How To Choose The Right Search Phrases For Google
Often when people learn that they need SEO for their website they have no idea what to target in Google. In my experience this takes 30 minutes minimum to discuss over the phone and can take up to 45 minutes – based on my experience with in-house SEO training.
Some people call Google search phrases “keywords” or “key phrases”, there’s also “target phrases”.
However you describe your target traffic search phrases here’s how to begin.
SEO work or training cannot start without key phrases and it’s common for an SEO quote be only for the work and tasks to carry out, without a personal 1-2-1 discussion about how to make money in Google by agreeing on the search phrases beforehand.
It’s one thing to pay $5 for a keyword suggestion spreadsheet from someone online, but in the end that’s all you get, just a spreadsheet with the keywords and an invoice, very impersonal don’t you think?
Search Phrase Tips
Websites with a high number of internal pages with lots of content will always rank better than a website with the same amount of pages with little to zero words per page.
Research the size of a website by using this formula:
site:https://seolady.co.uk
How Many Pages Do I Need?
Answer: As many as possible
Using the site: formula in front of any domain, Google will tell you how many pages the website has.
Google won’t rank a website to Page 1 UK Nationwide, or globally with less than 200 pages.
Search Term Case Study
When my website was live in 2008, I wanted to target the following search phrases:- SEO Weston-super-Mare
- SEO Somerset
- SEO Bristol
The competitiveness of ranking in a city when other websites have been using SEO for years before you is a big challengeSo, you need to aim big and start small. Take the low hanging fruit, target smaller areas that other people may not mention on their websites, so I created tags and categories in my “Somerset SEO” blog posts and named smaller villages for very easy ranking results in a matter of days.
Search Term Evolution – SEO Training
In 2010 the majority of client enquiries was for SEO Training, so I began to target
- SEO Training Weston-super-Mare
- SEO Training Somerset
- SEO Training Bristol
Same results again, Google page 1 easy for Weston-super-Mare and Somerset, but Bristol was zero Google ranking. A very competitive city with other Digital Marketing websites having been established for years before my company.
Search Term Evolution – Consultant
4 or 5 years later I decided to target “SEO Consultant” in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset and Bristol.
Same results yet again, super easy to rank locally and regionally, but Bristol city seemed out of reach.
So the keyword “Consultant” was very competitive.
SEO Freelancer UK
This only took 2 years of specifically targeting “Freelancer” and UK Nationwide instead of Bristol.
Unexpected SEO Ranking for Bristol
In 2017 I finally threw in the towel targeting Bristol. Maybe people wanted to meet in person. Sure, I worked for a few Bristol businesses, but they chose me because my hourly rate was low back then.
I kept on plugging “SEO Freelancer” in every blog post, every ALT tag and every article tag and category, then one day… BOOM
Google page 1, position 1 for SEO Freelancer UK
The unexpected SEO result of targeting Bristol over the years had finally reaped the ranking benefits in search engines.
- SEO Freelancer UK
- SEO Freelancer Bristol
- SEO Freelance Consultant UK
85% of traffic goes to the top 3 results on Google page 1. Here’s my data to further illustrate my case study – When I was Google page 1, position 10 for “SEO Freelancer UK” on average I would get 1 new business enquiry a week. As soon as I hit the top of Google, on average I am contacted by 10 people a week.
At this point I had been targeting my own search phrases and worked through the evolution of my blog targeting for 10 years. Read more about my Business Evolution since 2008.
The Evolution and Tenacity of Chasing The Money Search Phrases
Never give up, always keep going. Nowadays I blog once a month, or take an old blog post from 10 years ago, refresh it and bring it up to date. Search Engines (Bing, Google Yahoo etc) adore fresh content, and content which is thousands of words long – Skyscraper Content – so if you want to Hire an SEO Copywriter get in touch today, or Book A Telephone Call Online using my website diary.
Freelance SEO UK – Hire Me For An Hour
My keyword discussion is service combines SEO tools plus the human element based on logic and how you are going to make the most money and profit.
► 60 minutes of my time in total (15 minute audit and 45 minutes discussion)
► Allowing me access to your Google accounts so I can see your data
► Looking at your data I can audit and determine how to help and formulate points for discussion
► I will create a Google Drive cloud document so we can both view/edit at the same time
► Please tell me what you want to achieve – More enquiries? More online sales to your ecommerce store?
► Analysis of visitor data
► Keywords discussion based on your initial ideas plus competitor research
► Consultation over the phone or Skype video chat discussing your goals
Benchmark Search Phrases Before SEO work Starts
You need to track your ranking progress, so use Chrome Incognito to research your Google positions before you write a new blog post or internal web page.
Check your current rankings and add to a spreadsheet, then after work has been carried out you can see what changes have happened to your Google rankings.
70 Free SEO Tools from AHREFs
In this post, I’ve consolidated the suggestions and split them into three categories:
- 15 well-known free SEO tools;
- 38 lesser-known free SEO tools;
- 19 “freemium” SEO tools
I’ve also included a few of my own favourite tools along with suggestions from our customers.
Click here to read the list of FREE SEO tools by Ahrefs.
FREE Google Analytics Audit
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