Far too many school marketers fail to implement a plan for finding and using the optimum keywords for their blog articles. It could be a fatal error in the cutthroat world of search engine optimization (SEO), where making it on the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) is the holy grail. Similarly, learning how to choose the appropriate keywords could significantly affect the volume of inbound traffic that finds your blog article.
To define the ideal keywords, you must understand the keyword research process, use SEO keyword research tools, and arrange your keywords in the appropriate spots.
Keyword Strategy
SEO is a fundamental marketing activity. To be successful with keywords, you first should establish who your intended audience is and what your message is.
Every search reflects people’s needs, wants, interests, and desires. Your keyword strategy will support you in analyzing search patterns and locating search phrases relevant to your school’s target market and message.
Here are six easy steps to guarantee you’re utilizing the optimal keywords to drive traffic to your site.
Step 1: Get Keyword Suggestions
1. Google Suggest
Since Google has more search data than any other company, get keyword ideas from them first.
Enter a term into the Google search field and use their suggest feature to help you develop your list.
Google will give you results or suggestions based on the popularity of previous searches. This will only get you so far, but it is a good start. You might come up on.
2. Google Trends
Google Trends is an excellent resource for uncovering the untapped potential that might result in a vast keyword landscape for your website. It offers an overview of searches over time based on previous data. There are various filtering options available, including geography, time span, categories, and more.
Google Trends allows you to:
- Find famous people and long-tail keywords related to them.
- Look for global trends in specific countries or regions.
- Compare and contrast trends over time.
3. Google Ads Keyword Planner
The Google Ads Keyword Planner was created to help pay-per-click (PPC) buyers of Google Adwords. Anyone, however, can open a Google Adwords account and use the Keyword Planner for free.
The enormous quantity of data available when utilizing Google’s keyword planner is a plus. It will assist you in collecting the amount of search data for each term you submit and discovering similar phrases. Enter an idea (or multiple ideas), and the keyword tool will create up to 800 possibilities from Google’s enormous database.
4. Google Searches Related To
Look at the bottom of your SERPs, as Google will provide additional suggestions for new searches. Try these comparable phrases in a variety of contexts:
- Choose one as your focus keyword
- Use one or more of the terms in your post to aid with semantic search
- Use one of these themes to re-start your search
5. KeywordTool.io
KeywordTool.io is like Google Suggest on steroids. This tool will assist you in discovering hundreds of long-tail keywords (phrases with three or more words) to start developing your keyword strategy. These will be more specialized and more likely to attract your target families.
6. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the more popular SEO tools on the market and is primarily used for backlink audits, URL rankings, keyword research, competitive analysis, etc. Like SEMrush, Ahrefs also offers organic search reports to analyze the traffic of your competitors’ sites.
7. SEMrush
SEMrush is one of the most popular SEO tools among small and medium-sized private schools. It also has a renowned competitor analysis tool that helps users evaluate their competitors and content. It gives detailed information and enables users to find the best-performing sites, content, and keywords.
SEMrush allows you to:
- Analyze backlinks from other websites to your site.
- Using the Keyword Magic tool, you can identify the keywords you’ll need to develop an SEO strategy properly.
- Identify the paid keywords or ad copy used in your competitors’ PPC campaigns.
- Explore how you may boost organic traffic by optimizing your content.
8. Moz
Without question, Moz is one of the market’s greatest SEO tools. Moz can handle anything from site auditing to rank tracking, backlink analysis, and keyword research. It delivers industry-standard data as well as numerous page improvement tips.
You can also install MozPro for advanced functionality and the MozBar browser extension, which allows SEO analysis, Moz scores, and Google SERP information to be shown in your browser.
Moz allows you to:
- Track the organic rank and performance of thousands of traffic-driving keywords.
- It helps you find new keywords with competitor research and SERP analysis.
- It provides metrics like Domain Authority and enables you to build additional backlinks.
- Crawl all your web pages to find any issues or errors.
9. SpyFu: Freemium
SpyFu is best used as a competitor keyword research tool for Google Ads. It allows you to find the most profitable keywords used by your competitors. It can also show you every ad campaign that is running by your competitors and their organic searches. It will also help you with keyword research, SEO competitive research, PPC competitive research, and the creation of custom lists and domains.
SpyFu allows you to:
- Download a competitor’s PPC keywords
- Download a competitor’s SEO keywords
- Review ranking trends over time
- Discover keyword ideas
10. Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Freemium
Screaming Frog helps you perform super fast website audits. Unlike most others on this list, this will run natively on your computer. Once installed, you enter the URL of your website, and it will start crawling to find any duplicate content, missing tags, broken links, etc. Rarely will any error go unnoticed by Screaming Frog.
Step 2: Find Related Questions
The most effective private school marketers regard every search as a query in the mind of the searching family.
Various research techniques deliver queries that people ask search engines.
1. AnswerThePublic
Answer The Public is a great free tool to help determine keywords for your school’s blog posts. Enter a term or phrase, and the tool will provide a graphic or data list of associated search engine inquiries. The results can be saved, shared, sorted, and downloaded.
2. Quora
Quora is a question-and-answer forum where users may discuss virtually any topic. Your keyword search should provide a wide range of queries, many of which will have excellent answers that may serve as a jumping-off point for your blog post research.
3. Answers
The comparison between Answers and Quora is uncanny. The Advanced Search function in Answers is excellent because you can narrow your results to include or exclude specific words or phrases. You can also select whether or not you want a precise match and whether or not a Question has been answered.
Step 3: Conduct More Topic Research
Other tools you may find useful to help find popular subjects that people look for on the internet are:
1. Buzzsumo
Based on your search query, Buzzsumo will create a list of the most popular blog titles for that term and the number of social media shares. You can also search by date and kind of information, such as infographics, articles, guest posts, interviews, videos, etc.
2. Wikipedia
Everyone is familiar with Wikipedia. Wikipedia can be a valuable source of SEO resources and suggestions.
Step 4: Analyze Your Keyword Choices
By this time, you should have a good handle on how to approach your keywords. Using the tools and methods listed above, you’ve most certainly gathered several ideas for SEO approaches and particular blog post themes to consider. The next step is prioritizing your keywords and themes based on how well they are expected to perform.
1. Make Sure Your Keywords Will Attract the Right Audience
This seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be amazed how many private school marketers don’t take the time to consider who will be drawn to a specific term. For example, if you’re attempting to attract a wealthy audience, avoid using phrases like “free” or “low-cost.”
2. Consider the Competition
Competition is important when it comes to ranking for keywords. Using the tools outlined above, you may determine whether a specific keyword or keyword phrase has high, medium, or low competition. The idea is to discover keywords relevant to your school but not very competitive and deliver enough traffic to make the work worthwhile.
3. Look for Keywords That Are Not Highly Competitive but Still Have Volume
Obviously, targeting keywords or phrases with little volume is the worst thing you can do.
However, just because a term has a low volume does not imply that it is not a good keyword. This is because most pages in Google Keyword Planner likely rank for hundreds or thousands of variants. If you observe ten or more searches per month for an exact match term, you may conclude that hundreds of individuals are looking for the general topic. Long-tail keywords are frequently those that fall into your sweet spot.
4. Moz Pro Keyword Explorer
Moz’s Keyword Explorer’s free edition is quite useful for keyword research. You will want to begin by typing your search term into the search field and then clicking the search button. This provides an overview as well as keyword ideas and top-ranking blog content. Click on Keyword Suggestions in the left-hand column, then Monthly Volume (low to high or high to low). You may also rank based on Relevancy and search for relevant keywords. In general, if your domain authority exceeds your keyword difficulty, you have a probability of ranking for the keyword phrase.
Step 5: Pay Attention to Semantics
Semantics is concerned with the meanings of words. It mainly refers to the situation or circumstances in which individuals do not fully comprehend the meaning of a phrase or message owing to connotation or word choice. Google has grown quite proficient at semantics or comprehending the question posed by the search query put into the Google search field. The algorithm has matured into a semantic search engine. When someone types in a query or phrase, Google learns to look for more than just the words they typed in, but also what the algorithm believes would be relevant to the inquirer. Because Google returns semantically related results, I recommend you target broad themes relevant to your target families.
Step 6: Write and Optimize Your Blog Headlines
Here are some pointers to remember when writing your keyword-focused content.
- Use a dedicated SEO component, plugin, or widget to stay on track with your on-site SEO.
- Always include your keyword in the title tag. It’s an important indication for search engines.
- Include text on the website even if you’re making a video post. A pro tip is to have the video transcribed, clean it up, and use the text on the page.
- Use the keyword in relevant meta tags, such as the meta description (the text that appears on the SERP when someone searches for your term). Attempt to put your keyword in the alt text of your photographs, graphical elements, or images.
- Use internal linking to your advantage. Google and all the search engines hate dead ends, so link to other pages. You will also find other pages on your website that are important to your topic, be sure to link to those.
- Increase your keyword density; in other words, optimize your content for overlapping phrases and several keywords, particularly in the headline.
Final Thoughts
Keyword research is a crucial component of search engine optimization. After a little effort, keyword research becomes a natural component of article development. Finding the best keywords for your blog articles allows you to put yourself in the shoes of your readers, parents, and prospective students so you can figure out what they are looking for and ultimately find your private school.
If you need help developing a keyword list or blogs for your private school, reach out to me today. I am here to help you and your school grow!
