Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for driving relevant organic traffic to your website. But how do you know which keywords and phrases to target in your content? This is where utilizing a Google keywords tracker comes into play.
A Google keywords tracker allows you to identify high-value keywords that align with your business offerings and have solid search volume. Tracking these terms over time shows you which ones are gaining or declining in popularity, allowing you to adjust your keyword targeting accordingly.
In this post, we’ll explore five critical ways leveraging a Google keyword tracker improves your overall SEO strategy. Let’s dive in.
Discover Untapped Keyword Opportunities
A major benefit of using a keyword tracker ties back to discovering fresh, relevant keywords you may not have considered targeting before. The tracker allows you to input seed keywords relevant to your business and will then suggest additional keyword ideas you can add to your list.
Often, the suggested terms are more specific, long-tail versions of your seed’s keywords. These specific keywords have lower competition and could be easier to rank for. Yet they still attract people who are earnestly searching for offerings aligned with your business.
Without a keyword tracker, finding these untapped, valuable keywords is much more difficult. You’d have to rely on manually brainstorming ideas or deciphering Google Autocomplete suggestions. The tracker does the hard work for you.
Identify Questions and Conversation Keywords
Another useful feature of most keyword trackers is identifying question-based and conversational keywords gaining traction. Questions signal search intent and are compelling to answer within your content. Conversational phrases are helpful for crafting informative, engaging blog posts.
For example, if you sell digital marketing courses online, your tracker might uncover rising question keywords like:
- What is the best digital marketing course?
- How much does it cost to self-learn digital marketing?
And conversational keywords such as:
- Digital marketing education
- Learning digital marketing basics
Both these types of keywords can inform strong blog post topics and guide your content creation. They encapsulate the types of queries and phrases your audience uses when searching for offerings like yours.
Without a keyword tracker, you’d miss out on capitalizing on these types of valuable keywords that align well with natural search behavior.
Prioritize Focus Keywords
With a tracker, you can sort your keyword list based on criteria like search volume and competition. This allows you to quickly identify the best potential focus keywords to target.
Focus keywords are those select high-value terms you want to optimize heavily for throughout your site and content. Since you likely can’t go after hundreds of keywords at once, the tracker helps determine that priority subset.
Factors to consider when picking focus keywords include:
- Search volume – Higher is better, though low competition keywords with decent volume can still be worthwhile to pursue. Just ensure the volume aligns sufficiently with your business goals.
- Competition– This varies per keyword, but aim for “medium” competition keywords with 100-1,000 monthly searches for the best chance to rank.
- Relevance– Ensure keywords tie closely to your products, services and expertise. Aligning relevance is key.
- Commercial intent– Keywords signaling someone is ready to buy are ideal (e.g. best [x] to buy).
Streamlining a list of possible target keywords down to a select batch of focus SEO keywords is hugely beneficial. The tracker tool facilitates this prioritization process.
Monitor Keyword Trends Over Time
SEO is a fluid, evolving landscape. What works one month might not work the next. This is why frequently tracking your target keywords is so essential.
A keyword tracker allows you to monitor trends over days, weeks, and months. You can see which terms are rising or falling in searches.
With this intel, you can modify your approach accordingly. Lean heavier into keywords, gaining steam while pausing emphasis on those declining.
Make sure to track both short and long-tail variations. For example:
- Digital marketing (short tail)
- Become a digital marketing consultant (long tail)
Ideally, build content and optimize pages around a blend of both. Just beware of over-optimizing for hyper-specific long tails with minimal search volume.
Review Keyword Gaps
Finally, leveraging a tracker allows you to identify potential keyword gaps to fill. This means seeing which high-value keywords you should be ranking for but currently do not.
While ranking on page 1 for your focus keywords should be the ultimate goal, being present somewhere in the top 100 can still drive impressions and clicks.
If you built relevant content around a keyword but see you don’t rank anywhere for it, that signifies a gap. The tracker brings increased awareness to these gaps.
You can then look at creating additional content to target those keywords and terms more effectively. This incremental process eventually helps you shore up keyword gaps across your site.
Key Takeaways
Getting keyword tracking set up should be a priority in your overarching SEO game plan. As discussed above, the intelligence a keyword tracker provides around opportunity identification, prioritization, monitoring, and gaps fuels nearly all other aspects of your strategy.
The tracker essentially functions as the backbone and foundation driving your ability to improve organic visibility and traffic. So, whether through free tools or robust paid platforms, pick a tracking solution that aligns with your business needs.
Just remember that manually tracking a few keywords can only get you so far. To fully leverage keyword insights at scale requires a robust tool. The time and effort invested pay dividends through targeted content that better resonates with your audience and SEO growth.
Over to You
Focusing your SEO efforts around valuable, high-intent keywords will significantly impact content discoverability and performance. But identifying and doubling down on the best terms takes work. This is where arming yourself with a Google keywords tracker separates the contenders from the pretenders when it comes to driving qualified organic traffic.
What’s your main takeaway from this post? Are you currently utilizing any SEO keyword-tracking tools? I’d love to hear your current approach and tools in the comments below!
