How do you research and prioritize keywords for SEO?

Keywords play a central role in any effective organic search strategy. The semantic choices you make can be the difference between two sites that offer the same product or the same service.

Here are our tips for researching and prioritizing keywords as part of your SEO strategy.

Keywords: essential for organic search

What are keywords?

A keyword is a word or group of words that matches the queries people type into search engines. Keyword optimization is crucial if you want to improve your rankings.

Take Decathlon, which, through the work done with Semji, reached first position on the query “reprendre la course à pied.” So if someone types that query into Google’s search bar (a query any sports-equipment retailer can work), Decathlon will appear at the top of the results. Targeting the right terms therefore increases your visibility and your ranking in search engines.

The term “keyword” is part of the jargon of SEO experts. To build organic search strategies, they use people’s search queries and place them in site content. Those queries then become keywords.

Optimizing organic search with keywords

The first step in an organic search strategy is choosing keywords. This step is crucial because keywords are what let a user find the page that matches their query among billions of other web pages.

Despite appearances, this step is far from the simplest. Keyword choice has to follow two essential rules:

• The chosen keyword must be searched by users;

• The keyword must not be too competitive relative to what you can actually take on.

The most generic keywords are the ones users search for most. It is therefore strategic for a brand to appear in first position on those queries.

Generic keywords can become very competitive, though. That happens when every brand in the market puts SEO effort into those terms in order to take first place on the results pages.

If you choose to optimize your site for a rarely searched keyword, you may have a better chance of ranking well, but your work will bring little visibility.

Conversely, if you choose to rank on a highly searched keyword, you risk facing many competitors. Patience and effort will therefore be needed to reach the first pages of Google on the target query.

For those two reasons, the keywords you choose must have a competition level that is acceptable relative to the size of your site, your ambitions on the market, and the resources you want to put into this search strategy.

It is therefore essential to run a prior analysis so you can identify the right keywords for your site.

How do you find the right keywords for your website?

A semantic audit to find the right keywords

This long analysis can take the form of a semantic audit. It can be based on your existing site, or on a competitor that already ranks well in search engines.

In that case, the SEO consultant takes stock of the keywords the competitor’s content already ranks for. This step aims to determine whether those are strategic keywords and whether they are the most representative of the site’s activity or products.

If they are not, the consultant needs to move to a research phase for new keywords in the same topic, so the content can be better optimized and rank on queries with stronger potential for the site’s visibility.

A semantic audit can also be run for a new site. In that case, the SEO expert will identify the best keywords so the site can be seen by the intended users.

A comparative study of the site’s different competitors helps identify those keywords. To do that, the SEO expert can rely on online tools such as Semji, which identifies, on chosen queries, the strongest content from a technical point of view.

The semantic audit then makes it possible to start from a solid base and put an effective organic search strategy in place.

Semji tip: the Content Ideas module

Want to rank on keywords without wasting time?

With Content Ideas, get a wide set of topics to cover in one click, so you can become the reference site for your audience and for Google.

Semji lets you analyze:

• The keywords used by the best-ranked sites;

• Search volumes;

• Performance, so you can determine the strategic keywords to include in the site’s content.

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5 online keyword generator tools

Several online tools can help you build your SEO strategy and run a semantic analysis of your content. To help you, Semji has listed the top 5 best-known of these tools:

• Google Keyword Planner: this Google tool is the reference for finding new keywords and phrases to target in your SEO and SEA campaigns. When you enter a term or a search phrase, it generates related keyword suggestions and provides valuable data on monthly search volumes and trends.

• WordStream: this tool lets you partially analyze the content of your web pages and assess your current SEO performance. In its free version, it generates a list of relevant keywords based on the industry you enter. Useful for inspiration, but the paid version is needed for advanced features.

• UberSuggest: thanks to its simple interface, Ubersuggest can generate hundreds of keyword suggestions from a given term or phrase. The tool is fully free and unlimited. Data such as search volume, trend, and competition level make it easy to filter keywords.

• Keyword Tool: this free tool positions itself as an effective alternative to Google Keyword Planner. It excels at long-tail keyword research, which is important but less competitive. It works from Google’s search suggestions to generate ideas.

• Seoquantum: a powerful paid semantic-analysis tool for SEO and content professionals. It lets you analyze your pages and texts in detail to detect possible optimizations. It is also useful for enriching your content with new optimized keywords.

What are long-tail keywords?

The long tail was first conceptualized in 2004 by Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson. He used the term for analyses of ecommerce sales from retailers such as Amazon. Those ideas were later applied to SEO.

The takeaway: keywords with high search-volume potential actually bring fewer users to a website than “long-tail” keywords.

The long tail therefore designates the set of low-volume keywords that, taken together, represent a very large share of a site’s traffic. Long-tail keywords are specific search queries, usually made up of three words or more. They are characterized by relatively low search volumes. Do not underestimate them, though. They have strategic importance in SEO. Even if each long-tail keyword is searched less often on its own, their sum represents a considerable share of overall searches.

These keywords have the advantage of often being less competitive and of attracting more qualified traffic to your site. Users who run long-tail queries are generally further along in their research or buying process, which can lead to higher conversion rates.

The short tail, or head of the long tail

The short tail, also called the head of the long tail, refers to the most popular and most searched keywords, usually made up of one or two terms. These keywords attract a high volume of traffic, but they are also extremely competitive.

When people talk about short-tail keywords, they usually mean generic, broad terms such as “running shoes.” These keywords are attractive because they have the potential to attract a large number of users. They also present challenges, though, especially in terms of SEO competition.

Ranking on these keywords can prove difficult, particularly for new websites or small businesses that cannot compete with large brands already established in their sector. It is therefore essential to assess the potential and the competition of these keywords before deciding to target them in your SEO strategy.

In addition, although they generate a large volume of traffic, short-tail keywords do not necessarily guarantee a high conversion rate. The search queries associated with these keywords are often very general and may not match your site’s offer or content exactly.

It is therefore better to use them alongside long-tail keywords, which attract more qualified traffic.

How do you estimate the difficulty of a keyword?

You have now identified the keyword ideas that look perfect for your topic. That is not enough, though. You now need to evaluate how hard it will be for your site to rank on that query.

Take the number of results into account

To get a sense of the competition, the first reflex is to check how many sites appear in the results for that search. To do that, type your keyword into Google’s search bar and look at the number of results shown.

Many SEOs agree that beyond 500,000 results, it is very hard to rank well. Nothing is impossible, but it will take time, work, and resources. With this method, you can see that it is extremely difficult, with the keyword “running shoes” and its 200,000,000 results, to rank on the first page of the SERP.

Estimate user interest in the keyword

To evaluate the relevance of a keyword, you need to inspect how users behave toward it. That will also give you a better knowledge of your audience.

The goal of this approach is to adapt your vocabulary to your public (the users and visitors of your website). In this context, you will need to mix SEO practices and content strategy. In other words, establish your persona, and predefine a list of keywords based on that.

A few questions to guide this thinking:

• What are the needs of your (future) audience?

• What are their consumption habits?

• What age range are they in?

• What is their level of maturity?

• What is their language level?

Look at the competition on your keywords

Sitting at the top of the SERP delivers a high click-through rate. According to a study by Sistrix, position 1 in the SERP records 28.5% of clicks, versus 15.7% for second and 11% for third. Before you hope to reach those places, you first need to estimate whether that is possible for your site.

Monitoring the competition on your keywords is a key step for refining your SEO strategy. This work helps you understand which terms your competitors rank for and how they optimize their content.

To do that, you need a detailed analysis of the keywords your competitors use. By studying that data, you can identify keyword opportunities you might not have thought of for your audience, and also evaluate how hard it will be to rank on those terms. It is also useful to look at competition metrics. They give you an estimate of the competition level on a given keyword.

Finally, remember that competitor analysis should be a source of inspiration, not a copy of their strategy. Your goal is to create unique, high-value, quality content that answers your audience’s expectations.

Semji tip: the Position Tracking module

Get an overview of your SEO performance in a single rank-tracking tool with Semji. Our Position Tracking solution will help you steer your online presence effectively. Watch how your ranking evolves for each strategic keyword, improve your results over time by tracking your positions, and react faster to search-engine algorithm changes.

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Analyze the content of sites in the top 10

To analyze the content of sites ranked in the top 10, several tools and techniques can be used.

• Content-quality analysis: examining the relevance, quality, and length of the content on well-ranked sites can give you an idea of what Google values for a specific keyword. With this competitive analysis, you can understand how they reached the top of the ranking. Look at the keywords they used, where they placed them in their content, and how often they are used.

• Backlink analysis: a netlinking expert or an SEO specialist such as Semji can analyze your site’s backlinks. A site with a large number of quality backlinks is generally hard to unseat, but it is still possible to become more competitive.

• On-page metrics review: this means analyzing title tags, meta descriptions, keyword use in the content, URL structure, and more.

• User-experience analysis: take into account elements such as site load speed, mobile navigation, ease of use, and so on. These parameters are essential for retaining potential customers.

Remember that each keyword is unique and needs a thorough analysis to understand the factors that influence its ranking.

How do you place keywords on your site?

One page = one query

To maximize the effectiveness of your organic search, it is essential to adopt the “one page = one query” rule. This rule suggests that each page of your site should be dedicated to a specific query or set of keywords.

By following this rule, you will make your work on words more effective and keep your keywords relevant. That helps Google better understand the topic of each page.

For effective practice:

• Determine the main topic of each page of your site. It can be a product, a service, a topic, or a question your target audience asks often.

• Identify the relevant keywords for each topic. Use SEO tools such as Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to find high-potential keywords.

• Optimize the content of each page with those keywords. They should appear in titles, subtitles, the body of the text, and the metadata.

In short, each page of your site should be a precise answer to a specific user query.

Stay natural

Optimizing a web page has to be done with common sense. Remember that the goal is for your page to be read by people, or for your product to be bought. You will therefore gain by choosing words with relevance, without falling into over-optimization. That practice is also penalized by Google’s filters. So avoid:

• Inserting your keywords on every line;

• Putting a strong tag on every word;

• Sacrificing writing quality for SEO optimization.

Keyword insertion should be done naturally. If, when you read it, you find that your text is heavy because of the many keywords, rewrite it. Follow your instinct and write to please your readers.

The title tag

The title tag is an essential element of organic search. It should contain the main keyword of your query and should be written in a way that attracts users’ attention.

The title tag should be readable and of real interest to the user. What is not relevant for a human will not be relevant for Google. Listing a series of keywords in the title tag is therefore something to avoid, because it could be considered spam.

To write an effective title tag, here are a few key steps:

• Find a primary keyword to target;

• Find the long-tail keywords of your main keyword;

• Determine what is unique about your content and put that forward.

It is also advisable to place the most strategic keywords of your content at the beginning of the tag, while keeping the title fluid.

Finally, make sure you stay within an ideal title length, between 60 and 70 characters, so it is not truncated in the search results.

Hn tags

Hn tags correspond to the titles and subtitles in the content of web pages.

• The H1 tag corresponds to the main and unique title of the page. Different from the title tag, it still acts as the official title and announces the topic.

• The H2 tag corresponds to the first subtitle. It announces a sub-part of the topic and is generally used to break up, space out, and smooth your content.

• 6 other heading levels let you structure your content.

Hn tags make your content easier to read for users and also tell Google what information is in your text. If Google spots “running shoes” in your H1, it will know that you cover that topic on this page.

So by inserting your keywords in Hn tags, you help the engine rank you on the right queries.

Images

Images can (and should) also be optimized for organic search. You will also score points with search-engine algorithms by including your keywords in alt tags (meant to describe your images).

It is recommended to avoid repetitions, though, so you do not trigger a penalty. The tip: stay natural and transparent by providing, first and foremost, a description of the image. You therefore need to find the right mix between description and optimization.

The meta description tag

The meta description tag is a summary of a website page that, as the saying goes, should not exceed 160 characters.

The meta description tag has two main goals:

• Offer a preview of the page’s content to search engines

• Encourage users to click on your page in the search results.

It also has an impact on users’ click-through rate. For that reason, it is important that it answers user intent. It should therefore be concise, relevant, and attractive. To do that, you can include your main keywords naturally and offer a call to action to encourage the click.

It is essential, though, not to overload this tag with keywords, or you risk being penalized by Google. Your meta description tag should first offer a precise, attractive description of your page for users.

The content

After looking at your tags, search-engine algorithms inspect the presence of key phrases in your site’s content. It is therefore necessary (even if it seems obvious) to insert your keywords in your text.

To optimize keyword placement and produce quality content, several principles should be followed. It is recommended to insert your main keyword in the first two sentences of your content, or at least in the first paragraph. Then use that keyword and its variants throughout the content.

The position of keywords is also crucial. Strategic keywords should be placed as close as possible to the site root in the page URL. They should also appear in the page title, preferably at the beginning to give them more weight.

It is important to note that keyword placement should be done in a strategic, balanced way to avoid over-optimization, which search engines could penalize.

Semji tip: the Atomic Content module

Semji’s Atomic Content solution changes SEO content creation. In one click, our premium writing AI drafts complete, relevant, publish-ready texts to improve the ranking of your pages.

Semji’s AI goes beyond simple keyword detection. It produces quality content that matches what search engines expect.

Easily integrate these AI-written texts to boost your visibility and traffic, without the extra work.

Ask us for a demo!