Finding the right keywords for our clients is a top priority of ours, and we do a lot of research to make sure we pick keywords that will rank well. We look at three main components when choosing keywords: competition, authority, and relevance.  Let’s look at each of these components in depth.

Competition has to do with the number of pages indexed by a search engine for a keyword. We want to know the number of competing websites we have to work against. We also want to know what kinds of pages are ranking for keywords we are thinking about using.

Authority deals with the ranking strength of a webpage. It is also referred to as domain authority, and it is based on both quantity and quality of links aimed at your site. We look at the page authority and domain authority of each of our client’s competitors and see where we can improve our keyword selection to help get our client equal authority.

Relevance of keywords tells us how top-ranking websites correspond with particular search keywords. This includes both on-page ranking factors, like keyword presence, and off-page signals, like anchor text. We study the level of on-page optimization for each page that is ranking in the top ten results.

It is important to remember that the goal here for us is to get our clients in the top ten search results. Finding the right keyword is an important part of that process.