A five-step framework for effective keyword targeting

How to stay focused and coherent throughout all of your keyword research and optimization efforts.

At times, we become too focused on small details, causing us to lose sight of the overall picture. Yet, the challenge with SEO does not lie in the specifics or uncovering unfamiliar keyword targeting and research techniques. However, the key is to be strategic when focusing on your fundamental tasks.

Today, we will attempt to examine keyword targeting (which is crucial for your keyword research) from a different perspective. Ensuring that all your endeavors align with your business objectives and are tailored to the competitive environment in which you operate.

Step 1. Deciding on the funnel stages

The idea of funnel stages is not new to SEOs.

Each potential customer we have is at a different stage of the purchasing process, ranging from suspecting a problem to researching solutions to looking to make a purchase.

However, when it comes to keyword targeting, we primarily utilize this idea to categorize the existing keywords for improved alignment with our content strategy and the overall site organization.

What is often overlooked is that various business objectives align more effectively with specific stages of the funnel. Before starting keyword research, it is important to ask yourself two questions.

A. How do you plan to monetize your SEO traffic?

Based on the way you make money, you may prefer either a broader or more focused range of keywords.

• Advertising – Top funnel keywords
  If you're focusing on getting more views for your advertisements, you should target informational keywords with the highest search volume.

• Affiliate marketing – Mid funnel keywords
  Affiliate marketing primarily involves inserting oneself into the customer's research process, occurring right before the customer makes a purchase decision.

• Ecommerce – Low funnel keywords
  Focusing on a wide variety of products will result in your keyword strategy being primarily focused on keywords indicating a desire to make a purchase soon.

B. Are you limited in budget and resources?

More resources are needed for targeting keywords at the top of the funnel. You must divide your focus among various subjects, resulting in decreased conversion rates.

Therefore, with a significant amount of money set aside, you could aim to reach the top of the funnel with your e-commerce site. Despite limited resources, it is best to concentrate on low-funnel transactional keywords in any type of business.

Step 2. Forming intent-based keyword groups

Intent-driven targeting is not a recent development, but rather a necessary component for ensuring that content is visible for relevant search inquiries.

As Google continued to discuss semantic search, SEOs increasingly pondered how to utilize keywords in light of Google's ability to analyze meanings and context beyond just keywords.

Creating multiple low-quality pages targeting individual keywords was no longer a viable choice. Abandoning keywords completely and focusing solely on generating highly detailed content also didn't work well, as search engines and users continue to depend on keywords.

When it comes to SEO, the most effective strategy for creating content revolves around focusing on keywords with a clear search purpose. In this manner, we provide users with what they genuinely want while also giving search engines signals of relevance.

Step 3. Determining true business potential

When assessing business opportunities, we typically consider search volumes and keyword difficulty to ensure that the keywords we select can attract traffic.

However, upon further inspection, particularly when considering top-of-funnel informational keywords, not all of this traffic holds equal business value and potential for conversion.

It is basic knowledge, reasoning, and gut feeling. I typically categorize my keyword groups as having either "high", "mid", or "low" business value.

Typically, the final category is excluded from the campaign entirely.

Step 4. Identifying best-matching content types

By paying attention, you will definitely see that Google SERPs are not randomly generated.

Have you observed a connection between the category of the search results (such as a tutorial, a news article, a critique) and the type of search query?

Some forms of content appear to align more closely with certain search intent according to Google. This appears to be the most sensible course of action. If you had to choose which outcomes to display on a search engine results page:

• When targeting informational keywords, you would probably choose instructional manuals, visual aids, and explanatory videos.

• Product pages, signup pages, and free consultations are preferred for transactional queries.

• When researching, they seek out comparison pages, tables, and reviews for information.

Nevertheless, depending solely on common sense may result in a misunderstanding due to RankBrain constantly modifying search queries.

Therefore, it is necessary to examine which categories of pages are able to achieve a high ranking for a specific set of keywords. In order to determine the most popular content type on search engine results pages for each intent group on your list.

Step 5. Mapping keywords to content

Before launching a new website, it is crucial to thoroughly review keyword mapping, as it is a critical aspect of the process.

At this point, it is important to make sure that your important keywords are evenly spread throughout the upcoming web pages.

For a website that has existed for a while, the situation is more complex because certain pages may have existing Google rankings. Implementing any changes may result in either negatively impacting your current rankings or causing keyword cannibalization between pages.

Therefore, it is crucial to consider all existing rankings when choosing the perfect keyword map.

And finally

Following that is the process of optimizing every page for the chosen keyword groups. This procedure is bound to take up a significant amount of time (and is certainly deserving of its own article).

However, adhering to this five-step plan and maintaining a strategic and consistent approach from the beginning is what guarantees that the time and resources spent on optimizing content will result in success.