Few digital marketing strategies are as impactful as search engine optimization (SEO). It helps companies continually attract new leads with a single piece of evergreen content. That’s why high-volume SEO keywords like "home remodelers" have gotten so competitive.
As a growing business, SEO success looks very different today than in the early days of the internet. High-impact keywords have become increasingly important. These are terms that lead searches on Google, which show intent to perform a specific action.
Using high-impact keywords effectively could be the key to unlocking your broader SEO strategy, as they're easier to rank for while still bringing valuable leads to your business. This article will explain further and help you get started.
Understanding Your Niche
High-impact keywords help businesses reach leads in specific phases of the buyer’s journey. For example, someone might Google, “Buy pet food near me.” That shows intent to make an immediate purchase from a local store.
Someone else might Google “Top CRM platforms of 2024.” This shows intent to compare options before making a purchasing decision.
When you understand intent, you can create more effective content. In the pet food example, you might publish a blog sharing the types of food you sell in your geographic area. In the CRM example, you might write a product comparison blog and subtly position your solution as the best.
To do any of this, you need to understand your market niche well. If you don’t understand customer pain points, for example, how can you create content that shows how your products address them? The same is true of your customers' needs and interests. You have to start with a clear understanding of them to find and target the right high-impact keywords.
For instance, if you sell pet food through local stores, you would consider who buys your products and what they care about when making purchasing decisions. Maybe it's sustainability. If so, it would be smart to target a high-impact keyword like "sustainably-made dog food in [your city]."
Tools for Keyword Research
Thankfully, you’re not on your own with this research. There are tons of tools out there to help you find high-impact keywords in your niche. Some popular examples include:
The process is pretty simple. For example, if you wanted to research a new high-impact keyword on Ahrefs, it might go something like this:
- Log into your account and search for a keyword you want to target
- Review results to see how competitive the keyword is and to find other suggestions based on it
- Repeat this process until you find your next high-impact keyword
- Create content that features that keyword prominently
- Post it on your site, track KPIs, and adjust, if necessary
Combining multiple tools can help you get more done faster. For example, you could use Ahrefs to find your new high-impact keyword and Surfer SEO to determine how to make content based on it.
Just note that many of these tools cost money to use — often a monthly subscription fee. However, there are free alternatives available, even if they aren’t quite as helpful.
Analyzing Keyword Competition
What does it mean to “compete” for a keyword? Essentially, it’s when more than one company tries to rank on Google for the same term. If you and a competitor write blogs targeting the same high-impact keyword, you compete to see who ranks higher. The result will be based on factors like technical SEO and content quality.
But what if hundreds or thousands of companies compete for the same term? It would be very difficult to rank for it without a large budget. You’d be better off targeting a phrase that’s relevant to your niche but has less competition.
That’s where the concept of “long-tail keywords” comes into play. These are longer phrases — often made up of three or more terms.
Because long-tail keywords are more specific, they tend to have less competition. But they can also show really specific types of intent. That makes them great SEO targets for growing businesses.
Content Relevance and User Intent
Finding high-impact keywords is only the first step. You still need to create content around them that people want to read. That means writing blogs that align with the intent shown in the keywords you target.
Intent can be:
- Informational: Trying to learn more about something
- Navigational: Trying to get somewhere or find something
- Transactional: Trying to buy something
The content you create for each type of intent differs. For instance, if a keyword shows informational intent, the content you build for it should provide the information the user seeks. If it doesn’t, your bounce rate will be high, and your SEO performance will likely suffer.
Monitoring and Adjusting Your Keyword Strategy
The last critical step is monitoring your performance over time. Otherwise, you won’t know which strategies are generating the best results.
There are tons of metrics that can be useful here, including:
- Keyword rankings: to measure keyword-specific performance against competitors
- Organic traffic: to track whether visitors are up or down overall
- Bounce rate: to see what percentage of people click on your link but leave your site without engaging
- Domain authority: to assess the trustworthiness of your website for SEO purposes
- Conversion rates: to see how often a piece of content ends with a purchase
Every metric tells a different story, and your goals will impact the ones you should track. For instance, you would want to pay close attention to bounce rates when measuring the effectiveness of your SEO content. But organic visitors would be a more useful metric if you just want to see trends in overall site traffic.
Most companies track more than one metric to get a big-picture understanding of their SEO performance. This puts data into context, helping leaders make more informed decisions.
Save Time and Money on SEO With Pyromaniac Digital
Let’s be honest — SEO is tough. Learning how to leverage high-impact keywords to achieve your goals is only part of a broader strategy. If you really want to beat out the competition, you may need to spend more time on SEO than you can afford to lose.
That’s why Pyromaniac Digital exists. We simplify SEO with our ready-made digital marketing packages. We’ll help you take advantage of these SEO strategies without having to do all the work yourself.
Talk with one of our digital marketing experts at Pyromaniac Digital today to learn more about how we can help.
