
People who have been money blogging for years know that 90% of traffic is generated from 10% of your blog posts. Simply but, only a very few amount of posts are responsible for bringing in the maximum amount of traffic from the search engine.
At some point, you would’ve wondered why these particular posts are generating heavy traffic. The answer to this question is, you have done something correct when writing these blog posts. And that are Keywords for SEO.
Some of your posts might have appeared on search engines first page, and got ranked high for keywords that are searched by users in abundance.
The next main question is; who is responsible for ranking your posts?
The answer is simple, a machine also known as an algorithm is searching for particular signals to rank your content.
The term “ranking” means the order of the posts that are present in a search engine’s results page (SERP).
To check your ranking, you can visit SEMrush website and write your website URL and check which keyword is giving you a ranking.
Let’s now contemplate the important terms related to keyword ranking in SEO:
Table of Contents
Keyword
This specific phrase is generating traffic to a particular UR. In SEO, we usually target this phrase, which is why it’s called a “target keyword”.
Pos
Pos is actually position and it is the keyword’s ranking in Google search engine. If the Pos is number 2, then it means that Google will be showing it as second result. Your keyword should have a Pos 1 to 10 so it can be shown on Google’s first page.
Volume
This gives an overall estimate of the number of people searching for a certain keyword in the current month. This is extremely important, because if you feel that this search term is famous, Google will tell you a different story. This example will clarify what we are talking about. Below are two keywords, a bit similar looking but has a significant difference in volume.
professional web design had 590 searches per month
web design and development had 1,000 searches per month.
Short Tail Keywords
These keywords consist of 1-3 words for example lose weight, make money online etc.
Long Tail Keywords
These keywords are much longer; more than three words and are very specific, for example How to get professional website for your company etc.
Note: All kinds of phrases and words are taken as “keywords” if they have a good number of monthly searches (volume)
Long tail keywords tend to generate more traffic and the probability of getting a first page rank becomes much easier, all of these factors then make it more profitable.
The significance of keywords for SEO
When a blog post or a page is getting “SEO-optimized” we have the liberty to choose the target keyword. This keyword is called Meta_keyword.
It was essential to specify Meta keywords in 2012, but in recent years its importance has dropped significantly. This change is due to the transformation of search engines, as they have become extremely smart and can rank pages and detect keywords automatically.
Google has let its users know they do not take Meta keywords in consideration, when picking a certain keyword.
This article will have some Meta keywords like SEO, keyword tips etc.
If somebody is searching “keyword tips” he would visit this page, and if he doesn’t find it useful and leaves immediately, then the bounce rate tends to increase. This is bad news for a blogger.
From now onward, if someone says Meta keywords are important, you can safely ignore them.
How to Begin Keyword Research
Discovering the right keyword for your blog post is called keyword research. This procedure becomes very crucial if you want your website to grow in less time and generate good money. There are multiple ways to look for keywords, these are:

Find Keywords with SEMrush:
This online tool is good for finding keywords and checking which keyword is ranking for your website. It also permits you to keep an eye on your opponent.
It is always a good practice to start from famous blogs written in your niche. Use SEMrush to check which keywords are ranking for them. Then all you need to do is create interesting good quality content revolving around those particular keywords.
SEMrush is a paid tool, they also offer a 15 day free trial version which is worth $99 .95 per month.
Find Keywords with Google Search:
Google Search can also be used to look for target keywords.
When you start typing a search query, Google also provides the option of auto-suggest. An abundance of keywords can be created through this technique. Now you can use Google’s Keyword Planner or SEMrush to find out the search volume of those particular keywords.
Additional Keyword Tools:
- LongTailPro: This tool is good for discovering long tail keywords in any topic.
- Keyword Planner: This is an official tool of Google and is free.
- Ahrefs: This is a good substitute to SEMrush and is famous amongst SEO users.
When you discover profitable keywords, you should stop worrying about anything else and just focus upon writing an SEO-optimized article for the intended target keywords.
Keyword Density and Keyword Placement
Keyword density is quite hard to understand.
Articles present on Wikipedia are a good source of information on the calculation of keyword density. If you are writing an article, you should be maintaining a set percentage of keyword density. When the algorithms are sifting through your page, they can easily figure out the ranking of each page looking at the keyword density.
It is important to do keyword targeting but refrain from keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing refers to the overuse of target keywords in a single blog post. This gives your post a negative image and can lower your ranking.
Many people have different opinions on keyword density, but your main aim should be to include only 2% of the article. I personally try to include only 1-1.5% of keyword density in my posts.
Some other related terms should also be written in your article, besides main keywords like LSI keywords.
Blog post are not limited to one target keyword, more than one can also be targeted. Ideally, you should keep it within three, because if you are writing a good quality article, then you are also being ranked for long tail keywords.
Always steer clear from stuffing keywords!
What harm can keyword stuffing do?
When you overuse keywords, Google bots gets notified that you are trying to spam your post by including irrelevant keywords. Google does not like this activity and thinks you are deceiving the system.
So be careful, and use a certain number of keywords. This rule has become strict after the Google Panda update in 2011. All unnatural SEO activity gives a bad impression to the website.
Meta titles, headings and Meta descriptions:
Now you know the trick to find the perfect keyword. Moving on to the next step; writing good content. The title of your article also becomes the title shown in the search engine (Meta title).
A description can also be written for the users if they see your website in a search engine (Meta description). If you come up with an appropriate Meta description, this will give additional information to the search engine bots. I would also advise you to include keywords in the Meta description.
Meta descriptions and Meta titles can be written with the help of SEO plugin for example Yoast SEO.
Make your articles SEO-friendly through the use of H2 and H3 tag. The title of the post becomes your H1 tag automatically. With that said, don’t stuff heading tags, because they can also lower your rankings.
Useful SEO tip:
Avoid including numbers in your permalink, because if you want to write extra content in your post, that permalink will become invalid. For example (yourdomain.com/4-ways-to-boost-website-ranking), if at any point you wish to add an extra point (yourdomain.com/5-ways-to-boost-website-ranking) then this permalink automatically becomes inaccurate.
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