Whether you’ve used an SEO service provider before, or you’re in the process of trying to understand if it’s the right choice for you, the term keyword research is probably a term you’ve seen thrown around, probably with a time frame and cost associated finding and analyzing the keywords.

Choosing the wrong keywords can be a total waste of time, and result in not yielding the right type of traffic. Keyword research is simply a battle plan to avoid this and get everyone from local bloggers to larger businesses the right type of traffic.

Keywords vs Topics

The best way to think about keywords – or rather the less nerdy way – is to see them as building blocks to larger topics.

Google has changed a lot over the years and moved towards looking for overall topical authority rather than individual keyword relevancy. Why would Google reward a local dentist site if they have no indexed content about every aspect of that topic (i.e. teeth whitening, alignment, Invisalign, cosmetic dentistry).

In layman’s terms that means if you are a dentist in Philadelphia, we want you ranking across the board for multiple topics which are comprised of even more keyword variations.

How About a Real Life Example

So looking at a fictional dentistry clinic in Philadelphia, we might have a load of keywords gathered from actual search results, auto-suggest and third-party search intelligence software that looks like the following.

• Cosmetic dentistry philadelphia
• Philadelphia cosmetic dentist
• Invisalign cost philadelphia
• Cosmetic dentistry services
• Orthodontist services philadelphia
• Cosmetic surgery philly
• Teeth alignment philadelphia
• Teeth whitening philadelphia
• Braces philadelphia

At first glance these seem like a melange of 9 different keywords, but in reality they are just three different topics that we’d segment and build content around.

• Cosmetic dentistry philadelphia
• Philadelphia cosmetic dentist
• Invisalign cost philadelphia
• Cosmetic dentistry services
• Orthodontist services philadelphia
• Cosmetic surgery philly
• Teeth alignment philadelphia
• Teeth whitening philadelphia
• Braces philadelphia
• Orthodontic surgery philly
• Free teeth whitening in philadelphia

I’ve colour coded the above keywords into topical groups which we would then bake into content on individual pages like this:

• phillydentist.com/services/orthodontics
• phillydentist.com/services/whitening
• phillydentist.com/services/cosmetic

Keeping the URL structure concise allows us to use the title and meta description , something we’ve talked about before, to build in more topical relevancy and use other relevant keywords and variations. However the goal remains the same – build out pages around topics, that rank for several keywords and their variations rather than tons of pages for tons of keywords.

This also makes it easier for your prospective customers to get access to the information they need to convert. It’s much easier to hit one page for teeth whitening and find a FAQ section, online booking option, insurance, and location information than have to click around on your site and likely get frustrated.

Why Keyword Research Is Key For Our Local Clients

SEO has evolved from just putting more of certain words on a page, showing the client and making an espresso to celebrate.

Keyword research is an essential element of a larger digital marketing strategy and basically involves creating a game plan to give Google what it wants based on what sites  that are ranking well and  getting traffic. It can also reveal other areas of potential traffic you haven’t capitalized on yet. These could be informational keywords that allow you to capture potential customers earlier in the buying cycle.

There is much more that can be expanded on when it comes to finding keywords, determining their value and intent so having a plan before embarking on a long term SEO campaign is absolutely crucial.

Get in touch with us today and we can come up with a plan for you to dominate organically and shove your competitors out of the way.