Used 'wrong' keywords in blog posts, should I go back and edit?
-
I have a bout 70 blog articles spanning about 2 years. Because I hadn't done proper SEO research, I used the term I thought made the most sense when talking about my services. However now that I have done my homework, I realize that the term I like, is not actually the term most people use to search.
Very few of these articles are time sensitive and mostly generic best practice kind of stuff. I'm not talking about keyword stuffing, simply going back and replacing one poorly chosen keyword with one that people are actually searching for where it occurs naturally in the course of the article.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
-
Thanks, that answers the question and you raise some good points... slow and steady versus a find and replace.
-
Hello,
You can change your keywords at any time you want, taking these steps:
1. Modify the page title tag.
2. Modify the page description tag.
3. modify the content according the new keywords.
Take special care about perform this task in several weeks, because your traffic will drop, and will be increased in the time ranking for the new keywords.
Hope it helps
-
Thanks so much the answer and resources, the 'keyword themes', make perfect sense and actually sheds light on a few other concepts I was trying to understand.
As far as editing those previous blog posts, it certainly makes sense to update them so as to improve them and not simply focus on replacing a keyword. If I were to do the updating do you think there there are any risks in the engines seeing this update exercise as negative?
-
You could republish to blog posts wherein you use the new keyword in principle. What i think you should take a look at though are these two posts here on Moz by Cyrus Shephard.
They are about using keyword themes which is the way to go from now on. If you are thinking about editing blog posts this might be a good thing to start doing right away.
They are invaluable resources and define the modern and future best practices concerning keyword research and optimization.
PS: If you're going to update your blog posts you might also see if they could be made better in any way. Using rich media, is the content completely up to date, is there anything else that could be added to improve the article etcetera..
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
-
Moz keyword rank checker
The Moz Keyword Ranker does not seem to work - it keeps buffering when I add a keyword, Anyone see the same thing?
Keyword Research | | SmartSimple0 -
What place does plural versions of keywords have in keyword research?
Working on doing a massive keyword research project for my sites, one of the things I am trying to figure out is if I should be including plural versions of keywords. For example, should you include yoga mat as well as yoga mats?
Keyword Research | | ShockoeCommerce0 -
I understand it's been asked before, however moz staff is telling me keyword's capitalization is treated as a separate keyword.
So there I was looking through my rankings like every other day, when I see a lowercase and uppercase version of a keyword. Most times I see this, I see them with the same rankings, and even researched this about 5 months ago, when I came to the conclusion that google treats them the same way. However, this day I saw them as different ranks, same keyword, only capitalized 1st letter of the 2 word keyword. I asked moz staff about this, as I felt it was an error. But was met with the answer that google does indeed treat these keywords differently. My line of thought was that the rank checker didn't check both the lowercase and uppercase keyword at the same time, and SERPs happened to change when the second word was checked for rank, returning a different rank. So now, I am in doubt again, as to uppercase and lowercase keywords being different or the same in google's eyes? I honestly don't know why a uppercase keyword would have different motive from searcher than a lowercase when many time not, searchers can't even spell the keyword correctly.
Keyword Research | | Deacyde0 -
Keyword Ranking Research Question
Hi Mozzers,This is probably a nooby question, but I was wondering how you guys end up deciding if a Keyword is too hard to rank for? Also vice versa, when do you decide that a keyword is too low volume to rank for so you try to rank for a harder keyword? Eg.
Keyword Research | | steve45058
Deciding that ranking for "Dell Computers" is too hard and then deciding to rank for "Dell Small Business Computers" Post-question: Do indirectly rank for Dell Computers if you try to rank for Dell Small Business Computers? If so, how much? Also, how many words inbetween Dell & Computers would there have to be to stop indirectly ranking for Dell Computers?1 -
How do I use two keywords?
Hello! I am ranking very well with a keyword. But that same keyword without an S at the end (making it singural) gets quite a few more searches per month according to Google's Keyword Tool. However, dropping the S just doesn't sound quite right or make as much sense. So how can I target both keywords? Thanks in advance!
Keyword Research | | 2bloggers0 -
Does SEOmoz account for keyword variations?
If I want to know my rank for bank account, do I need to list bank accounts as well or will my ranking include variations? Also, if I use the word bank as a keyword, will any search that contains the word bank (even when other words are included) count towards the ranking for that word? Or would I need to add additional keywords like dallas bank, local bank, etc?
Keyword Research | | Mpulliam0 -
Google SERPS for similar Keywords?
I have website which is being listed for a keyword which is not in the site. It seems that google is using a Thesaurus to find words with similar meaning. Is this right? How could this be used for SEO purposes?
Keyword Research | | Tinderbox0 -
Should I be optimizing for Keywords that we already rank for?
When selecting which Keywords to optimize for, should I choose all words that I want us to move up for? Like that my company appears ranked for 5, 10, 42, 44, etc.? Or should I select a mix of some that rank well (top 1-2 pgs in Google) /rank near pg 5/ and some that aren't showing up in the top 50 yet? I don't want to waste my time optimizing for words I don't need to. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | aircyclemegan0