What are Keywords and How to Choose Them? 1.1. SEO Course by Ahrefs

Hey, it's Sam Oh and welcome to the first module which is on keyword research.

In this first lesson, we're going to talk about what keywords are and how to choose them using a simple 4-point checklist.

Let's get started.

So what are keywords in the context of SEO?

They're simply just words and phrases that people type into search engines to find what they're looking for.

For example, if you were shopping for running shoes, you might search for keywords like "men's running shoes" or simply just "running shoes."

Now, keywords are actually super-important in SEO because it sets the entire foundation for search engine optimization.

The basic goal of SEO is to rank your pages for keywords that your target audience or customers are searching for.

And if you're not ranking for keywords that actually get searched, then your SEO efforts are kind of meaningless.

For example, we rank #1 for the query "SEO checklist."

And this keyword is responsible for driving around 1,500 monthly visitors from Google.

And that's just in the US.

So keyword research is the process of finding keywords that people are inputting into search engines.

And we'll get into this process in the upcoming lessons.

So how do you actually choose keywords that are worth targeting?

Let's run through a checklist that should help you choose keywords effectively.

The first thing to check is if your keyword has search demand.

Search demand represents the volume of monthly searches made for a keyword.

And this is measurable with a keyword metric that we call "search volume."

You can find the search volume for a keyword by using a keyword research tool like Ahrefs Keywords Explorer.

For example, the query "km to miles" gets searched around 478,000 times per month in the US alone.

But as you can see here in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer, 80% of searches go without a click to a page.

And that's because Google has a handy calculator right here that'll solve the searcher's problem.

So search volume alone can actually be a bit misleading.

Which is why it's worth looking at the second checkpoint which is to check the traffic potential of the topic.

Traffic potential represents the total search traffic you could get if you were to rank at the top of Google for your keyword.

Let's look at the stats for our SEO checklist page in Ahrefs' Site Explorer.

So again, we rank #1 for the query "seo checklist," and it sends us approximately 1,500 monthly search visits from the US.

But if we look at the total global organic traffic to the page, you'll see that we get approximately 3,000 monthly visits from Google every single month.

And that's because this page ranks for over 200 keywords!

And this page isn't an outlier.

In our study of 3 million keywords, we found that on average, the top-ranking page ranks for nearly a thousand other keywords in the top 10.

So while you may be optimizing your pages for a main keyword, your page will likely rank for hundreds or even thousands of other relevant keywords.

And because of that, the monthly search traffic potential of the topic "SEO checklist" is actually higher than its monthly search volume.

This is what makes traffic potential a much more reliable metric than search volume.

And the way you determine traffic potential is by looking at how much traffic the top-ranking pages are getting.

For example, if we go to Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer and search for "submit website to search engines," you'll see that it has a search volume of 1,100 monthly searches in the US.

Now, if I scroll to the bottom of the page you'll see a SERP overview, which shows you the top 10 ranking pages for that keyword.

And SERP just stands for "search engine results page."

And as you can see, our page gets an estimated 5,300 monthly search visits from the US alone.

And we rank for over 1,300 keywords making traffic potential of this keyword higher than its search volume!

Now, it doesn't always work out this way.

For example, the query "keyword cannibalization" has a search volume of 150 monthly searches.

But the traffic potential is well under 100.

So it becomes more of a business decision whether you want to tackle the topic or not.

Now, choosing keywords based on metrics alone is not a good idea.

Which is why the rest of the checkpoints are meant to ground you.

The next point on our checklist is to assess the business potential of the keyword or topic.

Business potential simply represents the value a keyword has to your business.

And "value" really comes down to your niche as well as your business model.

So an easy way to do this is by assigning scores between 1-3 to keywords you're researching.

The higher the number, the more important the topic is to your business.

So let's say you have a site about golf.

And the way you make money is by selling used golf clubs.

Bringing this back to business potential, that means topics where you can organically recommend products to visitors would hold the highest business value.

For example, people searching for something like "buy used golf clubs" are likely ready to make a purchase here and now.

So in my books, this would have a business value of 3.

Now, a keyword like "best golf clubs" would also be relevant to your site.

People are likely ready to make a purchase soon but just don't know which clubs to buy.

But it's actually quite easy to plug your products.

Because for the golf clubs you recommend, you can easily link back to your product pages leading visitors closer to making a purchase.

So I'd give this a business value of 2.

Now, a keyword like "what is a handicap in golf" would be really tough to organically recommend your products.

But nevertheless, it's a way to attract relevant traffic to your site.

So I'd give this a business value of 1.

So these would hold the lowest priority.

And anything that has a score of 0 is probably worth ignoring because it's not going to impact your bottom line.

So something like "happy gilmore review" would have a business value of 0 because it has nothing to do with your business other than the fact that it's a fantastic movie about golf.

Alright, the next point on this checklist is to see if you can match searcher intent.

This is a concept that we covered in the first lesson of this course, but it's something that I'm going to keep talking about because it's super-important.

So again, search intent represents the reason behind a searcher's query.

And the way we determine that is by looking at the top-ranking pages for the keyword we want to rank for.

For example, let's say you have a recipes blog and you wanted to rank for "toaster oven."

Looking at the top-ranking pages, you'll see that almost all of the pages are eCommerce category pages.

This tells us that the intent of the searcher is likely to buy or at least to shop around for different toaster ovens.

So unless you can actually satisfy the intent of the searcher, it's unlikely that you'll be able to rank high for this query.

And we'll dig deeper into search intent in the next lesson.

The final point on this checklist is to determine whether you can rank for your keyword.

Search volume, traffic potential, and business potential mean absolutely nothing if you can't rank for your keyword in the not so distant future.

And understanding the level of difficulty to rank for a given keyword takes a bit of analysis and practice.

This is why I've created an entire lesson on assessing ranking difficulty because mastering this process will help you get predictable results in SEO.

So I'll save that for a later lesson.

Now, actually choosing keywords comes down to finding a balance in this checklist.

You have to ask yourself does the topic drive enough traffic and have business value to make it worth the effort?

And this is the question you should ask yourself before you create pages with the intent to rank in search.

And these 5 points in the checklist are exactly what we're going to dive deeper into throughout the rest of this module.

Tomorrow, we'll be publishing the next video in this course on searcher intent.

So make sure to subscribe so you don't miss that and if you're watching this video at a later date, then check the description because we'll have a link to the entire course there.

See you in the next lesson.