2 Reasons Your Keywords Suck (And How To Fix Them)

• Tweet
• Share
• Sharebar

• Tweet
• Share

Photo by Demarcus Romero

Almost every day I get e-mails from people asking me how they can rank higher in search engines for a specific keyword or keyword phrase.

I’m happy to help people but I have noticed a common trend where people are trying to rank for keywords that really suck.

Keywords can suck in a couple different ways.

1. Your keyword has too much competition

Your mom told you that you can do anything but there are some keywords that are going to be out of your reach because there is too much competition.

Examples of these keywords are:

• real estate
• computers
• money
• credit

Keywords like these are hyper-competitive and even with my vast knowledge of traffic building I would not touch them with a 10 foot pole. Companies literally spend millions of dollars to build back links and rank high in the search engines.

I have no hope to rank in Google’s top 10 for any of these keywords. So I know not to waste my time. And neither should you.

But isn’t there some silver bullet or magic button that I could press to rank high for one of these super competitive keywords?

Sorry skippy, there is no magic button.

If there was a magic button word would spread really fast and everyone would start pushing it.  There would be magic button pushing parties where we would all get together and drink red punch, where funny party hats, and practice pushing our magic buttons in unison.

And all of us would rejoice that we had a magic button to push to give us a #1 ranking in Google.

Eventually there would be 1000 people pushing their magic button to try to rank for the same keyword but there are only 10 spots available in Google’s top 10.  If everyone pushed this magic button then it would lose all effectiveness.

But I want to believe that I am different, that somehow my website is special, and that the universe and Google will smile down upon me and give me a high-ranking.

You can believe whatever you want. You can wish upon a star. Just know that the rules apply to everyone and you are no exception.

What about longtail keywords?

Longtail keywords are fabulous and you can definitely rank for them. The keywords that are really out of your reach are the hyper-competitive ones like real estate, money, etc.

2. Your keyword is too general

Even if you could rank for keywords like real estate, computers, etc. it would be a mistake because these keywords are too general and you have no idea what the person is really looking for.

For example, if you have a website that specializes in computer repair in Toledo then 99.9% of people searching for computers are not going to be interested in your website. The term is too vague for you to have any idea what the person is looking for.

Take a look at Google’s “Related Searches” for the keyword: computers

Now let’s look at Google’s wonder wheel

You can see that when someone searches for computers they’re actually searching for 1 of 1000 different things. It could be PC laptops to purchase, Apple desktops, computer parts, computer pictures, history of computing, computer cameras, local computer stores, etc.

I could give you a lot more examples but I think you get the idea.

What if I want to choose one of these keywords (i.e. computers) and have my website cover every imaginable topic and sub-topic?

Good luck to you. I see 3 main problems with trying to do this:

1. With a few notable exceptions (i.e. WikiPedia) no website is able to cover every angle and provide in-depth information on a broad topic like computers.
2. Some people are looking to buy online and what they’re looking for is quite diverse. Are you going to have a storefront that has every possible make, model, and part that a person is looking for? And all at the right price? Amazon is trying to do this but you and I don’t have a chance.
3. Even if you could just solve the 2 problems above you still have the issue of trying to rank high in the search engines.

How to fix this

There’s a simple solution that will solve both of the aforementioned problems: choose long tail keywords.

When you select long tail keywords the competition plummets and you are targeting people with this specific set of problems or needs.

For example if I ran a computer repair shop in Toledo then I would want to target keywords like:

• computer repair Toledo
• computer repair shop Toledo

And you can do this for any niche or topic.

What if no one searches for my longtail keyword?

That is always a possibility and you really need to do some keyword research and determine how many people are searching for your longtail keyword before you start trying to rank for it.

Tagged as: Keyword Research