Up to Date: Keyword Optimisation

Did you see our blog a couple of weeks ago on out of date methods for keyword optimisation? Yes? Awesome. No? Take a look back at it here.

Not all is lost when it comes to keyword optimisation. Keywords are still massively important for SEO. The algorithms have just evolved to be smarter and recognise the value of content on sites rather than just having a simple checklist. Better user experience = better value = better rankins..

Most recent Google algorithm updates…

Caffeine. All content is searchable just after it has been crawled by Google’s robots. Faster results in the rankings!

Panda. Updates to ensure that sites with poor value content are penalised and dropped down the rankings. Noone likes a cheat! No keyword stuffing, unnatural content, non-conversational writing and no duplicate information. High quality content is needed to rank highly. Keep it interesting, regularly posted, regularly updated and unique.

Penguin. A review of backlinking. Links to your site from poor quality, spammy sites will harm your ranking. The more links to your site from external sites, the better… but only if they are highly ranked with a good reputation.

Hummingbird. Improvements to the semantic search and understanding the questions from customers.

RankBrain. RankBrain takes the queries that are coming in and tries to read the intent. Sites need to optimise their content by keeping the intent and experience of the user in mind.

What next?

1. Keyword placement

Include keywords in important areas of information. This will tend to come naturally with good UX. For eCommerce, ensure product related keywords are in the URL, the H1 heading, meta title and description. Don’t focus in on one word, ensure related keywords and phrases are also used to cover all bases.

2. Linked searches

Google are looking to preempt users’ searches by what they have recently and previously looked at. They are looking to personalise search results to the user. At this point you really need to be considering your user persona profiles and how they will be trying to reach your site/services/products…

3. Keyword breakdown

One search could mean so many things… how vague that sounds… if someone is searching for an instruction manual for one of your products or a fixing guide for a project similar to the services you offer, you can target those phrases. Create pages or a blog where you can target the sort of questions that will be asked related to your website. Blog posts on ‘How do I…’, ‘how to…’ and ‘where to find…’ are all prime examples of how you can directly answer customer queries while channeling them on to your site. Ensure those pages have related content and products visible to encourage the user to click through, further into your site.

4. Research your keywords

Keywords are still relevant so keyword research definitely is. By creating the user personas, you can create a list of the keywords you’d expect them to use and also the sort of queries they might have.

5. Personable posting

The best way to approach the new era of search rankings is to realise the ‘user’ is a person and talk to them in that way. There are few ways around the algorithms now, your site needs to be stuffed with valuable content. Keep your site up to date, regularly updated and easy to use once there.