Getting traffic to your website is an important goal for every Small Business Owner. A Google My Business account ensures that when someone looks at your company up on Google Search and Google Maps, they find it. That’s why I will cover here one of the most successful ways you can hit the target just in the center. In fact, I will talk about Google My Business and how to set it up.
You may know Google is the leader in internet searches and that can’t be ignored if you’re a business owner. So, placing your business on Google should be a must-have for you and your business, and it will cost you zero (it’s free).
There are several ways of direct traffic to your business online, and each one requires investing time, money, or both. Likewise having a website, build your SEO marketing, invest in advertising, and create your social media accounts, you should consider adding your Google My Business listing to your Business Plan.
I will go into,
Create your Google My Business listing
Complete your Business Profile
Add some photos to your Business Profile
Add posts like offers and updates about your Business and Products
Some additional tips
Let’s dig in…
Create your Google My Business listing
This is an easy part for almost everyone, just fill out your Business name, and if your business isn’t listed on Google then you need to add it.
Write your business name and follow the instructions on Google. You will ask to add your business if it’s not listed.
Find it or Create it
Once you create your business, then you will ask to choose the category that best describes it, and later you will need to specify your Company address making it simple to appear on Google Maps.
Choose Category
Then if you choose to add a location to your office or store you need to fill out your business address.
Once you are at this point, your Contact Information need to be filled out.
Write your Business Contact information
The last step is to confirm your information and send it to Google.
Complete your Business Profile
Do yo think you finished your profile already? No, there are simple task to due yet.
After all, Google My Business is similar to a social network in terms of sharing. More information about your business on the internet is the best bet to be highlighted.
Go to your Dashboard and add your hours of operation, your business description, and services or products, publish your logo. The more you can add about your company the better your business will be in your local search ranking and will express a better impression to people looking around you.
Add some photos to your Business Profile
I recommend adding photos to your profile because is a powerful tool to gain confidence about your business, showcase your offerings, and boost your business ranking on Google.
A business with photos has 80% more views than those that don’t show anything. So, you decide if you want to expose your business or hide it.
Go to your Photos link on your Dashboard and click on it. You will see a page like this one below.
Upload photos
In this section, you are able to upload photos and videos from your Team, the Interior and Exterior of your place, the photos uploaded by your Customers, and more. Take a time to upload and organize your photos on your Google My Business profile.
However, uploading photos just once a time doesn’t make you the winner. You need to publish regularly and encourage your customers to do it and share if you want to dominate your market.
The image below is an example of no taking action.
Photos stats
Add posts like offers and updates about your Business and Products
In addition to your photos, posts are an amazing tool for getting attraction to your business profile on Google. Meanwhile, everybody is surrendered to Social Media and focused on posting there, you can do it in both places.
Have you heard the saying, the more the better? In this case is by far better posting on your Google Profile than just in Social Media networks, because you are posting to Google Search Engine directly, and nothing is more rewarded than doing it on the most used Search Engine.
Under your profile, you can add posts about your current Offers like discounts, gifts, and anything that is in your mind to attract customers. Also, your hours of operations can be updated and posted too, or share a Customer story to your Company Profile.
Some additional tips
Concluding with the set up of your Business Profile, I will give you some tips for keeping your Profile updated and boost your ranking
Reply to any review given to your Business
Create offers and post them on your Profile
Upload photos regularly
Reply to Messages to your Business
Keep your Hours updated
I hope some of the information given here could help you stand out, and evolve your business. If you need help improving your ranking with Gooogle My Business write us a message to support your business.
When your online commerce business starts, it could be complicated to choose between the best eCommerce platforms out there. There’s no point doing eCommerce if you don’t have a spot-on website to manage your merchandise, catering to the customer traffic, and optimizing your store’s overall performance.
Sounds like a lot of hard work, doesn’t it?
While a bang-on website copy does the major part of attracting sales, the web layout and configuration is another detail you need to put your money in.
If you’re a small business that has just started, building a perfect website is a major plight. There’s a reason why we categorize businesses into big or small. The small ones in their infancy stages want to take baby steps into the colossal world of eCommerce and countless websites operating likewise. They cannot afford highly skilled website developers who are likely to gobble up a huge chunk of their total budget. They need something more economical without skimping on quality.
For that purpose, read on to know the best eCommerce platforms you can use to amp up your small business in a cut-throat competition with the bigger ones.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce Logo
As an eCommerce plugin for websites using WordPress as its interface. It helps entrepreneurs create an excellent website that is as similar to the conception of expert web developers as anything.
In fact, around 3.3 million active sites are using this plugin to operate their online stores. In other words, WooCommece is the most popular eCommerce platform.
As a small business, it is the answer to your dreams. From arranging icons, styles to fonts, and layout, it closely resembles the kingpins of the eCommerce market.
Before we look at its benefits in detail, you can go and check out Porter and York to get an idea of how a WooCommerce plugin works – to-the-point, simple, and detailed.
Zero Dollar Spent
It isn’t popular amongst small and medium-sized businesses for nothing. Where some plugins require you to pay a subscription charge, WooCommerce is completely free to use.
Working on a budget is tough, especially when you’re new to it and don’t want to spend a lot on something that isn’t guaranteed to give a mighty turnover. As a beginner, every cent spent is of great consequence.
You have to capitalize on the few resources that you have until you start making enough to purchase premium versions and their add-ons. Up till then, a free eCommerce plugin is exactly what you need.
WordPress Benefits
For those of you who have ever used WordPress or are familiar with the working of the interface, you would know how amazing features it has to optimize your website. WooCommerce, as an integrated plugin of WordPress, enjoys all the premium benefits and features in exactly the same way you use an ordinary WordPress site.
Versatile
The plugin allows businesses to sell all kinds of merchandise, unlike Amazon, where you cannot sell pets, houses, or guns.
As long as the product you trade is lawful, WooCommerce has no restrictions whatsoever. It allows instant access via downloading of items and is the perfect eCommerce builder of an affiliate marketing model.
Thoughtful Analytics
Besides a good-looking, easy-to-use eCommerce website, and stellar web copy for SEO, the other important tool for success is monitoring the analytics. WooCommerce has its own analytics page, which provides valuable information about your visitors to determine what is wrong or what to improve (should your store underperform with sales). Within the free version, you get to check the metrics for free too!
PrestaShop
PrestaShop Logo
This is another open-source eCommerce solution for small-scale merchants. It has a broad array of add-on features and supports around 0.125 million online stores worldwide. Let’s delve into its details.
User-Friendly
The user interface of PrestaShop is easy to use. Even if you do not have any technical knowledge of running an e-store, you can easily learn with PrestaShop.
The custom designs, layout, and more than 2500 plugins further simplify the user experience. This also adds up to user-friendly customization. Adding or deleting items, personalizing specific areas, and altering existing options make PrestaShop another very flexible eCommerce web builder.
Limited scalability
Unlike WooCommerce, you might consider changing your platform once your small-scale business makes it big. This is because PrestaShop has limited scalability. It is not the ideal choice for big eCommerce businesses due to its unprofessional design or inability to uphold expansion.
When on a low budget, though, PrestaShop has everything going for it to help you climb up the success ladder.
Shopify
Shopify Logo
The other most-used, leading eCommerce platform for small to medium-sized businesses is Shopify.
Besides ease-of-use and SEO options, there are other perks of Shopify which help you optimize your e-store, should you be able to afford it.
10 free theme templates
Shopify makes it the popular choice for big and small businesses because the platform has various storefront themes categorized into respective industries.
Although the free ones are only 10 in number, you can pay a one-time fee to use the other templates. From Food & Beverages to Shoes & Accessories, business-owners can easily design their stores in visually pleasing and relevant thematic styles.
Assisting Apps
The powerful e-store builder has over 1200 assisting apps to optimize your eCommerce trade. These apps help you organize your accounts without having to manually insert the data, or worse, hire an expert to do so.
While these integrated plugin apps require a monthly subscription fee, rest assured you can forget about the transaction details or the associated costs of an accountant.
Limited Functionality
Shopify is not a self-hosting platform. As a result, it comes with access to numerous functional and custom options, just like PrestaShop.
With limited, free components, it is perfect for tech-novices who wouldn’t want to be bogged down by technology as they start their venture.
However, for better functionality and theme customization that is relevant to manage big-scale businesses, Shopify may not exactly qualify.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce Logo
This one is another name popular amongst the eCommerce whizzes, and for good reasons. It is used by countless brands to expand to large-scale online trading and has proven its versatility in helping small businesses grow their sales overnight.
Security
BigCommerce is big on the secured performance of your website. It has optimal hosting and security features with unlimited bandwidth, SSL certificate, and various domain names to keep your e-store as personal as it can get.
This keeps business owners safe in the knowledge that their online brand is in premium protection from server hacks. Plus, customers coming to transact on your website with confidential data can do so without feeling vulnerable.
Omni-channel feature
The next best thing about BigCommerce is its facility to enable multi-channel selling of your store. Users can connect their brands to other marketing outlets, such as social media, online marketplaces, or physical stores.
This does not only expands your outreach enormously but is a convenient tool to access all your outlets from one, easy-to-use platform.
Customization
BigCommerce has great customization options and theme templates to choose from that make your website easily eye-grabbing.
However, there are only seven free templates for all users. Accessing the rest of the templates requires you to pay a fee. As a small business owner saving up on every dollar of your budget, that might not be the best option.
Sales Threshold
Supposedly, if a small business decides to invest in gaining better features on BigCommerce, the annual sales threshold bars the way.
A standard plan costs only $30/month – clearly affordable – but it’s eligible for businesses making up to $50,000 per year. Their other plans, Plus and Pro, are allotted for fixed thresholds that you upgrade to automatically once your business hits the mark.
Magento
Magento Logo
The last to our list, Magento, is one of the best eCommerce platforms elevating the digital experience of small merchant traders.
Broad set of features
Magento is famous for its breadth of features that other eCommerce platforms lack. It allows users to select different prices for different products and even for a different section of customers.
Multiple VIPS, community-oriented features, multiple languages, and multiple currencies make Magento a top-pick.
Operates on mobile
Online retailing makes a mobile-friendly interface pertinent to the seamless operating of a business. Magento is a platform that is mobile-friendly for customers and owners alike.
However, the community (free) version of Magento has a slow loading time, which makes tweaking or doing customizations time-consuming.
Switching to another platform is also difficult as Magento takes a lot of time to transfer the data.
Pricing
Small business owners can develop their e-stores from the free community version of Magento. Many retailers are making up a famous community using it as their eCommerce platform, thereby creating a forum for resources and support should you have any problems.
However, the Enterprise and Premium versions are a tad bit pricier for small businesses to afford, which cuts down on their features and customizing options.
Conclusion
In the ever-growing eCommerce industry, a professionally designed and customer-friendly website is imperative, especially if you’re a small-scale business owner looking to expand your trade.
The above-listed platforms are some of our top picks that will help non-tech savvy business owners, on a budget, get their share of online sales.
Each and every platform is beneficial in one way or the other. However, my personal favorite is WooCommerce. It is the most user-friendly platform I have come across and also comes with a lot of tutorials. The fact that you can start small and scale your business up, makes it a great choice.
Also, as a small business owner, you could be astonished by the vast content about eCommerce and how to start your store. However, the huge community and documentation of WooCommerce make the process very easy to assimilate.
Meanwhile, you can check our Website Building Plans for small business owners to begin with the right steps toward your success.
A digital marketeer without relevant tools is like a soldier without weapons. No matter how skillful the soldier is, there is no chance he can overcome his enemy, who is equipped with heavy ammunition.
Similarly, you cannot rank a website/blog without a good keyword research tool.
Luckily there are more than a dozen tools available in the market, both paid and free. While this is a good thing as it gives you a variety to choose from, it might confuse some people, especially beginners.
Therefore, I have created a comprehensive guide of the best keyword research tools in the market. The list includes both paid and free tools so that you can choose according to your budget.
So let’s dive straight in
Free Keyword Research Tool
Keyword research doesn’t always have to be a costly endeavor. That is why we begin our guide with a list of free tools.
Free doesn’t mean they are substandard. Just read out the features of the tools as you will go by me that they are worth using.
So let’s get started
Soovle
Many free keyword research tools are limited to one channel. As such, if you want to do research for multiple channels, e.g., Google, Bing, YouTube, etc., you either require going for a paid tool or have to access multiple free keyword research tools.
With Soovle, that is not the case at all. It allows you to search for multiple platforms, including eBay and Amazon.
Soovle provides data such as search volume, competition (whether it is high or low), and Cost Per Click (among other useful metrics)
Apart from finding the difficulty of a keyword, you can also use Soovle to brainstorm different keywords. For that, you should enter your seed or root keyword, and Soovle will provide you with the related keywords.
Pros
Keyword research from multiple channels at a time, e.g., Amazon, Youtube, Bing, Wikipedia etc
No limit to the number of searches you can make
Cons
You can only find keyword suggestions and no search volume, keyword difficulty and other important metrics
Poor layout of the website might put off some people
Google Keyword Planner
Note: You need to have an AdWords account in order to access Google Keyword Planner. That is why the hyperlink leads to ads.google.com page.
No list of keyword research tools will be complete without the mention of Google.
Google Keyword Planner provides you with average monthly searches, Cost Per Click (CPC), and competition level of the keyword. All these metrics are important for effective keyword research.
But you can find these stats in every other keyword research tool. What sets Google Keyword Planner apart is the keyword synonyms and variations it provides.
Also, note that you can also get data on CPC, which means in case you need to rank your keywords using paid method i.e., Search Engine Marketing (SEM), the data will be a good guide.
Pros
Unlike almost all other keyword research tools, Google Keyword Planner can show you the data for the past four years. Impressive, isn’t it?
Data is almost 100% accurate as Google pulls it from its own search engine.
Cons
Keyword filters have been reduced, which makes it difficult to search data for exact match keywords
You can only search for three keywords at a time, which is very limited.
Google Trends
Here comes another free tool by Google. It differentiates from others as Google Trends doesn’t show you the keyword difficulty, search volume or the usual metrics of keyword research tools.
Rather, it allows you to see which of the keywords are trending via a graph. The best part is that you can do a couple of searches simultaneously and be able to extract out a relative value of different keywords.
You may search for your targeted keyword in different geographical locations and at different times. For example, you are searching for ‘Home Maker’ in the USA and the UK region for the past 12 months.
This will show you the graph for “Home Maker” in both regions, and you will be able to make a comparison.
Another encouraging feature is the fact that you can carry out the search for a wide variety of platforms. Google Trends gives you the option to make an image search, youtube search, news search, google shopping, or a web search.
This option will truly be handy for those aiming to carry out keyword research for multiple platforms, rather than just Google.
Google Trends lets one have a thorough insight into the audience needs, to its exact. It does not just help you get through with the keyword research, but it guides you to a subtle market strategy that enables you to win over more clients than before.
Pros
User friendly, easy to use interface. You just have to make a few clicks to use it.
The best part of this is, it uses graphs to compare search queries over different times to make analysis much more effortless.
Cons
The graphs are mainly not available for long-tail keywords.
Google Trends is not as specific in its searches. There isn’t an absolute graphical representation for your searches. Rather it depends on relative values.
Answer The Public
Right keywords can legitimately win potential customers. Answer the Public is an insight keyword tool that helps you optimize your content in the right direction. It offers a combination of searches from Bing and Google in a search cloud.
Answer the Public offers Google suggested search options as a SEARCH CLOUD or in a cluster. This lets you discover what your target audience is searching for. Answer the Public is the right tool to search for ideas for your blog posts or even for podcasts.
This tool is different from others as it presents the questions related to your typed keywords in a carousel ring. These questions are who, when, where, how, and a lot more interrogative words.
For example, you type in Coffee. Answer the Public shows various questions such as “Where coffee is grown,” “How coffee affects the brain,” “What coffee machine to buy,” etc
Additionally, there is also the option of adding a preposition to your keyword as well as comparison phrases such as verses, like, etc.
For Coffee, you can see prepositions such as “coffee with,” “Coffee is,” “Coffee can,” etc. Similarly, you will see comparison phrases such as “Coffee versus,” “Coffee like,” etc.
Answer the Public, lets you know your audience, target the mainstream keywords, optimize long-tail keywords, and increases the chances of being featured on Google snippets.
Snippets are the short answers that appear on Google in response to the questions that you type in.
In short, Answer the Public extracts useful phrases people search for and lets you have a detailed insight into various topics.
Pros
Presentation of data is easy in two forms; visual format and straight data.
Several suggestions are just there on a single click.
Cons
Search Volume is not displayed; hence, an alternate keyword tool is required.
It only helps you generate keyword ideas, therefore not a tool to extract keywords you’re supposed to rank on.
Paid Keyword Research Tools
If you are an advanced blogger or your site has started to get traffic, and now you want to take it to the next height, a free keyword research tool won’t do the job.
That is why we share a few paid tools that are well known in the market.
So let’s dig into them
Ahref
Ahref is one of the most popular keyword research tools in the market. In fact, there are a few things that only Ahref can do.
It has all the things that you will need for keyword research. For example, you can check the usual keyword difficulty and search volume. Ahref also provides keyword suggestions based on the seed keyword you enter.
Additionally, you can also analyze the entire website of your competitor. This includes finding out what keywords they are ranking on, the overall traffic, and backlinks to the site, among other things.
In short, Ahref is your all in one tool for keyword research and competitor analysis.
Pros
Ahref provides detailed keyword research as well as competitor analysis
Free backlink checker
Cons
Price is a bit higher compared to many other tools
Traffic stats are not very accurate
Long Tail Pro
As the name suggests, Long Tail Pro helps you generate long-tail keywords. In case you are not aware, a long tail keyword ranks in no time and, as such, is preferred by bloggers over short-tail keywords.
The software generates over 400 keyword suggestions from a seed keyword in a couple of seconds. You can use these keywords for all types of sites: affiliate, Adsense based etc.
Apart from keyword research, you can also use Long Tail Pro to analyze your competitors’ keyword strategy and dissect it.
The thing I love the most about Long Tail Pro is the option to save and group keywords. In this way, you don’t have to copy-paste the keywords into a separate document. Isn’t this interesting?
Pros
You can get over 400 words from a single seed keyword
In one go, you can check the ranking on Bing, Google, and Yahoo
Cons
Speed is a bit slow
Shows limited results for the competitors
SEMRush
SEMRush comes in three different packages, so you can choose from the one best suited for your needs. There is also a seven days trial you can avail if you are not sure if SEMRush can fulfill your requirements.
The tool allows you to deeply analyze the competitor’s keyword strategy by seeing what are the top keywords they rank for as well as the search volume and CPC.
Just like Ahref, SEMTRush has it’s own ranking metric called “SEMRush Rank” data. This is the ranking of the site based on SEMRush’s extensive database.
Apart from the competitor analysis, you can also perform keyword research. For that, you have to follow the same procedure that you do for other tools I.e., enter a seed keyword, and SEMRush will show the long-tail variation of it.
Even better, SEMRush will show you related keywords, which are again long tail and can help you generate good content.
Keyword research and competitor analysis are just two of the thing the tool does. Apart from this, you can do a site audit, backlink analysis, and link building as well.
In short, SEMRush allows an individual to perform a wide range of things and might be a good option for anyone looking for all in one tool.
Pros
There is a site audit option that analyzes every issue on your website. This is rare to find
Extremely good interface with lots of charts and graphs that are easy to understand
Cons
SEMRush only provides data from Google
Using a free trail requires you to enter a credit card, which might scare a lot of people
Moz
Keywords always form the basis for SEO only if you’re going right. Moz is a potential SEO tool that not only allows you to do SEO of your website but also helps you diagnose crucial issues your site owns. To discover this, you need to have pro access to the site Moz.com.
Once you’re a premium member and have logged in after agreeing to their terms, you may have access to numerous keywords via the KEYWORD EXPLORER. Now, you may enter the exact keyword or may have a search for keywords as well. But, make sure you’re searching in the right country.
Moz helps you get to the metrics that help you analyze keywords’ monthly volume, landing difficulty on the first page, organic click-through rate, and the Moz score. Moz score enables you to prioritize what comes first and what next.
It, too, helps you evaluate while going through SERP analysis. Additionally, it allows you to broaden your horizon by suggesting a wide variety of keywords to pin-down the stuff on your priority.
Moz also allows you to dive into the suggestion page that helps you get the comprehensive keyword database, which you can filter according to your need.
Not just this, it helps you to do Link Analysis via the LINK RESEARCH TOOL/LINK EXPLORER.
Pros
95% accuracy is attainable with Moz’s search volume metrics making it the most reliable keyword research tool in the market.
Moz Potential Metric allows you to narrow down your search list to target the most relevant keywords very first.
Help you analyze your competitor’s websites and their keywords side by side.
Moz’s dashboards are just right for keyword searching, planning, and web analysis.
Cons
Moz’s crawls are not very ideal for complicated websites.
The custom reports option is not handy to be used.
Keyword tracking restrictions exist with Moz.
Conclusion
This was all about the top free and paid keyword research tools in the market. As you have read, each tool has its own pros and cons, and as such, you carefully need to make a choice.
To do so, closely examine your needs. For example, how many keywords you will need to research on a daily basis, whether you need to do keyword research only for Google or other sites as well?
And a lot more questions!
After you have asked yourself all these questions, select the tool which best answers them. In this way, you won’t regret your decision.
So which tool have you decided to purchase? Let me know in the comments below. I am eager to hear from you.
We use SEMRush for our own SEO strategy and to leverage optimization to our Customers. If you want to be part of our Customers, don’t hesitate to Contact Us
Those of you who even know a little bit about blogging and keyword research will agree that it usually takes a couple of months before you can start seeing some traffic on your site and rank the keywords in the top 10-20 results.
By a couple of months, I mean something around 6 months. Now that is definitely a lot of time and long enough to demotivate an individual.
Luckily, the KGR technique comes to the rescue here.
KGR stands for Keyword Golden Ratio and is a keyword research technique that can rank your content in less than a month. In fact, there have been some case studies of websites ranking in a couple of days as well.
Yes, you read that right. It is entirely possible.
So what exactly is KGR, and what makes it so effective? In this article, we will explain to you the nitty-gritty of the entire process.
So hold your horses. You are about to learn something that will blow your mind.
What is Keyword Golden Ratio (KGR)?
KGR is a method of finding low competition and underserved keywords that very few digital marketers are targeting. As a result, your chances of ranking on these keywords skyrockets.
Here low competition means those results that have search volume less than 250.
One point to be noted is that the KGR method is different from using Ahref to find low competition keywords that we discussed in our other article.
The KGR was developed by Dough Cunnington, an authority in the field of Digital Marketing and owner of the Nichesiteproject.
You might be wondering that a low competition keyword can also be found by other keyword research tools. So what is a big deal about KGR?
The reason why KGR is so effective is that it is a manual process of finding keywords, so it will always be superior than using any keyword research tool available in the market.
KGR is calculated using the below formula. Don’t worry if you don’t understand anything from the formula. In the next section. I will explain each and every step in detail.
KGR = number of allintitle results / search volume
The keyword with KGR of less than 0.25 is considered the best. You might rank with such a keyword in less than a week.
Anything in between 0.25 and 1 is also not bad, and you can expect them to rank in no time. A keyword of KGR of 1 and above is not recommended to use.
Note that the search volume of the keyword should be less than 250.
How to use KGR?
The KGR technique involves multiple simple steps that are easy to understand, even for a newbie.
Step 1: Select a long tail keyword
You need to create a longtail variation of your keyword. A longtail keyword is one that contains three to five phrases.
Let’s say you sell water bottles of different kinds: for kids, for offices and for hiking etc. Your seed keyword will “water bottles.”
Now you need to create a longtail variation of the keyword. There are two ways of doing so.
First is to type the keyword in Google, and it will suggest you longtail keywords. For example, I type in “best water bottles” on Google.
Google will show you the following results.
Google search suggestions
You should work on all of these suggestions by Google to see which fulfills the KGR criteria, I.e., the search volume of less than 250 and a KGR of less than 0.25 (which is calculated using the formula discussed above).
Initially, you should only focus on the search volume and prepare an excel sheet of all the keywords which fulfill the criteria.
Secondly, you can use Ahref or any other keyword research tool to find longtail keywords related to the water bottle.
We already created a comprehensive guide on how to use Ahref to find longtail keywords. You can check it out here.
Remember, the search volume should be less than 250.
Step 2: Find the search results with the exact match titles
So by now, you have filtered out the results from Google autosuggestions. The next step is to use them to find out the exact match search results.
For example, from step 1, you found that “best water bottles for hiking” fulfills the 250 search volume criteria.
Type allintitle: (the long tail keyword). From our example, it would look like this
Allintitle:best water bottles for hiking
Remember not to include any space in between the Allintitle: and the long tail keyword. Also, don’t add any quotes, or the results would be different.
You might be wondering what is allintitle. Well, it is not as difficult as the word might seem.
Allintitle is a Google search operator that is used to find exact match websites/search results that have those words in the meta title of the post.
So when you type in allintitle: best water bottles for hiking, only those search results will be shown which have the exact keywords in them. Consequently, you will get rid of generic search results.
Let’s find out the allintitle and search volume of “Best water bottles for hiking”
Here is what I found
Results on Google for allintitle operator
This keyword has 234 search results. So we have found the numerator of the KGR formula. Next is to find the search volume.
For reference, KGR has the following formula
KGR= number of allintitle results/ search volume
Using Ahref, I found the search volume to be 40. This will go in the denominator of the KGR formula. Remember, for KGR, you need to have a search volume below 250. As you can see, our keyword fulfills that criteria.
If you can’t afford to pay for Ahref, you may go for various free keyword research tools. Remember not to depend on only one free tool but cross-check with multiple ones.
I am saying this because a free tool isn’t as accurate as a paid one, so you need to play safe.
Now that we have all the figures, the only thing remaining is to plug them into the formula. Let’s recap the KGR formula as well as the figures we found for it.
KGR= number of allintitle results/ search volume
Number of allintitle results: 234
Search volume of the keyword: 40
KGR= 234/40, which is equal to 5.85.
This is way beyond 1, the threshold of KGR and much further than 0.25 which is the recommended KGR to be selected for a keyword.
Use the above-mentioned steps to find KGR for different long-tail keywords and only select the ones which have are below 0.25. Then use those keywords in your article and see the magic.
Do I always have to restrict myself to a KGR of 0.25?
The answer is no. The number 0.25 is only when you are just starting out. Once your site has enough traffic, backlinks and has built its traffic, you can opt for higher KGR as well.
Starting with 0.25 will allow you to cut through the competition and rank faster.
Use Keyword Golden Ratio in conjunction with search intent
Search intent refers to the reason why a user types in certain things in the search engine. For example, when I type in “best water bottle for hiking,” I want to find the best water bottle that I can take with me for my next trip.
The user search intent tells Google what a particular person wants to search. Google accordingly displays the results.
You might be wondering how user intent is related to KGR?
Well, the thing is that even if a keyword is a KGR complaint, it might not rank if the search intent of that particular keyword is different from what you are thinking.
Therefore, you should always type the keyword in Google and see what results are showing before moving forward with calculating KGR.
For example, if you enter the water bottle keyword that has been discussing throughout the article in Google, you will either find Amazon in the top 10 or sites which review different water bottles for hiking along with an Amazon (or other e-commerce sites) link from where people can purchase the bottle after reading the details.
This means that the “best water bottle for hiking” has commercial intent, and people aim to purchase it.
Now let’s suppose the keyword was KGR complaint, and you write an article talking about the benefits of water and hydration and why you should have a water bottle along with hiking. All this without actually reviewing a water bottle and providing a link to purchase it.
Do you think your site will rank?
Chances are pretty odd.
Therefore, make sure that the keyword you are working on has the same user intent for which you want to rank.
If a Google search shows lots of pictures in the top 10, it will be very difficult to rank a blog post.
Keyword Golden Ratio is best for beginners!
As a beginner, you might not have a lot of grip on SEO, and as such, it would not be a wise idea to compete against authority sites.
Therefore, KGR should be your way forward.
It will help you avoid competition and rank in no time. Consequently, you will get the confidence to work further on the site.
Later on, when you have got the experience, you may work on keywords with a search volume greater than 250 or a KGR of more than 0.25.
Remember to start small but think big!
Do try out this technique and let us know in the comments what results in you have witnessed. I can’t wait to hear your success stories. For more information about SEO and keyword research, you can Contact Us to help you out.
Finding low competition keywords is the foundation of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). After all, the epic content you have written would be hardly of any use if it doesn’t rank on the first page.
If you search “how to do keyword research”, you will literally come across dozens of articles written on the topic and hundreds of YouTube videos. That makes it harder to digest information, especially if you are new to SEO.
Realizing this problem, we decided to create a comprehensive guide on keyword research using Ahref.
We will begin by talking about what exactly is keyword research, and it’s importance in SEO. Next, we will mention why Ahref should be your go-to tool for keyword research and finally, how to actually carry out the research.
Sounds interesting? Let’s get started.
What is keyword research (KR)?
At its core, KR is the process of finding those words (also called keywords) which have low competition but good traffic on a search engine.
Low competition means they can easily be ranked among the top 10 results of a search engine.
You can then use these keywords in your article or your website, which will help you rank above your competitor.
If your KR is good, as well as the content, you may even land on the top spot of Google. Imagine how much traffic you could get and the resultant growth of your business if you manage to grab the top spot.
That is why we said earlier that KR is the foundation of SEO.
Why use Ahref for keyword research?
If you are to summarize the definition of keyword research (KR) in a sentence, it is to reverse engineer your competitor.
To do so, there are dozens of tools available in the market. Ahref is one of the best as it provides very detailed information about the competitor. It is literally like you are spying on your competitor. Of course legally.
Ahref also ranks among the top KR tools in the market. Therefore, we selected it to explain the KR process. In fact, there are 13 things that only Ahref can do for you.
How to use Ahref?
Here comes the main part of the article, I.e. how to actually use Ahref to find low competition keywords. The process is much simpler than you might be thinking of, thanks to the user-friendly interface of Ahref.
Step 1: Find seed keywords or the competitors site
A seed keyword is that word which you will type into Ahref to kickstart your keyword research (KR) process.
You might be wondering what seed keyword can I type into Ahref. Well, that depends on your business.
If you sell mobile phones, seed keywords could possibly be mobile phones, mobile cover, name of a particular mobile phone, etc.
You need to enter the seed keyword in the “keyword explorer” section of Ahref. It will show you the difficulty as well as other related keywords.
Scrolling down will show the related keywords
Another simpler way is to copy-paste the URL of your competitor and analyze the keywords. For this, you need to click on “dashboard” which will lead you to a homepage where you can insert the link.
Step 2: Filter the keywords
You will be getting thousands of keywords via the above method. Therefore, it is pertinent to filter them down and select the most relevant ones.
Let me demonstrate how to do so.
Continuing the above example, let’s assume you want to start a blog where you inform the public about different things related to mobile phones.
This could be information on various mobile brands you sell, the latest phone released in the market, or troubleshooting guidelines.
So you type in “mobile phone blog” in the search engine and insert the link of any competitor in Ahref. Here is what you will see.
On the left-hand sidebar, you need to click on “Organic keywords” which will lead you to another page showing the keywords the competitor is ranking for. Additionally, you can also find other useful metrics such as volume (which is the search volume), keyword difficulty (KD), and the position of the keyword in the search engine.
This is where the real game begins. You need to see which of the keywords are related to your business and have low competition.
Now the low competition is a subjective term. For some people, a low keyword difficulty (KD) can be anything between 0-10, while others might even go beyond.
Step 3: Analyze the content that ranks for these keywords
As we mentioned above, the URL section will tell you what content has been written for each keyword.
This analysis of content is important as it will help you figure out the loopholes of the competitor which you can cover. Resultantly, you will succeed in providing more value to the reader and have better chances of ranking above your competition.
Keyword research is a never-ending process. Using the above three steps will allow you to extract low competition keywords. However, you need to remember that this practice needs to be repeated again and again.
The reason being, you need to constantly release content in order to stay in the limelight. People want to be informed about the latest happenings, and that would not be possible if you are publishing just one blog post per week.
Keyword research is the first step
What use would be the keyword if it isn’t converted into words? Therefore, make sure you don’t stop at keyword research but work on converting them into highly informative content that readers will love.
Here at SomniaTech, we create content for our Website Management clients focused on giving the readers high valuable information. If you want to have an incredible team for your content creation plan, we can do it for you. Contact Us and let us know you are ready for improving your SEO score.
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