Any time you take on a new account one of your first considerations is what keywords to target. Your homepage will most likely go after high competition terms, but you also need to think about the easy wins. These are terms that may not have great search volume, but are easy to make some headway in.
A great way to make this even more effective is by targeting terms that will eventually have high search traffic. These terms will be easy to rank for, because they’re not yet highly trafficked. Plus, this makes it easier to maintain a competitive position for the future.
Yeah, that’s great and all, but how do I predict that?
If you’re doing things right, you’re keeping up on industry related news for your client. Since you’re likely not an expert in their niche, there’s going to be terminology and news you’re unfamiliar with. Anytime that happens, do a quick search on Google Insights. If you notice New traffic or an upward trend, you may have found a gem.
Here’s an example of a term that only recently gained search traffic:
And here’s one trending upwards:
Finding What Terms to Target
After you’ve spotted a potential keyword target, take a look at Google’s SK Tool. Not only will this show you search volume, it’ll also show you varying keywords around the same topic. You wanna find keywords like these (exact match results):
Now sure, these aren’t crazy high search volume numbers, but the competition is very low and it has an upward trend. These don’t come by very often, so when they do you should pounce on the opportunity to target some of that traffic.
Make That Content!
First things first… Making awesome content does not mean running a blog. There’s been a lot of criticism (and for good reason) on the “Making great content” SEO strategy. However, this needs to stop being compared to the success OK Cupid achieved with their blog. There are lots of other ways to create great content.
For example, if you create a clean and organized resources page for lots of content revolving around a particular topic, you can get some great traffic (and links!).
It’s also cleaner to spin out calls to action within a content resource than from a blog. You don’t risk ruining the voice of your blog or sounding salesy.
Conclusion
This is one of many ways you can find fresh ideas for content. Sure, it’s great to rank well for those high traffic two word terms, but make sure you’re not focusing all your energy on one of the many things your website needs.
Hope I gave you all some ideas!
