will flock to YouTube to look for all kinds of videos about the product.

They don’t care who makes it as long as it gives them a well rounded picture of what the product is. A good idea is to make many videos showcasing a different product feature in each video. You can then reference each video to each other through playlists or by way of the description.

How long should the video be?

The length of your video will vary depending on the type of video you want to make. In my experience, explainer videos are best kept under the two minute mark.

However, how-to videos will require more time allotted to them since they have a lot more content to get through. As long as it is engaging and you hook them early on then you should be fine. This brings me to my next point.

How to hook the audience

According to some research, “20% of users will leave a video if it hasn’t hooked them in the first 10 seconds.” In other words, you better make your video memorable and fast.

Cut to the chase by telling your audience what your video is about as soon as playback starts. You can do this in the form of a question so that it is clear that the remainder of the video will be spent answering it. This way you are telling your audience what the video is about while also peeking their interest.

Another good way to do this is by showing the end result of some process right at the beginning and then letting your audience know that the rest of the video will be spent showing them how you got there.

What’s the most important segment of the video?

With video, you are basically creating a story. And with any story, there should be a beginning, a middle and an end. So which one is the most important?

Short answer, every segment of your video should be considered equally important. However, they are important in their own specific way. I’ll be succinct in explaining this:

  1. In the beginning you hook the audience.
  2. Then you give them the meat of your argument/content.
  3. And in the end, you reel them in with a call to action.

Not one of these segments works without the other, so pay special attention to make sure each one is doing its part accordingly.

Calls To Action

Not only should your video be informative, it should also be persuasive enough for the viewer to take some kind of action. It could be anything. You can call on them to visit your website, subscribe to your channel and newsletter, or even purchase your product.

Be elegant as to how you go about it though, so that it doesn’t feel like you’re desperately and indiscriminately building spammy email lists.

The point here is to get your audience to opt in voluntarily so that you can follow up with them with something they’ll find valuable in return. A call to action should drive this message home. This means being clear as to what they’ll get in terms of value for taking any specific action.

Playlists

With the use of playlists, you can organize content into topics or themes. The point of doing this is to make it easier for users to find and consume your video. Getting into the habit of doing this will help drive views to videos that might have been overlooked had they not been part of a themed playlist.

Of course, don’t just bundle together random videos for the sake of it. The playlists should feel way more valuable than the individual videos that are within them. Or at least that’s how you should think about it when making them.

Conclusion

YouTube is a great platform to host and promote your video. In order to do so, you will have to work on building the right kind of content and make sure it is easily found by your users. This means doing it in a way that appeals to user’s psychology as well as YouTube’s algorithms. So be prepared to use keywords, tags and visuals that consider these two variables.

A simple title may be enough for a human to gauge a video’s content without any further context, but it may not be enough for a search engine to do the same and rank it with the most relevant searches. The key is testing different angles while thinking wholesomely of how to best build your brand’s YouTube presence in a way that stands out.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of Caphyon, its staff, or its partners.

]]> https://www.youtube.com/embed/FUpXiCvF-no 10 Online Video Trends & Statistics 2019 - Internet Video Marketing Statistics & Facts nonadult How to Optimize for “Searcher Task Accomplishment” https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/how-to-optimize-for-searcher-task-accomplishment/ Wed, 06 Dec 2017 13:20:14 +0000 https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/?p=12273 As search engine algorithms and SEOers get increasingly sophisticated, the human experience becomes more and more the centerpiece of the search experience on the web. And that’s a good thing.

Article cover image

New tech isn’t groundbreaking tech unless it adapts to real needs in the user experience. It’s not about tricking robots anymore – it’s not about keywords stuffing or being a “player” in the search game anymore. It’s about positioning yourself as a real solution to the searcher. And if you can do that, Google will reward you, and justly so.

Because as marketers, shouldn’t our primary goal be to meet customers and searchers where they are and engage with them in their own language like they’re—well, humans? That’s the beauty of the new trend in SEO on the horizon called searcher task accomplishment—it puts the searcher’s needs on an even higher pedestal than before.

So let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about what searcher task accomplishment is, where we can find some bad, good, and great examples, and how to position yourself as the searcher’s answer—so you can be the one to guide them through accomplishing their task. And in turn, you and your website will be rewarded for that.

What Is Searcher Task Accomplishment?

Searcher task accomplishment stems from the idea that with every search made, the user has a specific goal to accomplish.

A more technical definition from oneupweb.com says that:

“Searcher task accomplishment is the idea that search results should be determined by the objectives of the user performing the search, and the satisfaction the user experiences when they receive those results.”

Think about it: hasn’t every search you’ve ever performed been to solve a problem?

  • where was David Bowie born? —> the task you’re attempting is finding out more about David Bowie’s past
  • stiff neck exercises —> your task: find advice for relieving tension in your neck
  • drive from Charleston to Nashville —> your task: find out how long it’ll take you to drive from Charleston to Nashville

Because most people don’t just pull up their search engines to smash their hands on the keyboard and hit enter, virtually every search can be broken down into simple task attempt and accomplishment in this way.

Now let’s go back and notice there’s two parts to that definition: 1) did we help them achieve the objective? 2) were they satisfied with how we did (or perhaps, did not) help them achieve their objective?

It may not seem like two entirely separate criteria, but they are. Think about it like this: have you ever googled a question, and technically found your answer, yet feel as though your question could have been better answered in a different way?

Answers to your question that go above and beyond will leave you feeling like Google did a good job understanding your needs. Answers to your question that technically answered your question—but either 1) didn’t give you all the information you needed or 2) delivered it in an inconvenient format—leave you craving a better answer.

So let’s talk about examples of all kinds and how you can meet both criteria, positioning yourself as someone who goes above and beyond to give your searcher the best answer.

Examples of Task Accomplishment

What does it look like when:

  • a task isn’t accomplished;
  • a task is accomplished, but is only minimally useful to the searcher;
  • a task is accomplished and goes above and beyond to help the searcher  accomplish their task?

A Failed Attempt

It’s actually pretty hard to catch Google in a failed task accomplishment attempt. You’d have to be searching something pretty darn specific to not find the information you’re looking for. For this example, I had to think back hard on the last time I googled something and was left unsatisfied.

Google search results for the 'frostbeard studio phone' query
The Frostbeard Studio Google Local Business page

Why do we care about this? Why does it matter? Because we want to check our own online presence and make sure there aren’t any obvious holes in our website’s ability to answer customers’ simple questions. This is the easiest stuff to fix, so go make sure you have the basics down and fill out your site with contact information, FAQs, and basic knowledge relevant to your industry.

A “Good Enough” Attempt

Here’s what you get when you Google “drive from charleston to nashville.”

Driving directions as returned by a Google search.

Well, that definitely answers my question. Here’s what I’m actually wondering though, something I’d currently have to perform multiple searches to figure out: should I drive from Charleston to Nashville, or should I fly? Are there any other options, like taking the train? (If you Google “should I drive from charleston to nashville,” you get pretty much the same SERP.)

I got my answer, but I’m not blown away. But if, say, one of these top guys on the SERP, like TripAdvisor, had a page for me on all my transportation options from Charleston to Nashville, I’d be super impressed. A page that looked something like this:

Charleston to Nashville – 8 Hour Drive – 1.5 Hour Flight – 1d 4h Train Ride – TripAdvisor

would really catch my attention. That’s our goal: go above and beyond and solve our searcher’s problem—almost to read their minds and answer their question more completely than they expected.

An A+ Attempt

Google search results for the 'how to find lost pet' query.

Here’s what you get when you Google “how to find lost pet”:

All I’m thinking right now is, “I need a list of tips for finding my pet, and stat.” And that’s exactly what I get right at the top of my SERP—score. But the farther I travel through the SERPs, the more I’m finding out about other information I didn’t necessarily ask for, but that could end up being very useful to me.

Screenshot with below the fold Google search results.

I was only looking for a list of tips I can put into action right now, but I also got a lot of other info that could help me now and in the future. I learned about pet microchipping and registering so I can avoid this mishap later on, I found an article on how to train your other pet to help you search for the lost pet—something I didn’t even know was a thing—and finally I saw a heartwarming story about how a guy was in the same situation I’m in and had a happy ending: he was reunited with his dog after losing him for 12 days.

What’s the delineating factor between giving the searcher a literal answer to their question and giving them more than they need? What’s the key to bridging this gap and coming out on top with the best answer your searcher could hope for?

It’s anticipating intent. It’s taking a short set of keywords, a very straightforward set of search terms, and reading into them with a hyper-awareness that asks: what does the searcher actually need from me?

How to Position Yourself as the Answer

Now that we know the difference between the 3 kinds of search results, let’s talk about how we succeed at providing the best kind: one that anticipates intent and goes above and beyond to accomplish our searcher’s task.

Getting Started: Up Front Work

Here’s the stuff you do before you start making actual changes to your website/ SEO strategy. It’s the footwork, the homework; it’s the intake process that involves listening, learning, and taking notes.

Understand the searcher’s task accomplishment journey.

Here’s our searcher’s path, step by step, laid out for us by Rand Fishkin in a post for Moz:

  1. Expression of need. This is where your search engine and user first interact: when the searcher presents a task or problem and hits the enter button.
  2. Underlying goals. Google then uses sophisticated AI technology to uncover the intentions behind the user’s search. (i.e. this person just searched does cinnamon help you lose weight —> this person must be trying to lose weight.)
  3. Evaluation of results. Google finds the content that best accomplishes these goals and displays it in a SERP.
  4. Selection. The user skims, scrolls, and eventually ends up clicking on a search result. If a user doesn’t click on any result and performs a new search, that’s feedback, too.
  5. Evaluation of task completion. Google uses information on the searcher’s activity within a SERP (how much time searcher spent there, what they clicked) as feedback to find out if they did a good job at displaying the most helpful results.
  6. Discovery of additional needs. This is where, using my example about a lost pet, I realize (or Google realizes for me) that I don’t only need tips about finding my pet—I could also use some inspirational stories on pets returning home for my emotional comfort, I could use some contact information for local pet shelters, and I could also use some more info on microchipping so I can prevent this from happening again. It’s like Google knew what I needed before I did.

Now that you know how it works behind the scenes, you can use this searcher’s path to inform your decisions when developing a content strategy.

Understand how Google’s understanding of the searcher’s needs works (and how it ends up affecting SERPs).

Let’s talk more about step #5 in the searcher’s path above. Knowing how Google’s taking in feedback and using it to course correct for a better user experience will be valuable for you as you aim to position yourself as the right answer.

Know that with every update, every change that Google makes to its algorithms, it’s aiming to become more and more intuitive and human-centered.

The biggest indicators for Google on whether or not a result has helped you accomplish your task are 1) whether or not you click on a certain search result, 2) how long you stay there, and 3) how you interact with the content once you’re on that search results page.

If you click the back button after only 5 seconds on a page, Google is guessing that your problem hasn’t been solved and they’ll use this information next time this search is performed. Knowing this helps you turn your abstract goals into concrete ones: if you want to signal to Google that you’re accomplishing searcher tasks, you need to 1) get them to click on your result, 2) stay on your website for a decent amount of time, and 3) engage with your content while they’re there.

Exercise your ability to anticipate intent.

A big part of taking advantage of better searcher task accomplishment is just noticing how a certain SERP could be better—how you can stick out and go the extra mile, how you can be the most thorough (yet convenient) answer.

Think about all the last times you googled something. Perform those searches again and evaluate the SERPs you got back. Did any answer go above and beyond? What about it made it stand out as the better-than-you-asked-for answer? Notice these defining characteristics so you can mimic them in your own strategy.

What Next? Practical Tips

Now that we understand the processes behind searcher task accomplishment, let’s talk about what actions you can take to position yourself as the searcher’s #1 helper.

Offer solutions in the form of long-form content.

Deep dive into a topic in an organized way. Much like a WebMD or Wikipedia page, organize your knowledge into hubs of topics with links to related topics. Going in-depth on a topic in a way that’s easy for the visitor to sort through is the key to positioning yourself as the answer here.

Include visuals.

Not only are visuals a more appropriate answer to some search queries (i.e. “map of France” or “how to do smokey eye makeup”), but including them will also give you a leg up on the bounce rate front. Answering your visitor’s questions with videos, images, and infographics will have them staying on your webpage longer.

Screenshot with a Direct answer containing images.
It’s way more helpful for a searcher trying to learn a new makeup technique to see it done on video vs. a wall of text, so it’s only natural that a YouTube video is what shows up first.
Write a series of posts on a certain topic.

Here’s how you win in that “anticipating need” space: you offer the information your reader will need next. If she searches “how to write a novel” and ends up on your page “Starting Your Novel: Outlining”, she should be able to easily navigate to the next step in the process. Here’s where you want to make it easy for her to find your posts on Writing Your First Draft, Editing Your Novel, and Should You Self Publish?

Not only have you answered her initial question (how to write a novel)—you’ve also guided her through the entire process of outlining and idea generation to publication, likely way more than she was hoping for when she typed her first simple search. Google sees her clicking around this series on your site as engagement and takes it as a signal that you went above and beyond to be the best answer.

Screenshot with Google search results for the 'how to write a novel' query.
This search result for “how to write a novel” gives me much more than that: while it offers a basic list of steps that fulfill my initial search terms, it also gives me book recommendations on writing techniques, links to courses I can sign up for if I want to learn more, and a list of simple action steps I can take right now—amazingly helpful, since writing a novel is such an abstract undertaking.
Offer what your competitors do, but better.

Google yourself, essentially. What keywords or questions do you want to rank for? Google those things and take note of what comes up. If there’s any information your competitors (high rankers) include that you don’t, take note of it so you can include it on your page, too.

If you offer all the knowledge your competitors offer and more—and can manage to do it all in one neat package—it’s only natural that you’ll gain traction as the most robust source of knowledge.

Make Yourself the Best Answer

That’s what it all comes down to—proving to Google and the searcher that you’re the best answer they’ll get, whether you do that with long-form content, videos, infographics, or organized knowledge hubs. Intuitiveness and thoroughness are the keys.

Do your homework, understand the process, and use that knowledge to make sure your content is as clear and as helpful as anyone else’s. That’s how you become the searcher’s favorite helper.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of Caphyon, its staff, or its partners.

]]> How to Do Keyword Research for Your YouTube Videos https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/keyword-research-for-youtube-videos/ https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/keyword-research-for-youtube-videos/#comments Thu, 20 Jul 2017 10:44:27 +0000 https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/?p=11576 If you’re not using video as a content marketing tool, you’re losing out.

In a recent study by Cisco, it was estimated that global internet traffic from videos will constitute 80% of all internet traffic by 2019.

With the widespread adoption of high-speed internet (and in recent years, mobile internet), people can finally fulfill their desire for vibrant, stimulating visual content whenever and wherever they are.

When you consider that 6 out of 10 people prefer online video streaming to live TV and that 300 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute, it’s clear that YouTube is the perfect platform for brands to communicate with their audiences.

Video Organic Search results
Source: SERP Features – Free Tool by AWR

As with all types of content marketing, one of the biggest challenges in producing videos is selecting topics that people are genuinely interested in. It can take hours or even days to create a high quality video. But if the topic isn’t something that people care about, don’t expect to get any views.

Instead of using the “post and pray” approach to video production, it’s far more effective to research what kinds of things people are actually looking for, and then seek to fulfill their demands.

You can accomplish this by using a selection of YouTube keyword research tactics. For maximum engagement, it’s crucial to find keywords that people are searching for on YouTube, but also on Google.

YouTube Autocomplete Options

The best place to start performing keyword research is within YouTube itself.

When you type in search terms related to your niche, you’ll receive a selection of suggested results. This feature was designed to help users find content which relates to their interests, but it can also be leveraged by marketers as a keyword research device.

youtube autocomplete

For further options, enter your keyword followed by each letter of the alphabet and see what kinds of results show up. At this stage, you may wish to start recording your findings on a spreadsheet.

Because you can’t receive extended data (such as search volume) about the keywords, it’s not wise to make your decisions solely based on YouTube’s autocomplete options. However, you can get some great insights before moving onto other tools.

Make sure to also check if the keyword ideas you gather are relevant for your video content and if the searcher intent reflected by these terms matches your needs.

For this, it’s always helpful to look at the top 10 or 20 results YouTube returns for these keywords, and figure out if your content would be a good addition to the SERP or not.

This check up can be simplified using a rank tracker like AWR that automatically pulls the lists of sites ranking in YouTube for all targeted keywords and gives you quick access to the SERPs.

Competitor Research

In order to determine what types of videos are ranking well in your niche, check out your competitors.

You can find your competitors fast with AWR by simply entering the set of keywords you’re targeting for YouTube into the app and it gives you the list of top videos or YouTube channels that rank best and get the most traffic.

Further on, once you have decided wich are the most important competitors for you, you can track their evolution in YouTube searches regularly and compare it with your own.

You can track up to 50 YouTube competitors in Advanced Web Ranking, per project, with no impact on your monthly subscription price.

With the free Chrome tool, Tags for YouTube, you can easily analyze the titles and meta tags used by your competitors. You can learn more about these keywords once you enter them into some of the other tools shown below.

AdWords Keyword Planner

YouTube’s own keyword research tool became obsolete in 2014. The company recommends moving over to AdWords for keyword research – so this is the next place you should visit.

Although you have to sign up to AdWords in order to do keyword research, it’s free and takes very little time. You can click here to get started.

In the “ads formats and sizes” tab, make sure that “video” is the only format checked. Next, run the keywords you found on YouTube through this tool and see what kind of results you get.

Adwords Keyword Planner is extremely helpful because it displays the search volume for specific keywords. Obviously you’ll want to utilize the keywords that are receiving the most searches.

You can also input the URL of other high ranking videos into Keyword Planner and see what keywords come up. These results will give you excellent insights into how to rank well for your niche.

For more unconventional and smart ways to use the AdWords Keyword Planner, check out this post from Dan Shure.

Keyword Tool Dominator

If you’re just starting out with YouTube videos, Keyword Tool Dominator is a great resource. It allows you to input 3 seed keywords per day for free, generate a list of relevant keywords and download the ones that are most useful as a .CSV file.

keyword tool dominator

For unlimited daily searches and to view keywords in order of search volume, you can subscribe to the YouTube edition of Keyword Tool Dominator for a one-time fee of $39.99 USD.

There are more comprehensive (and expensive) keyword research tools available, but if you’re a beginner – this is an excellent starting place.

Google Trends has long been one of the most popular research tools for marketers. Fortunately, this tool allows you to look at search queries which specifically pertain to YouTube.

Select this option under the “Web Search” tab, enter your keyword and voila! You’ll receive some excellent insights into the rising or falling popularity of your search term.

google trends screenshot

When analyzing related queries, ensure you don’t blindly use keywords that have no relevance to your niche. For instance, when looking for queries relevant to SEO, it’s important to note that Korean performing artist, Seo In Guk, has absolutely nothing to do with search engine optimization.

google trends

If you have a brick and mortar store or your content pertains to a specific country, Google Trends allows you to generate results by location. Simply click the “Worldwide” tab and scroll down until you find your desired country.

If you’re marketing to more economically developed countries or just to English-speaking countries, it’s useful to play around with this feature and also check out the “Interest by Region” tab. It’s important that your keywords are applicable to your target demographic and not people from nations who aren’t interested in buying from you.

Conversely, you may discover entirely untapped markets that you wouldn’t have expected to have an interest in your products and services. This is why Google Trends is such a powerful research tool.

Keyword Keg

Keyword Keg is one of the most comprehensive research tools on the internet. It allows you to filter your data by YouTube searches.

In order to get highly specific results, you can also filter by language and by country.

With this tool, you can learn about each keyword’s search volume, keyword power, world value and world cost per click. The only downside to this tool is that if you want to see all the data pertaining to each seed keyword, you have to pay.

Depending on how much information you want access to, you’ll pay anywhere from $8 to $24 USD per month in order to use the Keyword Keg service. Fortunately, there is a 30 day money back guarantee, so if you sign up and don’t consider it to be a worthy investment, you can cancel your membership with no loss.

If you’re serious about generating engagement for your YouTube videos, I believe you’ll find Keyword Keg to be a worthy investment.

Keyword Tool

If YouTube plays a significant role in your company’s marketing strategy (i.e. the people who watch your videos are consistently converting into paying customers), consider subscribing to Keyword Tool.

Of the tool’s many data insights, the ability to filter using buyer intent is particularly useful. With this functionality, you can hone in on keywords that lead to conversions instead of just views.

Depending on what functionalities you require, you’ll pay anywhere from $48 to $88 USD per month for a subscription to this service.

With the free version of the tool, you’ll receive a huge list of results per search (pulled from YouTube Autocomplete and Google). However, in order to know how valuable each keyword will be for your campaign, you’ll have to subscribe to one of the paid packages.

All pricing packages allow you to export your data to a .CSV file. If you want to view keyword search volumes and find out the AdWords competition or CPC for your keywords, you’ll need to go with the Pro Plus package at $88 USD per month.

You’ll definitely receive excellent keyword insights with this tool, but if your budget is low or you’re just getting started with YouTube, it’s better to start with cheaper or free tools.

YTCockpit

If YouTube is your only or most dominant channel for bringing leads to your website, consider using YTCockpit.

Unlike other software packages which can be used for a variety of SEO applications, YTCockpit is completely focused on YouTube. Because the tool is so specifically targeted, its functionalities are unrivaled for video marketers.

YTCockpit will deliver keyword ideas based on data from YouTube Autocomplete, Google AdWords and Google Suggest. However, you’ll also receive intel about the likes, subscribers, video lengths and video qualities pertaining to your search results.

This tool is excellent for performing competitor analysis and you can also see the traffic trends for each keyword.

Depending on the package you want, prices range between $19 to $99 USD per month (you will receive a discount if paying for a year in advance).

Summary

If you’re just getting started with YouTube and want to perform basic keyword research, I would explore free options such as YouTube Autocomplete, Google Trends and AdWords Keyword Planner.

If you’re already up and running and want to maximize the impact of your video marketing campaign, I would suggest looking into more premium tools, such as Keyword Tool and YTCockpit.

Whichever path you choose, know that when you consistently integrate researched keywords in your YouTube uploads – you’re already ahead of the majority of publishers who are using the haphazard “post and pray” approach to YouTube video optimization.

Can you think of any other methods for performing YouTube keyword research? Please let me know in the comments below.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of Caphyon, its staff, or its partners.

]]> https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/keyword-research-for-youtube-videos/feed/ 4 Do You Always Have to Follow Writing “Rules” to Be a Successful Blogger? https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/do-you-have-to-follow-writing-rules-to-be-successful-blogger/ https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/do-you-have-to-follow-writing-rules-to-be-successful-blogger/#comments Thu, 13 Jul 2017 09:50:50 +0000 https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/?p=11523 We could make you try and guess the right answer by the end of the article. But to prove our point, we’ll say it right here, at the very beginning – no. That’s it!

two men sitting on a bridge.

You don’t always have to follow SEO writing rules to be a successful blogger. But if you want to be a successful blogger you will probably want to know why. And what is even more important – when exactly you may neglect the rules.

Do we need rules at all?

As an old adage goes “Rules are made to be broken,” but everyone takes it his or her own way. Someone plunges into total ‘anarchy’; others comfort themselves with this phrase when they are not able to follow the rules, primarily because of their weakness or because they simply don’t know the rules.

As we can presume, there aren’t many successful people in these two groups. The practice shows that following writing rules makes one’s work clearer to the reader. The writer, in turn, usually benefits from this fact. That is why we actually still have a set of rules that one should be familiar with.

Can you disobey the rules?

Yes. But there are several RULE BREAKING RULES:

  • You have to obey all the groups of rules. Only some deviations are possible within a group. So, you can’t neglect grammar or style. You may break some grammatical or stylistic rules.
  • You must know the rules not to follow them. Otherwise, it’s just pathetic. It won’t make anyone successful, but only an ignorant mediocrity. You don’t have to be a know-it-all or a walking dictionary, but you have to know what resources to consult to write the way you should. This leads us to the next point.
  • Rule-breaking should be done for the greater good. The majority of rules haven’t come from someone else’s arrogance, as many beginners tend to think. They are a result of people’s mistakes and the consequences of these mistakes.

So, if Edgar Allan Poe insisted on choosing the desired effect before you actually start writing, this was probably for a reason. He had seen plenty of authors’ attempts to write something without knowing what they wanted their readers to feel. Let’s not exaggerate: it isn’t a catastrophe. Not for the reader, at least. The reader always has a choice. But not every writer has his readers.

The fact is that many great literary works that have ever been written were the result of disobeying rules to this or that extent. But it NEVER meant that the authors were unfamiliar with these rules.

Your happy hunting ground: The rules that might not be disobeyed

The number of rules to break is astonishing. That is why a great number of bloggers and SEO writers find it much easier to compose a college admission essay for their cousins than to do a real job. Seriously, what can be easier than to follow the prescribed norms of grammar, syntax, style, structure, and format?

But if we see a blogger as an artist, whose work demands creativity or innovation, not only in the ideas conveyed but often in the form, it gets a little frightening that you might fail, doesn’t it?

Fortunately, there’s plenty of useful advice on the Web. You can find useful lessons for writers and bloggers. Here, we would like to consider the groups of writing rules bloggers have to deal with. Let’s see where you might not follow the rules:

#1 Blogging rules vs. Writing rules

Some blogging rules have nothing to do with writing. For example, adding images, right? WRONG! Regardless of its uniqueness, a blog is a piece of writing, so all the rules are the same (more or less).

Let’s consider the images you, as a rule, add to the text in your blog. The majority of fiction authors do that. They draw if they can. Or at least they picture the images so vividly that they can influence an illustrator greatly.

It was in 2001 when J.K. Rowling showed the whole world the drawings of characters on BBC. She made them long before she even thought that the books were going to be published. But this is how a creative mind works in every sphere of writing – you aimed at creating images in the reader’s head, so you can’t neglect to create them in your own head. Or include them in your book. Or in your blog!

Fonts are a border issue, too. If various essay formats have strict instructions where and why to use CAPITALS and italics, blogging and fiction lack them. As a result, we get some subjective advice like “Don’t use italics, they don’t look nice!” What you really should do is to use them effectively.

#2 Grammar

And here we go! Generally, you are to obey grammatical, syntactic, and spelling rules. It is very annoying when Docs underline your words, isn’t it? This is the easiest part today. Just click right and see what you can do with your problem. Besides, it is still obvious that many users have “you’re/your” and “than/then” issues. A real professional can’t afford to be ignorant of the difference between things like that.

Grammatical tenses and structures are a little harder. These, on the other hand, can be simplified, as well as syntax. Did you notice ‘and’ at the beginning of this passage and didn’t turn into stone? Well, it is because such rule-breaking is acceptable for blogging.

On the other hand, don’t be too disregardful of grammar rules. According to Forbes, many people tend to judge others by their spelling and grammar quite harshly. So mind your audience!

#3 Choice of words

This point demands more attention to the target audience than all the others put together. The word-choice can be seen from different angles:

  • ‘Classy’ words vs. Simple vocabulary. We said classy. Not sophisticated or even arcane. Because there is a rule that it is better to use a simpler word where possible. However, the ultimate decision on whether you should or shouldn’t follow this one can never be found, because there’s always ‘a perfect word’ for this or that idea or effect. Sometimes, this word is quite simple, sometimes – not.
  • Terms vs. General language. It’s easy – avoid unnecessary terms. In blogging, it means avoiding anything that can confuse your reader without a clear goal.
  • ‘Bad’ words? Oh, please, you know them all! And, yes. You can’t use them on your blog. Otherwise, you’ll have to clean your keyboard with soap and will definitely be punished by all the higher powers you believe in. Seriously, don’t use them. On the other hand, weaving some inappropriate word into an exciting text to make it spicier is a great art. It was fully mastered by Geoffrey Chaucer, Irvine Welsh, and many others. If you know that your audience is prepared enough to read bad words and take it the way you want to, you might take a risk.

After all, it was stated by Kathryn Schulz in the New York Books magazine: “Writers don’t use expletives out of laziness or the puerile desire to shock or because we mislaid the thesaurus. We use them because, sometimes, the four-letter word is the better word—indeed, the best one.”

If you want to use them but think it will be too inappropriate for your particular blog, you can turn to books once again and find some fictional swearing like “shuck” in them (borrowed from James Dashner’s The Maze Runner).

The only word-choice rule you can NEVER break is that you MUST NOT use any words you don’t fully understand.

#4 Successful means readable as a blog

These are the writing rules you truly should follow if you want to earn with your blog:

  • More headers! It is so much easier to read shorter paragraphs. Mainly, emotionally. But somehow it is easier physically, too.
  • Fewer stop-words! They can’t be found by a search engine, so you really need to decrease their number.
  • More keywords! We assume you were searching for ‘writing rules’ or ‘blogging rules’ when you found this article. See the point?
  • Less volume! Long blog posts are scary. People usually prefer shorter texts as well.

But! If you cannot convey your idea or be sincere with your reader following these rules step-to-step, then DON’T follow them all the time. Again, break them, if necessary!

If Google won’t give your post the best ranking, but it’s full of extremely useful information, and it’s really you who’s written it, not your SEO-oriented desire to earn all the money in the world, people will find it and read it!

As we’ve said, you don’t always have to be a rule-obsessed robot suffering from perfectionism. Neither should you underestimate the experience of various writers who failed because they didn’t mind making too many mistakes.

Find a perfect medium between being rebellious and traditional regarding following the rules. And you’ll definitely be a successful blogger!

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of Caphyon, its staff, or its partners.

]]> https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/do-you-have-to-follow-writing-rules-to-be-successful-blogger/feed/ 1 Why Your SEO Strategy Needs to Take Lead Generation and Sales into Account https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/seo-strategy-take-lead-generation-sales-into-account/ https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/seo-strategy-take-lead-generation-sales-into-account/#comments Tue, 04 Jul 2017 09:19:10 +0000 https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/?p=11450 When it’s time to decide what pages to promote through link building, do you have a solid strategy?

Many of us have been trained to dig for good keyword ranking opportunities and base our SEO promotion strategies there. Do you have pages that are on the cusp of page one for a given keyword? Point enough links to there, and traffic will spike.

It makes sense on a rudimentary level. But it doesn’t necessarily move you closer to the KPIs that impact your bottom line – capturing leads from visitors, and turning those leads into paying customers.

To move those needles, you need to discover what content is already working for you, and then use those pages and their related keywords to drive your content promotion strategy.

What’s Wrong with the Typical Approach?

There’s a lot of good advice out there on how to choose what keywords to rank for: you can look for good ranking opportunities – those highly relevant keywords that you either don’t yet rank for, or don’t rankly highly on – and optimize your content efforts for them.

Or you can try to hunt down viable long-tail opportunities, those highly specific keywords that don’t see huge search volume but are highly relevant to the user, and target those in your content.

The prevailing advice says you should identify these kinds of opportunities, then create new content around them and optimize your content pages to help boost their rank. Most of that advice will work – when pursued diligently, you’re likely to start ranking nicely for those keywords.

Here’s the critical flaw in this approach, though: It assumes that good keyword ranking drives you closer to your goals, and that’s not necessarily the case.

Toystory meme with keywords everywhere.

Why not? Because for most websites, the goal is generating more leads, and converting those leads to sales. Simply ranking for a particular keyword is no guarantee that this is happening.

Instead, let’s look at a data-driven SEO strategy that will move you closer to your real goals – lead generation and sales.

What Metrics Really Matter?

When you look at the end game, these two groups of metrics are the ones that really matter to your bottom line:

Your lead gen metrics tell you how many people are moving into your sales funnel, and include things like:

  • Form completions and downloads
  • Email subscribers
  • Blog followers
  • Trial offer signups

Your sales metrics are where the money comes in, and include things like:

  • Clicking a Buy Now button
  • Checking out
  • Entering a credit card for a free trial
  • Signing up for a webinar

On your website, it’s likely there are some pages that are working well to move these metrics, and some that aren’t. Let’s show you how to uncover that info.

Finding – and Leveraging – Your Most Valuable Pages

Think about your own sales funnel, looking at the various lead gen and sales points we talked about above, and note the kind of site content you may have that drives your visitors to convert:

Visual with the marketing funnel.
Source: TrackMaven

Take a few minutes now and determine which content pages, landing pages, forms, CTAs and other content elements are designed to support these conversions. In this section we’ll use your content analytics data to find the pages that are actually performing best to drive those metrics home.

Numbered list icon

Begin by setting up relevant conversion events in Google Analytics, based on the metrics above. For example, you might track these events that point directly to a new lead or sale/;

  • White paper download
  • Free trial signup
  • Email signup
  • Order form completion
Screenshot highlighting how to set up a Goal in Google Analytics.
Source: Data Habits

The goals you set up should help you understand where your customers are coming from and what content is bringing them closer to sales conversions.

Numbered list icon

To understand how these goals are actually impacting your bottom line, the next step is to set up your goal values.

Keep in mind that you’ll see the clearest results when you set up your goal value based on actual revenue associated with actual sales. This allows you to easily identify your top money making pages and their associated keywords.

You might see people recommending that you use your overall conversion rates as a starting point and assign Goal Value according to averages. For example, if 1% of your new newsletter subscribers end up buying an average of $1000 worth of products, then you’d set the Goal Value for newsletter subscription conversions to $10.

This practice is often useful, but if you want to identify the keywords and pages that are actually working right now to make you money, it’s best to use actual revenue values whenever possible.

Ideally, you’d set up your eCommerce platform to sync with your Analytics account so you’ll have actually transaction data to work with, but at the very least, you should calculate your customer lifetime value and associate that dollar amount with the Goal Value for visits to your thank you page.

So if your average customer spends $100 per order and places 1.7 orders over the course of his or her lifetime, then you’d set the Goal Value for checkout conversions to $170.

Screenshot showing hot to set goal value in Google Analytics.
Source: Kissmetrics
Numbered list icon

Once you’ve set up your event goals and values, you’ll be able to analyze the goal conversion rates and completions to know which pages are performing the best for you. To get there, just go to Conversions > Goals > Overview in the left-hand navigation column and then click on “view full report” at the bottom-right corner of your screen.

Numbered list icon

Finally, you’ll want to know what keywords are driving the traffic to these top-performing pages. To get this data, go to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages, and then look for your best performing pages.

You’ll see the keywords from every single source that is driving traffic to each of those pages. For instance, to see the keywords that are coming from organic search via Google, you can use the segmentation filters to narrow your report view down to just that.

Of course, in the age of [not provided], the keyword data here will be incomplete, but once you’ve identified the URLs of your “money pages”, you can use additional tools like SEMrush and Google Search Console to fill in those gaps.

By determining and promoting the pages and keywords that perform best, you can strategically build on what’s working.

Focus on the Content that Drives Lead Generation and Conversions

Are rankings really what you’re after? Or are you looking to convert, either into leads or sales?

Once you understand what metrics really matter, and what keywords are driving your lead generation and sales metrics, your SEO strategy takes on a whole new dimension. Instead of simply looking for ranking opportunities, you can focus on keywords and pages that are proven to drive business.

Now, the decision on what content to promote becomes much easier and more effective, backed by data that offers proof. Focus your SEO strategy to promote those pages that are performing best for you.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of Caphyon, its staff, or its partners.

]]> https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/seo-strategy-take-lead-generation-sales-into-account/feed/ 1 12 Productivity Tips for Digital Marketers https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/12-productivity-tips-digital-marketers/ Tue, 20 Jun 2017 10:52:03 +0000 https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/?p=11361 Do you want to be a more productive digital marketer?

One of the best ways you can streamline your daily routine is by having the right tools at hand.

And as we spend most of our time glued to a web browser, it makes sense to use online apps and tools.

But there are loads of tools available, so how can you know which ones will save you the most time?

In this post, I’ve included some tried and tested tools to cover all bases from how to improve your rankings, to Social Media to YouTube SEO.

If you’re ready, let’s jump in.

SEO Quake

SEOquake is a free browser plugin that provides organic research data. Its main strength is that it can give you a quick and comprehensive report of any web page.

  • SEObar – Get an SEO overview of any page at a glance, with a configurable report bar. You can choose where to display the bar: Horizontal top, Horizontal bottom, Vertical floating left, or Vertical floating right.
SEO Quake, seo bar
  • SERP overlay – Discover your SERP competitors’ strengths and weaknesses with key page metrics. Again you can choose which SEO metrics are displayed; e.g. Google rank, domain age, number of backlinks and much more. Disable the overlay: toggle this Switch to turn off the overlay mode.
SEO Quake, serp overlay.
  • Keyword difficulty – an estimation of a keyword’s level of competition (100% is the highest)
SEO Quake, keyword difficulty.

SEOquake also has other useful tools including an SEO Audit, Keyword Density Report, Internal/External Link Analysis and Social Metrics.

MozBar

MozBar is similar to SEO Quake. You can gauge the SEO power of a page and a domain with its Page Authority and Domain Authority metrics.

You can choose whether to display the MozBar across the top or the bottom of your page. The PA and DA are visible immediately:

mozbar

You can click the other options to display more information in the drop-down screen; e.g. on-page elements, general attributes, markup, link metrics, and HTTP status:

mozbar, other options.

The Mozbar also has an overlay screen in the SERPs:

mozbar, overlay screen in the SERPs

Clicking on the Link Analysis icon directs you to the Open Site Explorer page where you can discover more detailed information.

Wattspeed

Wattspeed

Wattspeed provides powerful insights each time you open a new web page. It also has free Firefox and Chrome browser extension tools.

  • The Technologies section contains a list of frameworks and libraries that we found while analyzing your web page.
  • PageSpeed Insights measures the performance of a page for mobile and desktop devices.
  • The HTML5 Validator checks the markup validity of a web page and can help you catch unintended mistakes you might have otherwise missed.
  • Google’s Mobile-Friendly test will analyze a URL and report if the page has a mobile-friendly design.
  • Mixed Content identifies pages where the initial HTML content loads over a secure HTTPS connection, but other resources then load into the page over an unsecured HTTP connection.
  • The Accessibility Report checks if everyone can access the page regardless of disability.

HootSuite

Hootsuite is a popular social media management tool that can save you loads of time. Social media is one of those activities that can quickly gobble up your time, especially when you’re active on more than one network, so it’s best to manage everything in one place.

HootSuite

The best time-saving features in Hootsuite are:

  • Sharing posts across multiple social networks at the same time
  • Scheduling your posts in advance
  • Checking your social media analytics in one place

Hootsuite also has a useful Chrome extension called Hootlet. This nifty tool lets you add content from a web page to your Hootsuite scheduled posts with one click.

Hootlet

Find That Email

Find That Email calls itself The Yellow Pages of Email, and it’s easy to see why. This tool is a great time-saver when you’re trying to find someone’s email address.

You can make your search on the web page by entering a name and company website. Or to save more time, you can use the Chrome browser extension.

Here you can select:

  • Domain Search to find employees from a certain domain
Find That Email, domain search.
  • Find Emails to find prospects from a social network, like LinkedIn. The extension will auto populate when you’re viewing any people search results or someone’s profile.
Find That Email, find emails.
  • Ahrefs.com Integration – If you’re using Ahrefs you can accelerate your link building by finding email addresses of a backlink opportunity.Once you’ve found your information, you can choose to use it straight away or save it to a list for later.

Auto Text Expander

Auto Text Expander allows you to create custom keyboard shortcuts to expand and replace text as you type.

Auto Text Expander

For marketers, this can be a real time-saver when you’re conducting outreach campaigns. For instance, you could have a shortcut for completing online contact forms or saved phrases you frequently use when writing emails.

Auto Text Expander is like TextExpander for Mac or AutoText for Windows, except that you install it as a Chrome extension.

LastPass

LastPass is indispensable. Seriously, if you’re like me, then you’ll always be creating new online accounts for tools and services. And every new account requires a new password.

Just checking my LastPass Vault, I can see I have over one hundred accounts each with a unique password.

Try remembering all of those!

LastPass

You can use LastPass for free as a browser extension and also as a mobile app. For a small additional fee, you can also get family sharing, priority support, and other powerful features.

LastPass also lets you share your passwords with other people without revealing them. For instance, this might be useful if you manage small teams or work with a virtual assistant.

The Great Suspender

The Great Suspender is a free Google Chrome extension for those of us who open countless browser tabs.

Is that you? Yeah, me too.

But then you hit problems. Like the browser crashing or consuming too many system resources.

The plugin automatically suspends tabs that have not been used for a while, freeing up computer memory and CPU that the tab was consuming.

You should find you can work faster when you regain some of that power.

The Great Suspender

Grammarly

Grammarly is the best online tool for checking your spelling and grammar.

Grammarly

There are a couple of ways to use Grammarly:

  • You can upload, write, or share documents to the online service and then check for spelling and grammar mistakes.
  • You can use the Chrome extension to highlight and correct any errors as you type in web pages, including webmail and social media sites.The free version covers all the basics. It’ll find and fix over 150 types of errors, most of which Microsoft Word misses.The premium version corrects 100 more advanced errors, suggests vocabulary enhancements, and also includes a plagiarism checker.Grammarly doesn’t catch everything, so you’ll still have to apply common sense in some cases.

Check My Links is a link checker that crawls through your web page and looks for broken links. It highlights the valid and broken ones:

Check My Links

This tool is excellent for fixing links on your website. But you can also use it for your external link building activities. For instance, you could check a target website for broken links. Then email the site owner and ask them to replace the broken link with yours.

VidIQ Vision

VidIQ Vision for Youtube provides metrics that go beyond standard YouTube Analytics. The Chrome Extension delivers a full optimization report card for any YouTube video inside your browser:

VidIQ Vision

The data helps you understand why top videos are successful and what you can do to improve your content:

  • Rank – The vidIQ Score measures the chances of a video being promoted in Related Videos, Search, and Recommended Videos.
  • Discover – Success on YouTube is about more than just views — Vision keeps you focused on the metrics that matter.
  • Optimize – Use what you learn to drive better decision making for your content.

Conclusion

With so many tools and apps available, it’s important you choose the right ones for you. Don’t be tempted to use everything; select the ones that will make you more productive.

Which tools are you using to improve your productivity? Let me know in the comments below.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of Caphyon, its staff, or its partners.

]]> How to Uncover Conversion Focused Keywords Using Quora and Reddit https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/keyword-research-using-quora-and-reddit/ https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/keyword-research-using-quora-and-reddit/#comments Thu, 16 Jun 2016 13:55:50 +0000 http://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/?p=9082 Your keywords are the heart and soul of your SEO strategy. Without a set of high volume, low competition keywords, all the links you build won’t make a dent in your traffic.

The trouble is, finding high quality keywords is hard. Most tools don’t do a great job of finding long tail keywords, conversion-focused keywords. Even when they do, these keywords don’t always translate into high quality, useful content.

There is one solution: community-focused websites like Quora and Reddit.

These websites curate questions and discussions from millions of members from across the world. Because of the sheer breadth of their membership, you will easily find thousands of questions related to your niche.

As it turns out, these questions are also a great source of conversion-focused keywords.

In this post, I’m going to show you how to use Quora and Reddit to do your keyword research.

Using Quora for Keyword Research

Quora was founded in 2009 by two former Facebook employees to help people find the “best answer to any question”. Seven years later, it is one of the world’s top 125 websites with over 80M users every month.

Quora works on a simple model: community members ask and answer questions. Anyone with a Quora account can ask a question on any topic under the sun, and anyone, regardless of experience or expertise, can provide an answer.

This model helps Quora gain over 6,000 questions per day with over 8M questions in total.

All these questions (and their answers) makes Quora one of the most powerful sources for finding conversion-focused keywords people actually care about.

Let’s take an example. Suppose you search for a topic like “blogging”. This is what you’ll see:

Screenshot with Quora search results for the "blogging" query.

After selecting the second result – “Blogging” – you should see a ‘Topic FAQs’…

Screenshot highlighting the Topic FAQs on Quora.

…and a ‘feed’ with a list of questions and answers:

Screenshot highlighting the Quora Q&A Feed.

Both the FAQ and the Q&A are great for finding conversion-focused keywords.

For example, one of the first questions asked in the feed is “what are the best blogging platforms?”:

Screenshot with the first question that appers on Quora for the "best blogging platforms" question.

This gives us a keyword – “best blogging platforms”.

Plugging this keyword into the AdWords Keyword Planner shows the following:

adwords-keyword-planner

This way you can find dozens of keywords with questions that people actually want answers to.

However, understand that not all questions will contain keywords directly. Most questions actually revolve around a keyword that is implied in the question itself.

For example, one of the first questions you’ll see when you search for “Inbound Marketing” is “what are the top inbound marketing platforms out there?”:

quora-question

The keyword you’d get directly from this question is “top inbound marketing platforms”.

Searching for this exact keyword, however, doesn’t show up anything:

keyword-planner

This doesn’t mean that people don’t care to know about the “top inbound marketing platforms out there”. It just means that people are using variations of this keyword in search engines.

When you search for “top inbound marketing platforms”, for example, here’s what you see:

quora-questions

Only one result – the top ranked Quora answer – actually uses the keyword exactly. The other top results use variations of the same keyword.

This is essentially what modern SEO is all about – finding topics people are interested in, not just keywords. And for this, Quora is a goldmine.

Finding Conversion-Focused Keywords on Quora

You can brainstorm hundreds of keywords and topic ideas from Quora within hours. We, however, want to find keywords that will help us convert users.

For this, you need to find keywords that target customers in the Decision-stage of the Buyer’s Journey.

This is the stage where customers are actively evaluating different solutions before deciding what to buy.

For example, questions like “What is Inbound Sales?” or “What are the Best Inbound Marketing Strategies?” are unlikely to convert easily.

quora-questions2

With such questions, customers show that they are still trying to understand inbound marketing and are a long way off from purchasing a tool or a service.

On the other hand, a question like “How much does inbound marketing cost?” shows that the customer is actively evaluating different solutions to find something that fits his budget.

quora-question2

There are two ways to find such decision-stage questions on Quora:

1. Dig through the questions feed.

With this tactic, you simply scroll through the feed to find questions that might lead to a conversion.

Scrolling through the feed for “inbound marketing”, I found this question:

quora-question3

This would give us a keyword like “best CMS for designers”. A customer searching for this keyword is likely to be looking for a designer-focused CMS tool.

Here’s another question I found:

quora-question4

This would give us keywords like “Drupal vs Magento”, “Drupal pros and cons”, “Magento pros and cons”, etc. Customers evaluating CMS tools would arguably search for these keywords.

With this tactic, you find one Decision-stage question, then click on it to find similar related questions in the sidebar.

For example, clicking on the question – “How much does inbound marketing cost?” – shows the following questions in the sidebar:

quora-related-questions

The top two questions would make for great decision-stage keywords.

This now brings us to Reddit and how you can use it to find conversion-focused keywords.

Using Reddit for Keyword Research

Reddit is similar to Quora in that it is community powered. But while Quora is heavily moderated, Reddit is mostly a free-for-all, with over 9,000 communities (called “subreddits”) and 227M unique visitors.

Keyword research using Reddit follows the Quora model – find a community related to your niche, then go through the discussions to find relevant questions. Thanks to the sheer number of communities, it is easy to find something that caters to your niche.

Start off by looking up your niche in Reddit’s search:

reddit-search

This is what I see when I search for “headphones”:

reddit-search2

The top subreddit – r/headphones with 65,469 subscribers – looks very promising.

Opening it, I see a list of discussions and external links. The former can be identified by the “self.[subreddit name]” prefix.

reddit-search3

To find the best discussions and links, click on ‘Top’. Then from the top left drop-down menu, select “Past Week”, “Past Month”, “Past Year”, or “All Time”.

reddit-top-questions

Looking at the top results from “Past Week”, I see a bunch of very promising topics:

reddit-feed

You can use the three highlighted results to come up with some great keywords and content ideas, such as:

  1. Best mainstream gaming headsets
  2. Gaming headsets for under $400
  3. Introduction to open-back headphones

I prefer to look at weekly or monthly top results as opposed to ‘all-time’ top results. That way, you get more quality discussions and fewer images and memes.

You can repeat this tactic for any subreddit to find great keyword ideas.

Finding Conversion-Focused Keywords Using Reddit

As with Quora, we don’t just want to find keywords; we want to find conversion-focused keywords.

Reddit is particularly helpful here since a lot of users come to different subreddits to get buying advice. Finding such purchase-related discussions is great for coming up with Decision-stage keyword ideas.

Here’s an example of how to do this: on the /r/headphones subreddit, go to the search box and type in “buying”. Make sure to check “Limit my search to r/headphones”.

reddit-searchbox

When you do this, you’ll see a list of discussions from the subreddit with the keyword “buying” in them:

reddit-search4

All these discussions are great for coming up with keywords and questions people actually ask when they’re searching for headphones to buy.

For example, scrolling through this list, I see a question that would be great as an article:

reddit-question

Here’s another discussion that can be easily converted into an article to help customers buy headphones at the right time:

reddit-question2

These biweekly advice threads on buying headphones are also very useful for finding conversion-focused keywords.

reddit-questions

For example, the first post in the discussion lists highly specific requirements.

reddit

You can use this information to come up with a number of keywords and content ideas, such as:

  • Headphones between $200-$350
  • Over the ear headphones for laptops
  • Headphones for listening to metal

Since these are long tail keywords with people searching for highly specific solutions (“headphones under $350”), converting them into customers will be relatively easy.

You can repeat this process for any popular subreddit to find dozens of conversion-focused keywords. Besides “buying”, some other search terms you can try are “advice”, “review”, and “guide”.

Over to You

Finding conversion-focused keywords is hard, especially with conventional keyword research tools.

However, by using community-powered websites such as Quora and Reddit, you can uncover long tail keywords and questions your customers actually care about. Creating content on these keywords can not only bring you traffic, but also help you answer customer queries.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of Caphyon, its staff, or its partners.

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