How to Make Your Chosen Keywords Work in Your Favor to Boost Rankings in Search Results

If you choose the right keywords, you can expect that the page would rank for those keywords, but still, you might not be happy. Although it may sound surprising, this is the ground reality because SEO and search engines do not work in the way we want.  Although the page has ranked, you are not happy because the keywords that the search engine has used are not the ones that you want. You might prefer some keywords for pages to rank, but unfortunately, it does not happen that way. To get things done your way, you must send the right signals to search engines so that it picks up the preferred keywords, but this can be quite challenging. Moreover, this challenging task often gets complicated due to issues of over-optimization.

Since there are no limits on how much to do in search engine optimization, it is often difficult to draw a line between optimization and over optimization.  The line between the two is so thin that it often vanishes and we end up in doing too many unnecessary things that only burden the process without giving any results. The experts at a digital marketing agency can tell you how much is just optimal for getting the results because doing anything in excess can have detrimental effects on rankings. In this article, we will explore the best ways of optimizing a page for a particular keyword so that search engines pick it up unfailingly.

Know your starting point

Before you begin the process of optimization for the selected keywords, you must know from where to start. Your current rank in search results becomes the starting point so that you can measure the progress with respect to it. It is better to use a rank tracking tool for determining the ranks although you can do it manually that takes longer time.

Be flexible and know the variations

Do not be rigidly sticking to the keywords you have in mind but always be flexible to work around it. It is necessary to stay as close as possible to the target by avoiding too much competition that can throw you out of the ring. May be the keyword of your choice faces intense competition from bigger companies, and you stand no chance to put up a fight for it. Instead of quitting the scene, be prepared with some other variations of the keyword that can derive mileage in search results. Conduct keyword research by using Google keyword tool to find out long tail keywords and figure out the competition for those keywords. You also come to know the difficulty level of your keywords and the available options.

Set realistic expectations

By doing keyword research, you can set realistic expectations, as you can look deeper into the keywords to discover its potential from various angles and judge the competition. You might be happy that the keyword you have chosen drives high traffic, but then it would invite intense competition also that you must be able to withstand. In the next step, use the keyword to analyze the quality of websites that show up in the top 10 of the search results. Gather information about the authority that the sites demonstrate and see whether the ranking includes a particular page or domain. Compare the quality of content with yours and gather as much information about the websites as possible.

The purpose of the exercise is to be ready to accept an alternative to the keyword that you have selected because it would be easier to rank for something that is more realistic. After all, ranking with an eye on staying nearest to the selected keyword should be the right approach.

Removing roadblocks

When you face too much competition for the chosen keyword, move away to the long tail keywords and adapt proper page optimization techniques that show you the way ahead. Since you already have a list of long tail keywords gathered from keyword research, pick up keywords that have low competition but high traffic. It is true that traffic flow to long tail keywords is less than primary keywords, but this is a realistic solution rather than hitting the wall with the preferred keyword that throws you out of the competition. The secret of success is to accept that something is better than nothing because the move pays off as you notice an improvement in rankings.

Look at on page SEO

Now that you have set your foot on the ground and know what to expect in real life, you can turn to the following aspects of on page SEO.

• Include the keyword or its variations in the page titles but do it optimally without stuffing.
• Have a custom description for each page of the website especially the pages that you target for good ranks.
• Ensure that the page has just one set of H1 tags by reviewing your HTML code. Make it a point that H1 tags contain the variations of keyword that you have targeted.
• Create high-quality original content with in-depth analysis and do not forget to include the keyword together with the variations in the content of the page.
• Implement structured data consisting of rich snippets, micro data, and schemas. Although it is not a part of the ranking algorithm but helps better in the understanding of the page content by Google that influences ranking.

Create internal links

Internal linking is essential for SEO. The anchor text on all other pages must contain the variations of the keyword and link it to the targeted page. The pages with most internal links are the crucial pages of the website to which Google gets attracted.

In addition to the above, create pages to target other related keywords and have a link building strategy in place as part of off page SEO. Last but not the least, do not forget to make the best use of the social media. Having done all these, have the patience to let things work in your favor because Google needs time to take notice of your efforts and reward you.