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Blogging is a learning process. During the holidays last week, I was learning keyword research. I am putting it out for my readers who are bloggers by themselves.
This article is not about deciding new topics based on a number of search queries they can generate in future. This is about that part of keyword research where you want to write a guest post or want to build links, based on certain keywords contained in published articles.
The objective is to tackle the words that can generate maximum visits to your site.
I took the help of Google Webmaster Tool in doing this.
Understanding Google Webmaster Tool
Logon to WMT and go to “Your site on the web” section, then click on “Search Queries“.
You will see the list of searches performed to visit your site in last 30 days. Below picture is how my screen looks like (it shows 9063 rows, that means, I had 9063 SE visitors last month), for obvious reasons I blurred out the search words.
Google Web Master Tool – Search Queries
Let me first explain the columns, then I am going to talk about how I zeroed in on search terms that I wanted to build links on.
Impression – The number of searches where the site came up in google search results.
Clicks – The number of times site link was clicked from the search results.
CTR – Click Through Rate, basically the ratio between clicks and impressions.
Average Position – The average position of your article link in the search results. As a Google search result is based on many factors like past browsing history, Google reader subscription, Google plus activity and mostly the user location, your links constantly go up and down between searches.
Change – Change with respect to the previous 30-day window. This is particularly useful to gauge your link building performance.
Good to see OCAAT links in top 10 (that is Google first page) for many of the queries. Only a few visible on the screenshot but, there were plenty of others down below.
I can guarantee you will have many of your keywords in top 10!
How to choose keywords to build links on
My method is straightforward (although there are plenty of different suggestions on the web available), I downloaded this data onto a spreadsheet. Then, I filtered the keywords that are lying between 10 and 100 and arranged them as per impression number.
I didn’t want to do anything with words that are already in top 10. Unless I see a downward movement next month, I’ll not work on them. I will only give the internal links to words though future OCAAT posts.
I took the first 10 words (with highest impression numbers) and then arranged them as per their CTR numbers. You can’t rely solely on impression numbers. The topmost key word for me is “carnival“, the one with 12000 impressions. When you look into the CTR column, it has nothing in it.
I don’t want to build links with keyword Carnival, as searchers rejecting my links. There is a high chance that what they want to search and what I presented (blog carnivals) are totally different.
I wrote a few guest posts on top 5 keywords and would be taking a stock next month on the performance of my research.
Roundup
Last week my vacation ended and all the unfinished and pending work greeted me starting from Monday. Didn’t read much of the fellow bloggers. I published three articles in all but, they all were written during the end of December. Here are some of the blogs worth mentioning and recommending for you.
Everywhere I see a goal post on almost every other blogs. I made up a point to ignore the goals post this year. And rightfully I didn’t set up any goal for me this year.
The most informative post I found is an encyclopedia of light bulbs written by Money Cone
I don’t know how soon I can make it happen, but no harm in being positive that we can make millions in passive income. Prairie Eco Thrifter presents make millions in passive income.
Financial Highway presents 50 work from home ideas.
If you don’t know how Facebook makes money, this Funancials article is for you.
Free From Broke just posted on growing consumer power. And folks, this is my topic for the Monday post!
Frugal Dad presented an interesting info-graphic on Problems with Patents.
Krant Cents talks about some nightmares that a landlord has to face. I am thinking to continue renting as long as possible 🙂
Untemplater talks about productivity, my favorite subject, and brings up few very good pointers to the things we should avoid doing in office.
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Thanks so much for the breakdown of google webmasters and keywords tools. I honestly fine SEO confusing and really time consuming. This information is really helpful.
Thanks too for including Derek’s article in the round up. If you believe it will come true. Remember that.
SEO is indeed confusing. Since the algorithm itself is highly complex and have too many parameters. Derek’s article was very interesting.
Thanks for the links, I really appreciate it. Thanks for your insight on the webmaster tools, I will take a look at it.
It’s very simple and easy to work on. Try and let me know when it works.
Nice straight forward break down. SEO is tough for people to understand so it’s good to get to grip with the basics.
Yes, I would request other newbies to start right here. Its he most basic know how one can get. Thanks for your comment.
It took me a long time to even understand what a keyword was!
Thanks for the mention.
And now you are a master of the art, isn’t it?
Hi Forest,
I kept getting getting the same question: What is a keyword?
Many people struggle to understand that a keyword can and usually are more than one word etc. so I made a article only about what a keyword is.
If you like you can read it here: http://keeyword.com/keyword_/
Br,
Brian
Nice article SB. I hope it is ok that I put a link in my comment, If not just delete it…
Thanks for the link in the comment, Brian. Thanks for the post, SB. This post was most useful for me in trying to understand the whole business of keywords and how to use Google Webmaster tool for the same. I have never written with keywords in mind, so my keyword report looks more like abstract poetry rather than anything with a direction. Your post along with Brian’s very down-to-earth post helped clear quite a few things up. Of course, the abstract poet in me is still undecided as to whether to walk down the keyword path or not, but at least, now I have a better understanding of what I am looking at. God bless all the web-savvy and techie bloggers who share their knowledge so graciously. PS: Nice new direction in your weekly roundups, SB, especially the non-personal-finance stuff.
Hi Subhorup great to hear back from you after a long time. Yeah your comment was very valuable. This is the first feedback I received on my round up, other than “great roundup, thanks for including” type comments. Did you get a chance to read the last two round ups?
Yes, I did see the World’s Top Blogs and most recent one too, the one with not finance links in it. I had thought of leaving a comment there, but wanted to acknowledge it where it started (from when I noticed it), and also with the keywords post link from Brian above. As far as comments like “great roundup, thanks for including” go, here is something recent from my blog in case you have missed it, on the art and science of commenting, I manage to sound like I really know what I am talking about, he he he… http://goo.gl/jhQcv
That was some list. A detailed discussion on science of commenting, good job. I need to write on science of blogging. I see bloggers all the time write about things they don’t know, just to attract SE visitors. Had they known they would have covered important aspects and would have left not so important functions away. Many things happen in blogging world.
Interesting approach. I am just now getting an increase in SE traffic and starting to figure out what works…. eventually my site will be taking off with my new strategy. 🙂
Intrigued to know a bit more about your new strategy