Types of SEO Keywords - Your Guide to Keyword Research
3
Min Read Time
Joseph Mullins
Choquer Creative Copywriter
To understand howSEO keywords work, you must first learn the different types of SEO keywords. There are three main types of keywords: primary, secondary and accessory keywords. Your keyword research will allow you to categorize your search terms and choose which ones are more valuable than others so you know which ones belong in which category. Keyword value can depend on many factors including search volume, keyword difficulty and keyword trends.
Types of Keywords
Understanding the difference between primary keywords and secondary keywords will help you during your SEO keyword research.
Keywords are broken down into three categories:
Primary keywords - the main keyword that one page is optimized for.
Secondary keywords - related search terms.
Accessory keywords - aren’t directly related, less volume and less competitive.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Keywords
When you find a primary keyword, there is often the urge to use it all over your site. But this isn’t helpful and is called “keyword stuffing”. There should only be one primary keyword per page.
Keyword stuffing also refers to putting too many secondary and accessory keywords onto one page. This isn’t good either, as it can be obvious to the search engine and can put off your site visitors. The first rule of content writing is to write for your audience, not the search engine. Make it sound natural, even conversational, and slip in your keywords here and there.
Know your limit. Not all businesses’ have keyword authority, so know what you are up against when choosing the top volume keyword. It is more valuable to choose keywords with a lower competition score that can help build your authority rather than getting lost in the search results.
You don’t need to create hundreds of pages on your website to encompass all the primary keywords.
If you’re optimizing for your primary keyword, you will often rank for secondary keywords even if you are not using them on the page.
Secondary keywords can be even more important, they usually bring in more traffic than the primary keyword.
The keyword research tool isn’t always right. Sometimes it can suggest a keyword that isn’t valuable for your business, so don’t get distracted by the large keyword volume number.
The Importance of Best Practices in Keyword Research
Any effective SEO approach must include keyword research. By carrying out efficient keyword research, businesses may better target their marketing efforts, drive more visitors to their websites, and eventually enhance their lead and sales generation. Yet, it's crucial to adhere to established practises to maximise the effectiveness of your keyword research.
Long-tail keywords can increase your chances of ranking higher in search results and help you target a more focused audience. Also, for companies that cater to a particular region, targeting local keywords is essential. Studying competitor keywords can give you useful information about their SEO strategy and point out any weaknesses in your own plan.
The evaluation of high-value keywords' search volume, competition, and relevance can also be done with the aid of keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs.
To keep up with changes in search trends and user behaviour, it's crucial to frequently update and renew your keyword list. This might assist you in staying one step ahead of the competition and boosting website traffic and lead quality.
Businesses may improve their SEO approach, reach their target market, and ultimately spur growth and success by adhering to best practises in keyword research.
The Role of Keyword Research in Content Creation
Keyword research plays a critical role in content creation as it helps businesses create content that is not only optimized for search engines but also relevant and valuable to their target audience. By conducting keyword research, businesses can identify the topics and search terms that their audience is interested in and incorporate them into their content strategy.
To incorporate keywords naturally into content, businesses should focus on creating high-quality content that provides value to the reader. Rather than simply stuffing keywords into their content, businesses should aim to create informative, engaging, and well-researched content that addresses the needs and concerns of their target audience.
It is also important to regularly update and refresh your content with new keywords and information to keep it relevant and up-to-date with changes in search trends and user behavior. By regularly measuring the success of your content with keyword metrics, businesses can determine which keywords are driving the most traffic and engagement and adjust their content strategy accordingly.
Overall, by leveraging the insights gained from keyword research, businesses can create content that not only ranks well in search engines but also resonates with their target audience, builds brand credibility, and ultimately drives conversions and sales.
The Potential Drawbacks of Over-Reliance on Keywords
While conducting keyword research is an essential part of any effective SEO plan, relying too heavily on keywords can be detrimental to both the user experience and search engine results. Businesses run the danger of creating low-quality content that doesn't engage readers and eventually lowers their search engine ranks when they put keyword density ahead of quality content.
The risk of keyword stuffing is one of the potential negative effects of overusing keywords. When companies misuse keywords in an effort to trick search engine rankings, this practise is known as keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing, however, is now more easily detected by search engines, and as a result, such tactics may incur penalties that have a detrimental effect on a website's search engine ranks.
However, placing too much emphasis on keywords can harm user experience. Businesses who prioritise keyword density over high-quality content risk publishing articles or blog posts that are hard to read, disjointed, or don't address the reader's concerns. People seek out high-quality material that responds to their questions and offers them insightful information. They're inclined to look elsewhere if they can't find it there.
Businesses should give user intent priority while producing content to prevent these issues. They should strive to provide valuable content that addresses the reader's concerns, offers them helpful information, and keeps them interested rather than concentrating only on keywords. Businesses may raise the rankings of their websites and position themselves as thought leaders in their fields by putting the customer experience first.
Concentrating on long-tail keywords is another tactic to avoid overusing keywords. Although long-tail keywords are more specialised and geared to a certain topic or niche, firms should still focus on primary keywords. Businesses can produce content that is more targeted, pertinent, and helpful to their target audience by focusing on long-tail keywords. Also, they may be able to resist the need to overuse the main keywords in their material, which could lead to penalties from search engines.
Also, organisations ought to concentrate on producing valuable content for readers. Businesses should strive to produce articles or blog entries that are helpful, entertaining, and well-researched rather than merely jamming keywords into their material. Businesses may draw in more readers, boost engagement, and position themselves as subject-matter experts by producing high-quality content.
In conclusion, even while conducting keyword research is essential for any effective SEO plan, relying too much on keywords can be detrimental to both the user experience and search engine rankings. Businesses may avoid the problems of over-reliance on keywords and establish themselves as thought leaders in their field by prioritising user intent, concentrating on long-tail keywords, and producing high-quality content.
Conclusion
Choquer Creative will be giving you a thorough but easy-to-understand guide to keywords. From research to the actual implementation, we will be explaining how the process works and how you can utilize keyword research for your own business. If you don’t want to perform your own keyword research, we have in-house SaaS SEO experts that are experienced in digital marketing that can help you increase your lead growth. Contact us for more information today!
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SEO
9.9.22
Absolutely New To SEO Terms? This Comprehensive Guide Will Help You Out
If you're new to SEO terms, welcome! We'll soon have you feeling like a pro.
This guide is going to be comprehensive and easy to understand. It will give you the tools and knowledge you need to start making an impact on your website's search engine rankings today.
A/B Testing
Definition
A/B testing is the process of comparing two versions of a web page to determine which performs better. A/B testing can be used to test any aspect of your site, from the text on your homepage to the color of a button.
The basic format for A/B testing is that you create two versions of the same page, and see which version got more clicks or conversions etc.
Applying this SEO term
A/B testing is a great way to get the most out of your marketing efforts.
You can use A/B testing to test different titles, descriptions and keywords for your website. This will help you figure out what works best for your target audience and get more traffic from search engines like Google.
This SEO term a great way to measure whether or not your content marketing strategy is working. If you're conducting webinars or posting blogs that aren’t getting traffic, try changing up the title or description and see if it affects your rankings or conversion rates.
Alt Text
Definition
Alt text is the text that appears when you hover over an image on a web page. When an image fails to load, the alt text helps users figure out what the image was meant to be.
Applying this SEO term
Alt text is an SEO strategy that allows you to include extra information about the image on your page, which can help improve your site's rankings in organic search results. This is because the alt text helps provide context to the image.
Hacks for this SEO term: keep it short, concise, and to the point. Aim for less than 125 characters.
Anchor Text
Definition
If you're wondering what the heck anchor text is and how it can help your SEO, let us explain.
Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink that links to a page on your website or to another website. It’s an SEO strategy used for link building (see what we did there?).
Applying this SEO term
Other than providing users with context to what they’re clicking, anchor text is also something that search engines use to determine what your page is about.
For example, if someone searches for something like "digital strategy agency" and clicks on a link from your site that has the anchor text "digital strategy agency," then Google’s search algorithm will understand what your page is about and rank for it accordingly.
To put this into simple terms: if you're trying to sell hamburgers, but all the links on your site say things like "our products" or "our company," then it doesn't matter how good those hamburgers are—Google won’t rank your website higher!
Backlinks
Definition
A backlink is a link from another website that points to your site. When your website has more backlinks, it helps it rank higher on Google and other search engines.
Applying this SEO term
Backlinks are a critical part of any SEO strategy.
But this SEO term is the hardest to implement.
To acquire backlinks, you need to have high-quality and informative content that other websites will reference in their articles.
This can either happen organically where your content is discovered by other websites through Google.
Or, you can reach out to websites and promote your content.
Bounce Rate
Definition
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who view only one page on your site and then leave.The higher your bounce rate, the more likely your visitors are leaving without engaging with your content.
For example, if a visitor arrives on your homepage from Google and then clicks back to their search engine results, your bounce rate will be 100%. If that visitor views multiple pages, such as reading an article or watching a video before clicking back to their search engine results, then your bounce rate will be lower.
Applying this SEO term
A high bounce rate means that you're losing your potential customers before they even see your products or services. This is especially problematic if you have an ecommerce business website, as it means that people are leaving without buying anything.
In order to increase your web traffic and reduce bounce rate, consider adding more high-quality and engaging content to each page. You can also add calls-to-action on each page so that visitors know exactly what you want them to do on their first visit to your site.
Breadcrumb Navigation
Definition
A breadcrumb trail is a list of links that shows the path to the current page. Breadcrumbs are usually placed at the top of a website.
We’ve included a client’s website as an example. If you visit Pedigree Painting, the breadcrumb trail might look like this: Home → Painting → Residential Painting.
Applying this SEO term
Breadcrumb navigation is a technique that can help your website's SEO.
It helps Google know what the content on each page on your site is about, so it can figure out whether or not that page is relevant to the search query that brought people there.
Breadcrumb navigation also helps users navigate between pages on your website. Making sure your website’s navigation is user friendly can decrease your bounce rate and increase your dwell time (yes, both of these SEO terms are on this list).
Call To Action
Definition
A call to action is a button, link, or graphic that encourages users to take some type of action. For example: subscribe, contact us, sign up for our newsletter, etc.
Applying this SEO term
A good call to action should be clear and concise. It should be used to help your users know what they can do on your page in order to get the most out of it.
A bad call to action will be hard to find or unclear.
Content Gap Analysis
Definition
Content gap analysis is a way to measure the difference between the content you have and the content you need.
This process is crucial in helping visitors find what they need on your website and also getting them to come back to your site.
Applying this SEO term
Content gap analysis is an effective way to see what information is missing from your marketing and how you can better fill those gaps. Here's how it works:
First, you'll need to identify the key points in your sales funnel.
2. Make them believe that you have exactly what they want (brand identity)
3. Get them to take action (call-to-action)
4. Deliver on your promise (delivery of product or service)
Content Marketing
Definition
Content marketing is an SEO strategy that uses the creation and sharing of valuable and relevant content to attract, engage, and retain a clearly defined audience.
The goal of content marketing is to help you build your brand and authority by creating something that is interesting and helpful for your target market.
Applying this SEO term
Content marketing is the best way to get your brand in front of potential customers.
It's all about creating a steady stream of quality, SEO-optimized content that addresses the needs of your target audience.
The goal is to create content that is easily found on Google, that people want to read—and then share it on social media. This means that you need to be able to write well and understand the needs of your target audience.
Conversion Rate
Definition
Conversion rate is a key metric for measuring the success of your SEO efforts. It's the percentage of site visitors who take the action you want them to take—for example, buying something on your site, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out the contact form.
Applying this SEO term
Conversion rate is the key to success online.
If you want to make money online, you need to get people to convert.
If they don't convert, they won't buy your product or sign up for your service – and you won’t make any money from these visitors.
So how can you optimize this SEO term?
To increase your conversion rate, you need to make sure that your website is easy to use and that it has a clear call to action (scroll up for more information about this SEO term). You also need to make sure that your website is optimized for mobile, so people can access it from any device.
The main benefit to crawlers is that they can index your web pages without your participation, and they can do it very quickly. For example, if you add a new page to your site, it may take Googlebot (the most popular crawler) up to two weeks before it discovers and indexes the change.
Applying this SEO term
This is the most important SEO term.
Search engines are like giant warehouses full of products and when customers want something, they go on Google and type in what they want—and then they'll get back tons of results with links to websites that have exactly what they were looking for.
You want your website to be a part of that list.
So, if you want to be found by crawlers, you need to make sure your site is crawlable. This means you need a user-friendly site that can easily be navigated by crawlers (and visitors) so they can find all the information they need.
If your website is disorganized, not user-friendly, and hard to navigate, crawlers may not index the page.
To find out if any of your webpages have been crawled and indexed, Google Console has a helpful tool you can use.
Dwell Time
Definition
Dwell time is the amount of time a customer spends on your site before leaving. It's an SEO term that has become increasingly important because it shows how well you are engaging with your audience.
Applying this SEO term
Dwell time is an important SEO term because it's a direct measure of the quality of your content.
The higher the quality of your content, the more time visitors will spend on your website listening to what you have to say.
The longer people spend on your site, the more likely they are to find what they're looking for—and if they don't find it (or if they find something else), then they have more opportunity to interact with you and discover what you have to offer.
Moreover, the longer they're there, the more likely they're going to do what you want them to do: buy something, sign up for your newsletter, subscribe to your podcast, etc.
It's important to remember that dwell time is different from bounce rate: bounce rate simply measures how many people leave your website without interacting with it at all.
External Link
Definition
An external link is a link that points to a website outside of the current one.
Applying this SEO term
External linking is an SEO strategy that helps improve your website’s authority. Google assumes high-quality pages link to other high-quality pages. Therefore, your content will be favoured more and ranked higher.
The key to external linking is to link to reputable sources and ensure your anchor text is optimized for SEO (for more tips on this SEO term, scroll up to “anchor text”).
Featured Snippets
Definition
A featured snippet is a box that appears at the top of Google search results for certain queries. It's designed to show users exactly what they're looking for, instead of having to wade through other sites' content on their own.
The box contains a brief summary of the topic at hand, followed by a link back to the page where Google found that information. The summary can be a definition, list, table, instructions, or ranking.
You can see an example at the top of the image below:
Applying this SEO term
Featured snippets are considered “position #0” on the SERP page since it appears before other results.
Sites on featured snippets are able to rank higher on Google without increasing their ranking.
In terms of SEO, if you are just starting content creation, try to aim for keywords that don’t result in a featured snippet when searched. This is because featured snippets get 8% of clicks on the results page. Competition is fierce and you want to avoid that.
If you’re deep into content creation and are confident in your material, you can take a different approach. Look for keywords with featured snippets and see what type of content Google looks for. For example, for the keyword you chose, does Google feature lists, definitions, or tables? Then, you can go ahead and optimize your content for that format.
There are 2 types of Googlebots: a mobile crawler and a desktop crawler.
The mobile crawler simulates a user going on your website on their mobile and the desktop crawler does the same but with a desktop.
You can choose which Googlebot you want to be the “majority” crawler and “minority” crawler for your website.
The majority crawler will crawl your website first and the minority crawler will crawl URLs that have already been crawled by the majority crawler.
Applying this SEO term
You cannot target the mobile or desktop Googlebot separately. This is because both use the same user agent token in robots.txt.
However, this shows the importance of having a website that is user-friendly on all devices: desktop, mobile, tablet, etc. Google ranks responsive websites higher on the results page since they are more user-friendly (for more information about this new SEO term, scroll down to “responsive website”).
Header Tags
Definition
Header tags are headings and subheadings in an article. They are used to separate sections to improve readability of an article.
Headers are numbered in a hierarchical order from H1 to H6. H1 is usually the title of the article.
Applying this SEO term
Header tags are an important place to insert keywords.
This is because Google uses headers to gather data and context about your article. Having keywords in headers will improve your ranking.
Secondly, if you have your eye on being a featured snippet, Google can pull your headings and subheadings to create its own list in a featured snippet. So, make sure you’re using your header tags wisely!
Indexing
Definition
Indexing is the process of adding a website to a search engine's database.
The easiest way to understand this is to think of the web as a library and each website as a book. Search engines send out crawlers to discover each of the books in the library. Then, they index the books so people can find them in the library.
Applying this SEO term
Indexing ensures your website appears on the results page. Along with crawlers, this is the most important SEO term.
In the “crawlers” section, we already talked about methods to optimize your website for crawling and indexing.
However, it is possible for your web page to be crawled but not indexed. The best way to find out if this is the case is to use Google Console for a summary of indexed and non-indexed pages. Google Console will also provide you with the reason your web page was not indexed.
After fixing the issue, you can request a re-crawl of the affected webpage. Google will usually fulfill these requests within 2 weeks.
Internal Link
Definition
An internal link is a link that points to another page within the same website.
Applying this SEO term
Internal links are an easy and effective SEO strategy.
When crawlers go through your website, they also follow links within your website. By following links, the crawlers can understand the context of the page and the relationship between various pages. This allows Google to figure out what subject your website is about. This, in turn, helps your website rank higher for keywords on that subject matter.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
Definition
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the metrics that help you understand how you're doing. They can be used to measure your progress, or they can be used to measure if you need to do something differently.
Some examples of KPIs are: bounce rate, dwell time, conversion rate, etc. We’ve covered a lot of KPIs in this SEO terms guide!
Applying this SEO term
Key performance indicators give you a bird's eye view of where your business is right now, and how you're doing in comparison to where you want to go.
They allow you to identify problem areas and develop strategies to improve them. For example:
Is the bounce rate on certain pages too high? This can be a reflection of low-quality content, poor readability of the content, or slow page speed.
Is the dwell time on certain pages higher than others? Find out what you’re doing right on the high dwell time pages and implement it on the low-performing pages
A keyword is the search term your target audience uses to find your products/services.
Applying this SEO term
The first step is to think of a keyword that you want your page to rank for. We recommend Semrush for finding keywords.
When finding a keyword, consider the following factors:
Relevant Keyword
Keywords should be related to what people would search for when they're looking for your product or service. This will allow you to create content using the keyword in the form of blogs or articles.These blogs will bring your target audience to your website and have a higher chance of converting them to leads (yes, we have these SEO terms in this list!)
Competitiveness of the Keyword
If you’re a small to medium sized business, make sure the keyword isn’t too competitive. Google will rank sites with higher authority better on the results page.
For example, don’t use the keyword “iPhone” and expect to be in the top 10 results along with Apple.
Want More Guidance?
If you need a guide that shows you exactly how to conduct keyword research and use your results in creating content – we have you covered. We created a step-by-step guide on keyword research that you can follow along with!
Keyword Clustering
Definition
Keyword clustering is a method of organizing and classifying keywords into groups based on their semantic similarity.
This technique is used by search engines to group similar documents together and eliminate noise from the search results.
Applying this SEO term
Keyword clustering works by grouping certain words together based on their usage. For example, the words "SEO" and "lead conversion" are often used together in sentences about digital marketing.
By grouping these words together, you can optimize for any term that your target audience may search for.
For example, if you’re selling winter coats, your main keyword may be “winter coat” but you will accompany it by keywords like “warmest winter coat” or “affordable warm jacket.”
Keyword Stuffing
Definition
Keyword stuffing is when you force a certain keyword into your content so often that it becomes unnatural and hard to read. Keyword stuffing is an attempt by many websites to artificially inflate their search engine rankings.
Applying this SEO term
To optimize for SEO, avoid keyword stuffing at all costs!
Google penalizes keyword stuffing and your website’s ranking can suffer dramatically.
Use keywords naturally in your blog. Not only will this ensure your website doesn’t get penalized, but it will also increase the readability of your article. This can help in lead conversion, decrease bounce rate, and increase dwell time (don’t worry, we have all these new SEO terms in this guide).
Instead of keyword stuffing, use LSI keywords and keyword clustering to improve your website’s ranking (yes, we have these keywords too!).
Local SEO
Definition
Local SEO is a marketing strategy used to help your business’ visibility increase in your local geographic location.
Now that we have your attention, let’s talk about optimizing this SEO term.
Create a Google my Business page
Creating a Google my Business page ensures your business and its details show up when someone searches for local businesses. It will look like the Choquer Creative profile on the right side of the image.
Google verifies and supports its own content. So, creating a Google my Business page will place your business on your target audience’s profile.
Insert your location in front of keywords
Make sure your business pops up for your location. For example, instead of simply using the keyword “web development agency,” use “Surrey based web development agency.”
Create local content
Creating content is a great way to add keywords and optimize for your local area. Content can be in the form of blogs, instructions, community involvement, etc.
Long-Tail Keyword
Definition
Long-tail keywords are search queries that are 3 or more words.
Applying this SEO term
Long-tail keywords are very specific and often have less competition than single word keywords. And, because there’s less competition for them, they are easier to rank for.
Long tail keywords are a good marketing strategy for small businesses who don’t have enough content or authority to rank for shorter, more competitive keywords.
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keywords
Definition
LSI analyzes the relationships between words, and finds patterns that indicate which terms are related and should be grouped together. For example: “snow” and “cold.”
Applying this SEO term
Using LSIs is a great way to improve your SEO ranking and avoid keyword stuffing. They add variation to your content while still adding related keywords.
Our favourite way to find LSIs is easy and free: Google.
Search for your target keyword and scroll to the bottom of the page. There, you will find keywords that Google considers to be related to yours. Use these keywords in your content!
Meta Description
Definition
The meta description is the short blurb under a website’s link on Google’s search result page. This provides users with a brief overview of the page.
Applying this SEO term
Meta descriptions don’t directly impact SEO.
However, when users are deciding what to click on in the search result page, they read the meta descriptions.
Therefore, meta descriptions may influence the number of visits your website gets from the search result page.
Organic Traffic
Definition
Organic traffic is a form of website traffic that comes from search engines, such as Google.
It’s referred to as “organic” because the website doesn’t pay for their link to be placed on the search result page. The visitors came to the website by finding it on their own while going through the search result page.
Applying this SEO term
Generating organic traffic is the best type of marketing strategy: simple, effective, and FREE.
This marketing tactic is a long-term strategy since the web page continues to pull in organic traffic long after it’s initially posted.
This means more people are introduced to your products!
There are no shortcuts to generating organic traffic. It takes good SEO skills and market research.
Page Speed
Definition
Page speed measures the time it takes for the content on a web page to load.
Applying this SEO term
It’s important to optimize for this SEO term because Google takes page speed into consideration during website ranking.
For optimal SEO, aim for page speed of less than 3 seconds.
Page Rank
Definition
Page Rank is Google’s method of ranking web pages on the search result page.
Applying this SEO term
You may have heard the running joke that page 2 of Google is the best place to hide a dead body.
In order to improve your website’s ranking, use good SEO techniques. Try to implement a few of the SEO terms we discussed in this guide.
Paid Traffic (PPC)
Definition
Paid traffic is a form of website traffic that comes from paid ads on Google.
Generally, companies will pay to have their websites placed at the top of the search results page. The link to the website has “Ad” written next to it.
Every time someone clicks on their website from the results page, the company gets charged a pre-set amount. Hence, it’s called pay per click (PPC).
The cost depends on the keyword the company wants the ad for.
Applying this SEO term
Generating paid traffic does not need SEO optimization. However, when developing a marketing plan, include both paid and organic traffic in your efforts. Using both strategies creates a cohesive marketing plan.
Before deciding to use paid traffic (PPC), consider the following conflicting (and useful) facts:
Responsive websites are websites that are optimized for any device: phones, tablets, desktop, etc. They are user-friendly and functional on any device.
Applying this SEO term
When ranking websites, Google ranks mobile-friendly sites first. This means that if you have a terrible mobile site, your ranking may be affected.
The easiest way to create a responsive website is through Webflow. In Webflow, you only need to create one layout and the page is optimized for all devices.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Definition
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website so that it appears higher in search results when your target audience searches for a related keyword.
Site authority is a metric that measures the relevance of a website in relation to its topic or industry. It is calculated by examining factors such as the number of links to and from a site, how often it's updated, and how much traffic it receives.
Applying this SEO term
To increase your website authority, there are a number of SEO terms you can apply:
Increase backlinks
Produce high-quality content
Establish trust with your customers
Create a user-friendly and functional website
Sitemap
Definition
A site map defines the relationships between pages on your website. It helps users navigate the structure of your website and find the page they need.
Applying this SEO term
A site map is important when Googlebot is crawling through your website. It helps both visitors and Google navigate your website and find relevant information.
Remember, if Googlebot can’t crawl your webpage, it won’t be indexed.
User Intent / Search Intent
Definition
User intent (or search intent) is a categorization of what the user’s goal is when they type the keyword into the search bar.
There are 4 types of user intent: transaction (T), commercial (C), navigation (N), information (I).
We’ve included an image of what this looks like on Semrush.
Applying this SEO term
Google’s primary goal is to satisfy a user’s search intent.
This means, when you use a keyword, take into consideration the search intent when making content. This will help your ranking.
Here’s a simple strategy for implementing search intent:
Find a target keyword
Find the search intent for the keyword
Search for the keyword on Google and see what types of content Google is ranking highly
Use the highly-ranked web pages along with the search intent to create your content
More Information
If you’re hungry for more SEO knowledge, web design hacks, or marketing strategies, head over to our blog page for more information!
Plus, if you're looking for hassle-free web development and design, we've got you covered! We have an expert web development team that serves anywhere in Canada and the US.
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SEO
9.20.22
The Ultimate Social Media KPI List: Everything You Need To Boost Performance
Buckle up, folks. It's time to talk about social media KPIs.
The term "KPI" stands for "key performance indicator" and it's the thing that tells you whether your marketing strategy is working—or failing.
KPIs are one of the most important things to keep an eye on if you want to grow your business. So let's take a look at some of the most important social media KPIs for business growth.
Social Media KPIs 101
We know you’re excited to jump into the KPIs and how to use them.
But first: some quick questions and answers about social media KPIs.
What are KPIs
KPI stands for "Key Performance Indicators," which is just a fancy way of saying "what you're measuring."
KPIs provide data you can analyze to measure the success of your social media marketing efforts. There are a variety of different social media KPIs to choose from, depending on what you want to accomplish with your strategy (we’ll get to that later, don’t worry!).
Basically, if you're spending money on advertising and marketing, you need a way to measure its effectiveness. This will help ensure that your brand isn't wasting time with ineffective ads and can focus on ones that work!
KPIs simplify marketing strategies
You want to know how many people are seeing your content, how many of them are engaging with it, and how many actually buy or sign up for something as a result of reading it.
One of the most important things about KPIs is that they give you a straightforward and unbiased way to measure performance.
This objective data shows you which content is performing well and which content needs a re-vamp. From here, you can develop marketing strategies to improve success.
Your goal should be to pick a few KPIs (not all of them) and stick with them over time so that any improvements become more obvious.
Once you have your KPIs set up properly, you can use them regularly as part of your marketing strategy review process so you can constantly improve your efforts on each channel without having any gaps in data-collection.
Our biggest tip is to choose one social media KPI tracking platform. This ensures that your data is consistent and you can track changes over time.
Types of Social Media KPIs
Let’s take a deep dive into each category.
Reach
Reach is a social media KPI that lets you know how many people you’re “reaching” with your content.
It's important to know your reach because it tells you how many people are seeing your content. It can help inform which direction to take your content, and it's an important metric for any business or person who wants to connect with others.
This social media KPI has its limitation though. While reach lets you know whether or not your content has been seen, it doesn't tell you anything about engagement with the content. We’ll discuss engagement in the next section.
Engagement
Engagement is a social media KPI that looks at how often your audience interacts with your content and how likely they are to recommend it.
It's a way of measuring how well you are doing at engaging with your audience, and it goes beyond just measuring clicks by looking at the time someone spends on your site and whether or not they come back for more.
Because engagement has been shown to have a direct correlation with retention rates—the longer someone stays engaged with your product/service, the more likely they are to buy it or continue using it.
Conversions
“Conversions” are visitors who took the action you wanted after viewing your content.
So if you have an e-commerce site, a conversion could mean someone buying an item. If you're running a blog, a conversion could mean someone subscribing.
This social media KPI provides important insight into how effective your content is at driving desired behaviour.
List of Social Media KPIs
Follower count
We've all seen it: the follower count. It's like a badge of honor, a sign to other people that you're worth their time and effort. And it definitely doesn't hurt to have more followers than your competition.
But what if we told you that this social media KPI is actually one of the least important ones?
Sure, seeing your follower count go up is a great feeling. But how many of your followers are engaging with your content? And how many followers are buying from your business?
So while it's great to increase your follower count, don't let that be your only metric for success—after all, quality beats quantity every time!
Impressions
Impressions are the number of times your content was shown to people over a given time period.
It's a great metric for measuring the reach of your content on both Google and social media.
Measuring impressions can help you understand how many people are seeing your content and if they're engaging with it. This can help you make changes accordingly.
For example, if 70 people saw your content over the span of a week, but only 4 people engaged with it, then you may need to re-evaluate your content and target audience. This is because while your content was seen by 70 people, only 4 were influenced enough to click on it, like, comment, subscribe, etc.
Traffic
Traffic refers to the number of visitors that come to your website from search engines, social media platforms, or other websites.
The traffic KPI helps you determine which content gets the most visitors and which one doesn’t. You can use this information when planning content strategy or developing new products or services for your business.
Traffic By Source
Traffic by source is a very useful KPI that measures where your audience is coming from. For example, did a specific user across your content through Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn?
This social media KPI can be used to monitor marketing efforts on specific social media platforms. For example, if you just launched a marketing campaign on Instagram, you can monitor how effective it is at directing new visitors to your content.
Social share of voice
This social media KPI measures the number of times your brand was mentioned on social media compared to how many times your competitor’s brand was mentioned.
Clicks
Clicks measure the number of times someone clicks on your website from the Google search result page.
To optimize this social media KPI, make sure your title and meta description is intriguing and encourages people to want to read more.
FAQs about Social Media KPIs
How do you measure social media success?
The key to understanding social media success is figuring out what your KPIs are.
Think about it: if you don't know what you're trying to accomplish, then how can you actually know whether or not you're succeeding? You need to be able to define what success looks like so that you can see whether or not your efforts are moving towards that goal.
Once you've got some ideas about what success could look like—like increasing sales by 10% or getting 500 new followers on Twitter—you'll need to start evaluating where your efforts are falling short. That's where KPIs come in handy: they let you measure progress towards those goals and show whether or not there's still room for improvement (or if things are working well enough).
How is social media growth measured?
The most important thing to remember about social media growth is that it's not just about getting more followers.
There are many other KPIs you should keep an eye on. For example: how many people clicked on your website from the social media post or the number of people who engaged with your social media post.
The best way to measure social media growth is by tracking a set of KPIs every month. This will let you see where you need to increase efforts, and where you’re doing well.
An example of this is if you just launched a marketing campaign. After you launch, you can use KPIs to track the effects of the marketing campaign on business growth. This will provide you with solid, consistent data on what works for your business and what doesn’t.
KPI vs Metric
KPI vs Metric is a frequent question that gets asked.
While these terms are often used interchangeably, their uses are slightly different.
All KPIs are metrics but not all metrics are KPIs.
We understand it can get confusing so we’ve put together a simple KPI vs Metric comparison chart with examples.
Which social media KPI is most important
The most important social media KPI is engagement.
It's tempting to focus on things like total followers, but those numbers don't mean anything if your audience isn't interacting with your content. Engagement is the best indicator of whether or not your content is resonating with people.
We're Here to Help!
Choquer Creative has helped over 100 companies improve their digital presence and marketing. KPIs are an important part of our strategy. Contact us if you have any questions about KPIs and social media marketing!
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