Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to do effective keyword research with categories and subcategories?
-
Hi all,
I'm trying to breakdown some SEO 101 tips and start from scratch. Starting with Keywords!
I would like to audit our site for main keywords, grouping them in categories and subcategories. My questions are:
1. Is it possible to see where we rank on google AND search trends of visits to our site?
2. What is a good method or structure to document (excel?)
3. What analysis can be made from finding the results of these keywords and how can I make use of this?As a beginner your help is much appreciated!!
-
Hey Eric_S,
Glad to hear you're starting the SEO 101 journey.
1. You can view which keywords your site currently ranks for on a domain level or a page level through using the MOZ keyword explorer tool, selecting either "domain" or "page" and inputting the URL into the tool. It should then show you a list of all of the keywords and their volumes. This can also be done using tools like SEMrush or AHREFS.
In order to view the search traffic on your site, you will have to look at its Google Analytics data, or any other tracking program you may be utilizing and sort the data to find out the number of users that come to your site via organic search. (This is a little vague, and will vary depending on which program you're using for analytics, so feel free to ask for clarification or do further program-specific research.)
2. Excel or google sheets both work well for keyword documents.
3. There are a lot of different analysis that can be made by finding the keywords you currently rank for. You can find keywords with higher volumes that you would like to rank higher for, and try to re target pages to achieve this.
Simply having a keyword mapping document outlining the targeted keyword for each page can also be useful when writing things such as titles and h1s on a page. It really depends on your goal.
I hope this was helpful!
Lydia
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Using Brand value for SEO: Can we use keyword with brand name?
Hi Moz community, I am curious to know this. Let's say there is a brand value for a company. It has it's own popularity that it's been mentioned across the internet and social media directly with brand name without their service or industry keyword. Now if the company started promoting themselves like keyword along with their brand name, will it help them to rank for that keyword. For example, Moz is already famous, now they want to rank for "SEO" and related keywords, so they started calling themselves on internet "Moz SEO"; will this fetch them in ranking for keyword SEO? My ultimate question is, using primary keyword along with brand name will work out in ranking for that primary keyword or not? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Medical Marijuana Keywords
Has anyone seen any evidence of Google penalizing for Medical Marijuana related keywords in states where that is legal? Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | eocreative0 -
Ecommerce or E-commerce as a Keyword?
I have done a good bit of research but am not sure which word to focus on. I feel that the trend is moving towards no hyphen but I do not have any data to justify that other than google trends. Here is the research I found: Google Trends says ecommerce is more popular
Algorithm Updates | | Manseo
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=e-commerce%2C%20ecommerce&cmpt=q Ngram says e-commerce
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ecommerce%2Ce-commerce&year_start=1990&year_end=2013&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cecommerce%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ce%20-%20commerce%3B%2Cc0 Google Adwords Keyword tool says e-commerce:
e-commerce has 33,100 monthly search volume
ecommerce has 14,800 monthly search volume What do you think, will ecommerce overtake e-commerce in the future monthly search volumes? Ecommerce or E-commerce?0 -
Special Characters in Keywords
Do search engines consider keywords such as "1099 E-File Software" & "1099 "EFile Software" the same? Many of the keywords for my website will have a dash "-" when properly spelled out but there are many users who would simply omit it when spelling the word. Another example would be "W-2 Software" as opposed to "W2 Software".
Algorithm Updates | | Stew2220 -
I thought META KEYWORDS tag was dead?
http://www.wpkube.com/wordpress-seo-plugin/ this article just came out as a one of the many guides to Yoast's Wordpress SEO. I am surprised it mentioned: Use meta keywords tag: Google reportedly doesn’t use the keywords that your enter for your posts but as Google isn’t the only show in town, you might want to check this box.Recommendation: check I stopped using meta keywords tag because Google doesn't use it any more, plus if you are in a competitive field by using keywords you are giving free keyword research to your competitors? Does any one still use meta keywords here? If so why? Google doesn't use keyword tags, has anyone experienced a dis-benefit to meta-keywords tag from Google ie. dropped rankings etc.?
Algorithm Updates | | vmialik2 -
Troubleshooting Decline of Branded Keyword Searches
Hi, Over the past year, I have seen a huge change in the distribution of our organic keyword traffic. I'm trying to research why our branded keywords have gone down. Google analytics only shows me impressions for the past three months. Does anyone have ideas on how to explain this change in traffic? Please see the attached chart. Thanks! branded-v-nonbranded-organic-search.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | netdiva_amy0 -
Keyword density and meta tags
Hi, I've just checked the number of keywords appearing on my website's pages. On some of them the keyword density was way too high (7-10%) if you included the meta tags, but all under 3.5% if I didn't include the keywords and description meta tags. So my question is - when looking at number of keywords used per page, do I have to worry about what's in those meta tags? Do the keywords in there count towards keyword density / number of keywords per page? Thanks, Luke
Algorithm Updates | | McTaggart0 -
Is there a way to pull historical rankings for a keyword?
I have someone who's come to me and said that they have lost all of their organic keyword rankings. They did launch a site redesign a few months back so that could be a reason as to why. But after looking at the site, link profile, etc. It doesn't look like they could have been ranking for the terms they say they were. They have never implemented any SEO on their sites btw. I did not build this site and have not done any SEO, they are coming to me to solve the problem. I did notice in SEM rush that a couple months ago they were ranking organically for more terms (20 in July vs. 5 now), so they did lose some. Is there any way to see what terms they WERE ranking for?
Algorithm Updates | | MichaelWeisbaum0