Focus on the searched topics, not the keywords
When trying to rank your website in a search engine, the focus is a keyword. Without this, you are likely to fail.
Modern search engine calculations (algorithms) focus on topics, not individual keywords. You don’t need to use every possible variation of keywords on your web pages (eg ‘cheap travel insurance’, ‘cheapest travel insurance’, ‘cheap travel insurance’, etc.).
It is much more important that the content is related to a particular topic (‘cheap travel insurance’, ‘travel’, ‘I need travel insurance’, etc.). Long-tail keyword phrases (more than 2 words in the search string typically) are becoming more common. Because? Well, some might say that Google is not as good a search engine as it seems at first glance. Yes, it has market share but its searches are somewhat sporadic and meaningless in some competitive sectors.
To alleviate (or at least try to alleviate) this problem, longer sentences seem easier to get better results in the engine. Also, viewers using services like Yahoo! responses are encouraged to use ‘where can…?’ And what it is..?’ style phrases, this has been translated to Google and other engines.
If you want a taste of the pudding, just look at the search suggestions at the bottom of the Google listings. Most are longer than 2 words, suggesting this is due to viewer search patterns,
There will be a level of experimentation in this. There are many tools that can help you find the right balance. Web CEO, Raven, SEMRush, IBP, are just some of the thousands that exist. Of course, Google has its own tools, but most of them are inextricably linked to Google AdWords and aren’t really focused on organic search positions, but they can point you in the right direction.
Most of these tools will also offer competitor analysis and give you an understanding of your competitors’ approach in this area. You should be able to see what traffic delivery certain key phrases will bring to your business and assess whether you should spend time building authority on them.
Search patterns change forever, but what doesn’t change is the need for relevance in the results. One can get extremely annoyed if they search for a particular product or service only to be bombarded with irrelevant results.
Focus online is everything. Understand your viewership, analyze your competitor, and experiment from time to time with longer-tail keyphrases and look at the delivery (or not) that this provides using your analytics tools, and you should be moving in the right direction in the rankings.
Of course, if you don’t have time to carry out this type of research yourself, you may need to a company that offers SEO services to do the work for you.
Whichever way you choose to go: Keyphrases bring vanity, topic-driven searches with delivery to the site, sanity. Choose the type you prefer. Happy searching!
