We use keywords when we type things into the Google search box. In fact, everything we type in there is a keyword essentially. The more people search for the same keyword, the bigger its volume will get. From an SEO & content perspective, the bigger volume a keyword has, the bigger audience you can reach if you optimize your content for that keyword.
Although, technically:
Keyword volume shows the number of searches for the given keyword in a month and not the number of people who search for that keyword.
But I think you get the point. The bigger the volume, the bigger the pool you can dive into).
From an SEO angle, you need to find the right keywords that are relevant to your craft and your messaging, build content on them, and weave them into your pages in a subtle way. More on this a bit later.
So the bigger volume a keyword has, the better?
Not in every case. There are many factors Google considers when its algorithm decides which pages to rank and where on its search results pages.
If your site is relatively new or has a small visitor number, it’s very likely that you don’t have too many backlinks either (other sites linking to you). If you pick a keyword that’s relevant to your offering and optimize your site or specific pages for it, but it has a big volume, even if you do it well, you may not see yourself ranking in Google at all. Why?
Because you went for the big volume — and Google also looks at how many backlinks you have, along with a bunch of other ranking factors.
The moment that content is out in the world, it will compete with other posts that were written and optimized for the same keyword, and if that site has more backlinks than you (again, among other things), Google will rank that and every other page that is relevant for the related search query and is doing better than you on all the other fronts.
So how do I compete with other sites in Google, if I’m only starting out?
You need to find the right keywords, and the right keywords have the right volume and keyword difficulty, “handpicked” for you. (To be clear, you’ll be doing the handpicking and I’ll explain you how you can do that 😉).
We discussed what keyword volume is, now let’s talk about keyword difficulty before we look at how to find a good combination of the two.
Keyword difficulty shows how difficult it would be to rank (highly) for the chosen keyword; or more specifically, in the unpaid or organic search results.
If you go for keywords with a high keyword difficulty as the owner of a small or new website, you probably won’t have a nice chance of ranking well — similarly to the volume scenario I painted above.
Google will prefer other sites that, based on those myriads of parameters, are already well-established, credible, valuable sources, with a lot more content and very likely with lots of backlinks pointing to them too, which all allow them to more easily rank for keywords with higher difficulty. You know, small fish, big fish.
So, how do we find a good balance of volume and difficulty here? The most ideal for any site is to target a mix of high, middle, and low volume of keywords, and gradually build up to higher difficulties, but all with a good ratio and timing.
Let’s keep ourselves to our scenario. You are a creator with a small website with a few visitors, or you have a completely new site in the works as a small creative entrepreneur.
What should you consider when picking out keywords?
- Relevancy
- Volume
- Difficulty
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See you on the other side! 👋