Wondering How to Rank For a Keyword? Me, Too.
If you are trying to figure out how to rank for a keyword, then join the party. I have been doing content writing and marketing for over two years (at the time of this writing), and the rules and tips and tricks have changed so many times in those years.
Trying to rank for any kind of set of words on Google, for example, is a difficult task. But I have a few tricks up my sleeve that I think will pay off in the long run every single time.
Let’s start by asking some important questions first.
Questions you need to ask yourself to rank for a keyword
Each of these questions will be important for making your content relevant and helpful:
- Does your page mention the question people are searching for answers to?
- Does your page mention related or other relevant and topical keywords?
- Do searchers find it useful?
- Is it “fresh” enough?
Here are some possible considerations to answer and address these questions. Taking careful action to address these will go a long way to helping you to rank for a keyword.
How to address the search query
People go to search engines for one reason and one reason only: to find answers to their questions.
Sometimes these are longer questions and other times they are looking for a quick, simple answer to “the movie with Tom Hanks and Lieutenant Dan.”
If you aren’t asking the question in your content, then they may not know if this is the answer they are looking for or not.
Let’s do an exercise.
Someone pops over to Google and types in, “How do I rank for a keyword?” Now, Google might highlight “keyword” as a search intent. It may highlight “rank for a keyword” as the search intent. This article will, theoretically, cover both!
If you found this because of doing exactly that, then I am glad you found your way here!
By asking the specific question that I am trying to answer, I can safely bet that I will attract people searching that specific question and then cue then in that this is the article they are looking for!
How to make your content relevant
Your content needs to address multiple topics related to the search query. Maybe their search intent is for “the best hotels at Disney” but they also want to know about things like: the bus schedule to and from the hotel, how they can get there from the airport, whether or not there is breakfast available at the hotel or nearby, etc.
These may not directly relate to the topic, but they add value by addressing similar questions about that topic: why this hotel is one of “the best hotels at Disney.”
Think about the searcher and try to gather as many answers to their questions as possible.
How to make content useful so you can rank for a keyword
Hopefully you are picking up on this, but if your content doesn’t actually give any sort of value beyond what they can find in the heading, the first sentence, or the meta description…then your content isn’t useful and it actually sucks.
Furthermore, what is defined as useful is incredibly subjective. However, search engines like Google still try to attach certain numbers and statistics to the idea of usefulness.
You can try and game the system here, and some people do, but I have found that simply creating intentional and meaningful content is the best way to play the long game to rank for a keyword. (More on this later).
The point, though, is that people need to spend time reading your content. That is one of the primary ways Google will define your content as “useful.”
How to keep your content fresh!
Honestly, this one is fairly self-explanatory, but I’ll go a little more in-depth to add some value.
Google wants you to update your content. The longer your content sits without updates, the lower it will rank over time.
A good rule of thumb is to address each piece of content after a year and ask yourself, “Is there anything I can add, edit, or update on this piece of content that will add more value for readers?” Usually, you will find something that has changed slightly or needs altered to maintain its accuracy and usefulness.
Keep reworking content over time and you will be keeping that content fresh!
OH! And one more thing, whenever you create new content, make sure to consider if it would be good supplemental content for another piece you have written earlier. This will help build an internal link structure and add more usefulness to your content to keep it fresher longer!
Speaking of longer…play the long game!
If you want to rank for a keyword, then here is my best advice…
…play the long game.
Don’t stress too much about optimizing each piece for maximum virality every single week. It is an exhausting and daunting task to do it on your own.
Instead, make each piece of content useful, helpful, and valuable and you will rank more and more over time.
In fact, creating a solid piece of content and then distributing that content well may do more for your ranking than trying to squeeze every bit of SEO juice you can out of that one keyword.
Again, this isn’t to say that doing good SEO work is bad…just hard. Hire a great SEO team to do the nitty gritty for you, but until you have that team playing the long game is the way to go.
And that’s all I really have to say about that. Google is wanting content to be more helpful, so the best way to do that is to address the above questions and write some truly solid content!
If you need help with that content, then I’d love to have a conversation! Or you can email me directly and we will see what we can do.
I hope you enjoyed this post, but there’s lots of other great stuff on my blog (which now addresses content marketing as well as writing/self-publishing…if you’re into that kinda thing).
I say it every time because I mean it every time: I appreciate you, my friend!
