You strongly believe in the power of an Inbound Marketing strategy, which is why you are passionate about developing content for your web platforms. You now need to justify your efforts, which is why following your keyword positions on search engines is your new challenge.
What Is Keyword Positioning?
In SEO, the keyword is the point of contact between your site and the user. It is the word that the user uses in his search on Google, and it is then by it that your site will become visible: the objective of tracking keywords is to identify the best keywords to use, to finally get more visibility.
1 query = 1 keyword: the challenge is to be at the top of the ranking, thanks to a page dedicated to the keyword, in the form of editorial content.
One of the main tasks of a marketing manager is to know this classification, to follow the position of the keywords that he has identified himself through a preliminary search of the keywords to use in his site. This follow – up checks that the ranking is good for the targeted keywords, in short, that you made the right choices and that your work paid off!
Before you start, you need to know your goal
Before you start tracking keywords, it’s better to know which keywords you want to appear on. Without a targeted objective, follow-up is meaningless and impossible to interpret.
On an Excel table, formalize your conversion tunnel:
Ask 10 keywords specific to top-of-funnel, corresponding to the first phase, the awareness phase, in which the target learns.
Then ask 10 keywords that could correspond to the second phase, middle-of-funnel, that of consideration, which captures the interest.
Finally, establish the 5 keywords that characterize the bottom-of-funnel phase, where decision-making takes place. At this level, the number of keywords is reduced, because the user searches for fewer terms, and focuses his search more on a brand name.
You can then organize your entire follow-up from this table so that the results are clear and factual. Take the opportunity to present your methods within your company, and give the keys to all the work of the marketing team: we don’t always understand your work, make it easy to access. This is the best way to avoid misunderstandings and possibly unjustified reproaches from your colleagues typing X keywords on search engines.
Tools to make your life easier
Free or paid, there are many online tools to track your keyword positioning.
Google Seach Console, SEMRush, Outrankio they give an overview of the search keywords, their positions, their trends and the levels of competition. They also provide keyword ideas, click potential, and, depending on features, allow tracking planning.
Once you have the right tool, you have to apply the right method :
Tracking keywords that generate traffic
Whatever the tool, the method remains the same. The first step is to indicate the URL of your web site – or the site you want to analyze. The tool then publishes the set of keywords that attract traffic to the site and reports their position.
So we can know which pages are most visible, information more than valuable for our analysis.
Keywords are often seen in the first places, even though they were not planned! They trust visibility. It’s all about taking a step back and understanding what happened. Did the backlinks in the article help to boost the ranking?
The keyword tracking method will allow you to quickly understand the results of your efforts, and how to progress. SEO remains a nebula for many people: the keyword tracking method will give you expertise, to be a true conductor. Do you have any tips ? Give us your advice in the comments, they can refine the article and help a maximum of interested!
Very generic keywords
Very generic keywords related to your field of activity: these key expressions, which usually contain only one or two words, are widely used in everyday language and are therefore very often searched. This is an element to take into account, as these keywords require in most cases high bids in order to appear on the first page of results.
Well-positioned on these keywords, the ads generate a lot of traffic and increase their visibility by associating their brand with generic requests. But watch your budget!
Very specific keywords
Very specific keywords, very precise and corresponding to the products or the theme of your site (models, references, typology…). These expressions, often composed of 2 or more words, are less often typed by internet users in search engines.
They will bring less volume, but they will be cheaper than generics, and will probably be profitable. When you expand your list of specific keywords, it is said that you are working on your “Long tail”.
Keywords and brand
Keywords of your brand: known variations, spelling mistakes, “product + brand” associations, etc…
But choosing the right keywords is not enough. It is necessary to organize these keywords correctly in ad groups. These ad groups usually represent the different themes or products of your campaign.
Distribution of keywords
To define the distribution of keywords, you have to think in terms of ads: since we saw that an ad was linked to an ad group, you have to gather in an ad group only keywords that correspond to the ad you intend to write.
If the announcement is very general, the distribution of keywords will be of little importance. But in general, you need to target your ad as much as possible to improve your click rate. So we need to think about a more complex separation of your keywords. We will study the writing of the announcements in more detail in the dedicated chapter.
