A golden keyword

[iam_mine]

What's a golden keyword?

A golden keyword is a keyword that you select to target and find out you did the right selection

I think this is something we need to discuss more, because it's critical to any SEO campaign.

So I wanted to open this thread so we can share information on this subject, so how do you select the right keyword?

 

[Philip J. Fry]

its not *the* right keyword but right keywords.

With each pick, you're making a bet.

To get the best performance, you make lots of bets.

Focusing on one keyword lends itself to investing a lot of time and money into something that can produce no returns. In addition to that, you lose out on huge amounts of long tail traffic. What's more, as search becomes more and more conversational (do you see those OK Google ads where Google is teaching the general public that you can just simply talk to Google to get answers or search results?), the long tail will grow. This means that you'll be missing out on even more long tail traffic in the future.

With that being said, you want to pick keywords that your site will be able to compete in. Google places huge weight on a site's overall metrics so utilizing that as your main means of ranking along with low competition targets results in a very effective means of obtaining search traffic.

Here's an easy way to do that: look up big forums that are about your topic. By forums, I'm talking about vBulletin or PHP forums. Then find what keywords they're getting traffic from with a tool like SEMRush. Then, write articles about the topic.

Usually, forums are poorly optimized so they're ranking based off of DA alone. As long as your DA is higher then their's and/or your article's better written, you'll outrank them.

 

[iam_mine]

its not *the* right keyword but right keywords.

With each pick, you're making a bet.

To get the best performance, you make lots of bets.

Focusing on one keyword lends itself to investing a lot of time and money into something that can produce no returns. In addition to that, you lose out on huge amounts of long tail traffic. What's more, as search becomes more and more conversational (do you see those OK Google ads where Google is teaching the general public that you can just simply talk to Google to get answers or search results?), the long tail will grow. This means that you'll be missing out on even more long tail traffic in the future.

With that being said, you want to pick keywords that your site will be able to compete in. Google places huge weight on a site's overall metrics so utilizing that as your main means of ranking along with low competition targets results in a very effective means of obtaining search traffic.

Here's an easy way to do that: look up big forums that are about your topic. By forums, I'm talking about vBulletin or PHP forums. Then find what keywords they're getting traffic from with a tool like SEMRush. Then, write articles about the topic.

Usually, forums are poorly optimized so they're ranking based off of DA alone. As long as your DA is higher then their's and/or your article's better written, you'll outrank them.

You are right, but the main thing is to understand how to pick the right keywords from scratch e.g which keywords to use, specially techniques, etc...

 

[Ryuzaki]

Before you go hunting for a keyword, you need to consider what the purpose of your post is going to be. Are you looking to sell something on this post, get someone to take action, just present information to get people into your funnel, etc.

Buyer's Intent

Because you need to be matching the intent of the keyword phrase with your goal.

If you're trying to sell blue widgets hard, and you want to close the sale right there, there is no point in going for terms like:

• Why are some widgets blue?
• What colors are available for widgets?

Etc. Those are informational queries and don't at all have a "buyer intent" to them. They themselves are only just entering the buying cycle. They aren't even close to making a decision yet. They still need information.

Something like...

• blue widget reviews
• blue widget comparisons
• blue widget coupons

Each one of those is getting increasingly deeper into the buying cycle. They are very close to pulling the trigger.

Top 10 Competition

The money comes in the top 10, really adds up in the top 3, and explodes in the top spot. So that's your competition. If you can't hit the front page, you're wasting your time.

As @Philip J. Fry was saying, going after one single keyword should be reserved these days for very experienced SEO's or only if you've happened upon one or been told about one that you know without a doubt is doable and worth the doing.

Everyone should be expanding their search engine posts into LSI terms and lots of long-tails terms. That way, as you're on your way to conquering the "main term," you're still gathering traffic and hopefully links and social signals that will help you take down the main term.

There are great pieces of software that will let you take a snapshot of the Top 10, my favorite being Market Samurai. There are browser plugins as well that will add data to the actual Google SERPs that you can look at.

Here's some pieces of data you want to be looking at:

• On-Page Optimization of the Pages
  • Title Tags
  • H1, H2's, H3's, H4's, and onward
  • Length of content
  • Existence of Videos, Images, Tables, Lists, etc.
  • Alt tags, Meta Description
  • Use of LSI phrasing
• Referring Domains to the Domain
  • Moz's Domain Authority
  • Majestic's Trust Flow
• Referring Domains to the Page
  • Moz's Page Authority
  • Majestic's Citation Flow
• Age of the Domain
• Age of the Page
• Age of the Links Pointing to the Page
• The Type of Links Pointing to the Page
  • Spam?
  • Low Quality stuff like Blog Comments and Profiles?
  • Killer Contextuals from Killer Sites?
• What Kind of Sites are Ranking?
  • EMD MFA homepages?
  • Random, weak pages on very strong E-commerce domains?
  • Weak inner pages on boss-level magazine sites?
  • Or absolutely god-tier pages on god-tier sites that you'll never defeat?

The analysis could go on and on here, and it should, especially if you're banking everything on a single keyword and/or it's variations. Because if you can't enter the top 10 on them, you'll be eating meager on its super long-tails.

Sometimes it's worth producing content for every set of keywords in your vertical anyways, if you want Google to look at your word usage and determine if you're actually an authority or not. It'll all lead full circle if you're playing the long game and the big game.

The Value of the Term

Finally, is that keyword even worth a damn? If it's worth $0.50 per 1000 impressions, can you command millions of views across it? If you're traffic is about 100 visitors a day to it and you're going to get paid a $5.00 CPC... do you have the skill to optimize to 1%? How about 3%? How about 10% even? It's possible. Maybe it's worth a $500,000 for one closed lead, and it gets 3 visitors a day. How strong is your copy?


So yeah, choosing a keyword is definitely a huge topic because it literally reaches into every skill set an SEO and IM should have. It all hinges on choosing the right keyword, but being able to handle this right keyword all hinges on experience and ability and knowledge.

 

[Golan]

• Referring Domains to the Domain
  • Moz's Domain Authority
  • Majestic's Trust Flow

Lately I find Ahrefs's Domain Rank very relevant.

And your blueprint is great, thank you.

 

[juliantrueflynn]

If you came directly up to me and said "hey handsome, help me find a solid keyword." As you can imagine I would ask you some questions like:

• What are your demographics?
• What is the business?
• What is the offer/value proposition?

The type of project would change the keyword research entirely. If you're going blackhat then yea just filtering through bulk keywords makes sense for finding open opportunities, but even blackhats would be smart to have a set niche to leverage assets from--which many do.

You should already have a chosen demographic set and centering your KW research around what those people would search. Assuming you have your demographics picked you would also know the organic search competitors and what they're ranking for plus methods.

From there, then it's stuff everyone else is talking about with keyword intent and so on. Right now it sounds like cart before the horse and making it tougher on yourself longterm.

If this is just an SEO project that's cool then, if this is a brand you're building then I would stress that basing a brand idea on ranking for a term is risky. Fewer people are doing that model and it's considered more dated (ex. find EMD's, use Excel calculation for determining front page earnings, build, and blast).

 

[iam_mine]

Buyer's Intent

Got it, so it's better to target more actionable keywords e.g. buy, reviews, etc...

There are great pieces of software that will let you take a snapshot of the Top 10, my favorite being Market Samurai. There are browser plugins as well that will add data to the actual Google SERPs that you can look at.

I was using it at the past, is it still worth it? It's not FREE right?

 

[thamonsta]

Beyond buyer's intent is intent in general which you need to consider for every post that you make.

The intent can be to be entertained, to learn something, to find a resource, to research a purchase, to find an "order now" link etc etc etc etc etc.

When you write an article make sure you are identifying what the intent of the keyword is and make sure that you are satisfying that intent even if it's not a buyer KW.