Tips to Rank Higher on Google in 2023 – How to find keywords to Improve Website Ranking for Google, While the digital marketing world is rocked by words like media content, influencer, and social signals, one tiny detail weeps in the corner of our marketing strategy: keywords.
In 2023, search engines are smart and focused on behavioral factors, which is why we sometimes downplay the role of keywords. SEO experts fear over-optimization penalties and struggle to improve site rankings with other tools.
Today, SEO copywriters have to carefully mix keywords in texts to make them appeal to search engines and, more importantly, communicate the value proposition to a live audience.
In this regard, three questions arise:
What are the best next generation keywords to rank for?
What should be their optimal density per content unit?
How to mix them up so that they sound nice to search engines and people?
Table of Contents
5 Tips to Rank Higher on Google in 2023
What is needed for SEO optimization?
Choose keywords that define your market and products, optimize your page for them, and create so many backlinks on this web page that Google and Yandex will evaluate its relevance and honor it on the top line of search results.
Correctly? Well, for a beginner it sounds right. For the experienced – perhaps.
But for SEO professionals, this is not enough: keywords grow, evolve and change every day.
To outperform your competitors and surprise the search engines, you need keywords that are different from the most obvious ones. As you do your keyword research, structure your keywords, and build your SEO tactics, keep these types in mind:
Niche (LSI) keywords
You can hardly argue with the claim that Google Hummingbird – the Hummingbird algorithm – has changed the rules of the game for SEO.
From now on, PSs focus on the context, not the letters.
Simply put, machines have learned to understand a topic based on the analysis of lexical items surrounding keywords. And rank your page for a specific search query.
To help PS do it right, use niche keywords.
Niche words, or LSI words, are semantically related to your main query and allow robots to determine the relationship between terms and concepts in the text of the article.
Let’s say you have a page about the cartoon “Cars”.
How can Google understand what you write there?
LSI words such as “Pixar”, “cartoon”, “premiere” or “review” put everything in its place: the robot understands that it is a well-known Pixar cartoon. If a copywriter uses the words “wheel”, “buy” or “tuning” – automotive topics pop up.
How niche keywords improve website rankings:
• Trust of search engines. Yandex and Google love content with LSI keys because it speaks of your competence in the field. The logic is simple: the more LSI associations you use, the more extensive your knowledge in a particular issue.
• Decreased bounce rate. Search engines better understand the topic of the article, so they will offer it only to the appropriate audience. Everyone wins!
• Increase page view time. People like full and well-structured content, so they will read rather than scroll, spending significantly more time on your website.
• High ranking. By using LSI lexical items, you will begin to rank for a larger set of keywords, and not just your main ones.
• Less spam. Niche keywords help clarify the meaning of the main keywords and avoid ambiguous interpretations of your content.
• Additional links. Industry influencers are more likely to find your page if you have deep and professionally written content.
• Long term benefits. The more compelling content you create with niche keywords, the harder it is for competitors to overtake you in SERPs.
That’s all well and good, but how do you choose which LSI keywords to include in your content?
LSI has little to do with regular keywords.
It requires a rich vocabulary.
Rephrasing the same thing is not an option.
Consider a few tools for writing LSI:
The first and most obvious is Google search. Just type in a suggested keyword in the search bar and see all queries related to it (as shown in the SEO copywriting example above). Then do the same with related queries.
The second tool is the LSI Graph online service, specifically designed for finding LSI copywriting professionals. Insert a keyword and enjoy!
Google confirms: “The more relevant words are used in the content, the more likely your page will rank high.”
This is not about spam, but about working with context for effective marketing results.
When choosing niche words, remember the main thing: do not abuse this tool! Otherwise, re-optimization of the text will lead to the opposite result.
The third tool for matching related search terms is the Google Keyword Planner, which for most of you needs no introduction.
Finally, the fourth is the free online service Ubersuggest. Gifted to us by SEO legend Neil Patel, this service supports all languages, quickly generates related search queries, and shows you the level of competition.
Niche words in your content will help SEO better understand and match it with your target audience. This will lead to an increase in search traffic and its quality. Another nice bonus is a varied vocabulary to overcome the creative crisis and avoid repetition.
To make it easier for search engines to crawl content, LSI copywriters put niche words next to target keywords and include them in headlines.
“Hidden” keywords
Analyzing your competitors and the keywords they use to rank is a great technique. But you can go ahead and start… creating your own keywords that will be exclusive to your project and get you the first SERP line.
These keywords are your business name, product, slogan and related words, as well as user-generated lexical items used in brand searches.
Branding your content will help search engines and people connect with your niche, increase awareness and trust.
User-generated keywords often differ from those offered by software tools. Therefore, including them in the headlines and body of the content allows you to capture all the features that tech-savvy competitors missed.
To find “hidden” keywords, you have to go to the people.
Visit thematic forums and FAQ sections where your target audience randomly and spontaneously discusses the problem. What words do they use? What questions do they ask?
If you’re the author of a unique strategy or technique related to your niche, try launching a brand new term.
Read Also: How to Use Google Trends For Content Marketing
Think back to Brian Dean’s success story with the “skyscraper technique” that is featured in all Western manuals. He coined and pioneered the phrase skyscraper technique, which has evolved into an independent search term that generates traffic and a sea of backlinks.
For dessert, we offer a useful trick from Neil Patel:
• Take a question from the audience.
• Write it verbatim in the subtitle.
• Answer it as simply and clearly as possible.
This is best done in the form of a short walkthrough.
Long tail keywords
These keywords are widely known in the narrow circle of experts as “unpopular” and “very specific search terms”. In fact, they generate tons of traffic and have a significant impact on rankings as they help refine the subject matter of the content.
And this is exactly what Google and Yandex need!
Search algorithms are smart enough to group long-tail keywords into subtopics, making your content more relevant to a particular user.
The problem with tailed keywords:
It’s easy for SEOs to miss them as such queries can have near-zero search volume. Yet 40% of all search traffic is generated by long tails!
It would be wrong to ignore them, right?
What you need to do is change the strategy a little for the sake of Panda and Hummingbird: don’t focus on optimizing for a specific tailed query, but expand on topics around it.
Read Also: 40 SEO Mistakes to Avoid in 2023
The depth of research and the completeness of the disclosure of the topic will allow the PS to associate several keywords with your professional content.
The line Yandex, Google or YouTube will help you find keywords with a long tail.
Popular industry forums – enter “KEY + forum”, “KEY + discussion”, etc.
Influencer name keywords
Why don’t you use the names of industry leaders as your keywords?
Yes, you won’t put them in your home page title tags, but well-known and respected people in your market segment can still help your site rank:
• Mention big names in content
• Quote famous people and link to them
• If possible, include leaders in the title
Authoritative people attract high-quality links with their presence.
Industry leaders drive additional traffic and add value to your site.
Vertical keywords
These are keywords that can be taken from closely related niches, but with a clear connection to your target audience.
The advantage of vertical keywords is that they are related to other industries that do not compete with you, which means they give you more freedom of action.
You can enter into a partnership with sites that do not claim your market.
You will diversify your keyword profile.
You can directly request a link exchange – it’s a win-win situation.
You can target a wider audience, and even build a strong community of like-minded people that has its own SEO benefits.
Vertical keywords are the talent of the storyteller. To make them look natural, you will have to show erudition by publishing equally interesting content for different audiences.
Include these words in subheadings and at the end of articles.
To search for vertical keywords, analyze the profile of business partners.
In addition, you can try the content matrix technique, which is described in detail by American marketers from Orbitmedia.
At the very least, you will know the relevance of key queries for your market.
How it works?
Take the main topic, and use three scales – generalization, specification and similarity – scaling vertical niches.
Summarize the niches as broadly as possible, break them down into microniches, and then come up with as many connections as possible between your topic and a seemingly unrelated market.
As a result, you will have a list of niches for vertical keyword analysis.
Keyword Density: A Ghost from the Past
For SEO professionals, it’s clear as daylight: there is no universal keyword density that will always and everywhere improve page rankings.
Despite the endless debate and numerous tools to calculate your content’s keyword density, it doesn’t affect your SERP position. With over 100 ranking factors, SEOs have long moved away from this antediluvian and useless practice.
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This makes sense: by focusing on the number of keywords, nausea, and keyword density, copywriters will forget about the main goal – relevance and problem solving.
Still, it is useful for SEO copywriters to know how to calculate this indicator. This helps to avoid gaudiness and increase the readability of your text. How to calculate keyword density if you are not an expert? The formula is simple. You can find various options online.
In practice, no one calculates key density with a calculator. If in doubt, run the article through online services for semantic text analysis (for example, through Advego).
Conclusion
SEO in 2023 still revolves around quality content and links. Without compelling content, you won’t get links, and without quality links, you won’t rank higher in search results.
Website owners and SEOs should keep in mind in 2023 that content quality goes way beyond popular keywords and robot meta tags.
Search engines are for people, not our SEO ambitions.
By cleverly mixing alternative kinds of keywords, we can create and optimize pages for humans, not machines. We can inform our target audience instead of feeding them annoying ads.
Just before each publication, imagine the reader:
• Do you like the article you wrote?
• Did you find the answers to the questions in the title?
• Would you like to share it on social networks?