Keyword Research Step 2: Analyzing Keywords—Metrics
Explore keyword research metrics important in analyzing keywords and practice shortlisting keywords with the greatest potential to bring the right traffic to our website.
Keyword research metrics—terms to know
Though we’ve learned the three determining attributes to analyze keywords, other metrics are involved too. A look at the keyword analysis report created by a keyword research tool will show multiple metrics to gauge a keyword’s worth.
Using different keyword research tools, we will discover that there are several technical terms that we either haven’t come across before or do not completely understand. To utilize the outcomes of these tools to their true potentials, we should be proficient with the language they use.
Listed below are some common terms that will show up in keyword analysis reports, along with their meaning and significance.
Cost per click (CPC)
Cost per click is the amount that advertisers pay for a single click on an ad that appears for a particular keyword on Google Ads. It is an important metric in determining the costs and returns on our paid search campaigns. In the keyword analysis report, the CPC column gives us the average price that we will have to pay if we choose to bid on the keyword.
In organic SEO, CPC can help us gauge the worth of the keyword. If advertisers are willing to spend a decent amount of money into the keyword, the higher its potential to lead to conversions. At the same time, a very high CPC also suggests that advertisers are paying high to beat organic results. We might have a harder time getting our page to appear high organically for the keyword if there are a lot of advertisers in the niche.
Competition or keyword difficulty
Competition or keyword difficulty (KD) are two different terms used for the same attribute. This attribute is a measure of how easy or difficult it is to rank for the keyword. Google Keyword Planner shows the competition score as one out of three levels, high, medium or low. Semrush shows KD as a percentage score, with a higher percentage signifying greater difficulty to rank for the keyword.
Search volume
Search volume refers to the number of searches that the keyword gets, typically during a month.
SEO difficulty
SEO Difficulty is a metric that Ubersuggest uses to distinguish the keyword difficulty in organic search from its "paid difficulty" score.
Paid difficulty
Ubersuggest uses the metric "paid difficulty" to gauge the competition for the keyword in paid campaigns.
Trends
This metric gauges the popularity of the keyword over time. It may also refer to the differences in the interest level of people in a keyword by region. The best tool to observe keyword trends is Google Trends, though other SEO tools also give us a fair idea on this kind of information. By looking at the changes in interest over time, we can predict the long-term potential of the keyword.
In the picture below, we can see that the interest level (on a scale of 100) in the search term "pet collar" is fairly constant over the course of last year. It might be safe to say that the interest will last in the future too. Depending on our research, we can adjust the horizontal scale to observe the trend over our preferred time period.
Trends also help us observe the seasonality of the keyword. Interest in certain keywords, called seasonal keywords, only spikes during a specific time of the year. Looking at the Trends graph below, it’s easy to see that people are more interested in the keyword Christmas decorations around Christmas time and almost not at all through the rest of the year.
SERP features
SERP Features are important when considering how Google displays our site on the result pages. By definition, SERP feature is a result on a Google SERP other than the traditional ‘10 blue links’ (or the organic results). With SERP features, Google attempts to address the searcher’s queries without requiring them to leave the result pages.
The most common SERP features include:
Paid results
Paid results typically appear on the top and bottom of the page and are identified by the small "Ad" label next to them. Paid results can be acquired by bidding on the keyword, though Google also takes into account the relevance and usefulness of the ad to the people’s search queries before displaying them.
Featured snippets
Featured snippets are instant answers that appear near the top of the result page, below the ads. They are aimed at delivering specific answers to user’s search queries. These snippets are picked from a specific section of a webpage and displayed on Google’s result page. Featured snippets typically have higher CTRs (click-through rates) than organic search results.
Images pack
When a search term is perceived by Google to be more clearly answered through visual content, a series of images called an image pack, is displayed on the result page. Images pack appears among organic results as a block or a row of images related to the search term. If the keyword can be of visual interest to searchers, optimize our webpage for images by using descriptive alt text, standardized image size, etc. The chapter "On-Page SEO" will cater to the subject in further detail.
Knowledge panels
Knowledge panels appear in the form of an information card on the right-hand side of Google’s result page. They aim to deliver the basic information on the topic without requiring the searcher to leave the result page. They appear for almost one-fourth of users’ queries, according to Semrush Sensor Data. The knowledge panel is powered by Google’s Knowledge Graph, which is a database that stores information from Wikipedia and similar sources. Consequently, an appearance in the knowledge panel is unlikely for most web pages.
Video carousels
Video carousel appears as a list of video results (typically from YouTube) on top of the organic results. Though video results appear for only a small percentage of search terms, their click-through rates are high, partly because of their strategic position in SERPs.
Other types of SERP features include Top Stories, Twitter Packs, Rich Snippets, People Also Ask, Shopping Ads, Hotel Pack, Flights Block, and Job Listings. It’s worth researching which SERP features show up for our target keywords, and then attempting to optimize our web page in a way that it appears in one of those SERP features. This can be done by simply entering the keyword into Google and analyzing what appears on the first page.
Organic CTR
Organic CTR is a metric that appears in Moz Keyword Explorer. It helps identify keywords where there are fewer SERP features to take attention away from the top 10 organic search results. A higher organic CTR suggests that there are fewer SERP features blocking the view of classic organic blue links. It means that there is a greater chance for the searcher to click on our website if it appears on the first page of SERP results.
A keyword with a lower organic CTR may have lower chances of being visited if it appears in the top 10 blue links, but it may have a stronger potential in other areas. For example, we may optimize our page for images and win our chances to appear in Google’s Image packs for that keyword. If Google perceives that we have answered a particular query in the best manner, we might earn a spot in Google’s Featured Snippet.
Priority
The priority metric appears in Moz Keyword Explorer. It combines all the other metrics for that keyword, including search volume, difficulty, and organic CTR to help us spot the high priority keywords. A higher priority keyword signifies that it has a high search volume, high organic CTR, and low difficulty, and should be near the top of our keyword list when sorted by priority. A low priority keyword, signifying a low search volume, low organic CTR, and high difficulty should either be lower down in the keyword list or removed entirely.
Organize keyword research into a spreadsheet
Step 2 of keyword research involves analyzing keywords to prioritize the keyword master list until we have a final keyword list sorted by priority. Don’t throw out anything just yet. Even if we don’t want to focus on the high difficulty keywords for now, cast them to the tail-end of the list until our website is popular enough to take on the challenge.
The best approach is to export the keywords list on a spreadsheet, where each metric can be stored in a different column corresponding to the keywords. The spreadsheet will look something like this:
More columns may be added or removed, as required to cover our keyword research needs. Identify which combination of metrics is most important to our business and sort the list by priority. Highlight our best keywords (with decent search volume, low difficulty, and high organic CTR) in a different color so we may see our target clearly each time we revisit the sheet.
Test your knowledge
Choose the correct option for the following questions.
Which type of keyword is typically relevant for an online retail store selling dog supplies?
Navigational keyword
Informational keyword
Transactional keyword
Commercial keyword
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