Choose your keywords! Search Engine Optimization: the three criteria to take into account

Well-chosen keywords are the first step of a successful Search Engine Optimization strategy. The keywords are “key phrases” in fact. The important thing is not to make a list of words you will put on your page but to choose a key phrase that will be t

How to choose your keywords? The magic formula is as follows. We will detail it in the following blog post:

The relevance of your keywords

A page must have a keyword and not several. If you have been careful to create the pages of the website according to the problems of your customers, it will be easy to determine the subject and the corresponding keyword.

The relevance of the keyword in relation to the page on which it is located is essential. Google is able to analyze the topic of a page. If it is not clear or multiple topics are mixed, your page will be less well referenced.

The relevance of your keywords is also decided in relation to the search intentions of the Internet users. The keyword is what connects the problem of a user to a page that offers a response to this problem. For example, if I am looking for “Choose my keywords” you are looking for a page like this. On the other hand, if you are looking for “keywords”, your intention is less clear.

To evaluate the relevance of your keyword, look at the Google results on the search page. If the results are the same as your competitors you are on the right track.

The volume of research on your keywords

The number of people looking for your keyword in search engines is an important criterion for optimizing the choice of your keywords. The goal is to choose the keyword with the best balance between the number of searches and relevance.

To have an order of magnitude of the search volume you can use the keyword generator provided by Google (Google Keyword Tool). You will want to look at the monthly search volume in the targeted area and look at the number of exact searches for your keyword and also, with a wide setting, to group similar expressions.

Competition on your keywords

The competition for your keyword will be the last item to consider. If the competition is tough you may have to think about different keywords in order to bypass it, or you will know that there is a lot of work to be done afterwards to be well referenced.

Competition is the most difficult element to evaluate without professional tools. When you search for your keyword on Google, look at the sites present on the first page of results, that's where you want to be. Are these sites the same type as yours? Competitors of your size? In this case your keyword choice is probably good.

If the sites on the search page are media sites, forums, national competitors that make up 10 times your size, then you are not in the right place.

The decision of the choice of keywords depends on your strategy. Are you a young ambitious company? Then high competition will not scare you, but in the short term you have to work on easier keywords. Are you a small local business? The location will be crucial in choosing your keywords to not fall in front of the national signs.

Once you have optimized your site on your main keywords, your blog will allow you to create content on many similar keywords.