Are you a business owner or digital marketing professional looking for an effective way to increase your clients' visibility? Then local rank tracking can be the perfect solution.

With the correct data and strategies, it's possible to gain meaningful insights into how customers find you online, which sites they visit most often, and what content resonates with themāall of which will help you make well-informed decisions about client growth.

In this blog post, we'll be exploring each step in detail of how a local rank tracker works so that you can leverage its more sophisticated features to generate returns for your business or those of your clients. Let's dive right in!

What Does a Local Rank Tracker Do? Why Is It Crucial for Businesses to Use One to Measure Their Success Online?

Every modern business needs to know where it stands in terms of online visibility and success, which is why using a local rank tracker is an invaluable tool. A local rank tracker can give businesses actionable insights into their performance on search engines.

It monitors critical metrics such as keyword rankings and website visibility across geo-locations. It helps companies identify areas where they are doing well and key changes they could make that could lead to more customers or growth opportunities.

Overall, a local rank tracker provides essential information required to help businesses realize their digital goals and measure their progress.

Image Source: DemandJump

How to Use a Local Rank Tracker in Your Business?

Staying on top of your local rankings is essential for a business looking to expand its reach. Having insights into how your company's visibility is across various search engines can be incredibly helpful.

That's where local rank trackers come in: they allow you to track the progress of each keyword and location while providing data points to help inform decisions that will lead to growth.

Here's how to get started:

1. Research and Choose the Right Keywords

The first step is to research what keywords people use in your area to find businesses like yours. You can use tools such as Google Adwords Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs to help you discover relevant terms based on keyword search volumes. Once you've picked the right keywords, you can add them to your local rank tracker for ongoing monitoring.

2. Track Rankings, Visibility, and Other Key Metrics

Once you've added the keywords to be tracked, the next step is to monitor their performance over time. Local rank trackers will allow you to measure the visibility of each keyword, as well as other key metrics such as traffic and click-through rate. This data can provide insights into how your website performs versus competitors.

3. Analyze the Results

Analyzing results from your local rank tracker will give you a better understanding of how your business is performing across search engines. You can use this data to detect fluctuations in keyword rankings, identify areas for improvement, and develop strategies that will help drive visibility and ultimately lead to more customers.

By understanding your local ranking performance, you can make informed changes that will push your business forward and leave the competition behind. Investing in a local rank tracker should be a no-brainer for businesses looking to drive client growth and ensure longevity.

The Key Features of a Local Rank Tracker and How to Use Them to Optimize Your Search Engine Rankings

Utilizing a local rank tracker is essential for businesses as it allows them to track their rankings across different search engines and locations.

These trackers offer detailed insights into a website's performance, enabling users to see organic search visibility for different keywords in real-time.

Moreover, users can review the progress of their website in certain areas and identify how their pages are faring over time. By understanding key features such as:

• Keyword ranking
• URLs indexed
• Domain Coverage
• Backlinks
• Competitive analysis

Businesses can optimize their campaigns and make changes accordingly to gain better results. A local rank tracker helps businesses to maximize the effectiveness of their SEO efforts and drive growth with improved Google rankings.

Tips on Tracking Local Search Trends With a Local Rank Tracker

Local rank trackers hold a wealth of insights for businesses looking to stay on top of their market and edge out their competition. They provide information on how customers in specific geographic locations interact with your brand and its performance in local SEO results.

To get the most out of this information, regularly monitor changes in local search trends, such as changes in the number of sites appearing on the first page of SERPs for given keywords, CTRs for each listing, visibility across directories, etc.

With this data at hand, you'll be able to take informed actions that will drive more traffic through organic search and ensure your site is taking advantage of every opportunity to maximize customer reach.

Image Source: SEOPressor

How to Interpret the Data From a Local Rank Tracker and Take Actionable Steps to Improve Your Business's Online Presence?

Interpreting the data from a local rank tracker is key for any business looking to drive growth. Data such as daily website visits, organic search engine traffic, and total clicks can inform businesses on how successful their SEO campaign efforts are, where to prioritize actionable steps, and how to make the most out of investment in online marketing.

Understanding unknown keywords and leveraging these keywords to optimize for google rankings is also essential for improving visibility with Google Local listings and SERPs. Hence, companies should review this data regularly to position themselves favorably in organic search results.

Tracking competitors' performance on local rank tracker software is also beneficial, as it enables businesses to stay ahead of the competition and adjust their strategy accordingly. With proven strategies, based on data insight from a local rank tracker, companies have a clear approach that will guide them closer to success.

Strategies for Leveraging the Insights From a Local Rank Tracker for Greater Success

Leveraging the insights from a local rank tracker is a powerful strategy for boosting success in various businesses. With a local rank tracker, companies can focus their effort on driving visibility for the most relevant keywords in their target location.

Once these rankings are established and monitored, businesses can implement strategies to increase rankings further, ultimately improving visibility and driving greater growth.

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Additionally, understanding how your competitors are faring in certain markets is an incredibly valuable tool, helping you to adjust strategies accordingly to stay ahead of the competition.

Understanding what's working across markets gives you the power to gain the edge on well-known or relatively unknown competitors alike ā giving your business the extra boost it needs to be successful.

Keyword tracking is an integral part of the local rank tracking of your business. DashClicks' sophisticated Analytics tool can help you track your keywords efficiently. Using the tool, you can easily analyze how much traction each keyword is getting and what changes are happening in your ranking pertaining to those keywords. The tool can also help you edit, search, and add new keywords to your site without hassle, saving you time and helping you rank better locally.

Summing Up

Local rank trackers are invaluable tools for businesses that want to keep a pulse on how their website is performing in search engine results. By monitoring these performance metrics, you can better understand your local market and drive strategic changes that will help boost your rankings and visibility online.

These insights can help create targeted campaigns that yield higher ROI than relying on guesswork alone. Plus, the ability to monitor trends in local searches will give you greater insight into what customers are searching for, making it easier to create content that meets those needs.

With a quality local rank tracker, you'll have access to all the crucial data needed to make informed decisions about where to spend your time and resources when it comes to growing your business online.

Have you ever searched for a keyword online, only to find that the wrong page on your website is ranking? If so, you're not alone. It happens more often than you might think, and it can be frustrating to figure out why and how to fix it. This blog post will explore the reasons why this happens and what you can do about it.

So, read on if you want to learn more!

Don't Panic It's Not the End of the World if the Wrong Page Ranks for a Keyword

Contrary to popular belief, a wrong page ranking for a keyword isn't necessarily the end of your SEO world. In many cases, it's an easy fix. By following the correct steps and understanding why the wrong page is ranking, you can quickly get back to ranking on the most desired pages.

When those dreaded incorrect keyword rankings arise, take a deep breath and read through our guide to determine what you need to do to get things back on track. Not only will this guide help you figure out how to fix your current problem, but it also shows you ways to prevent similar issues from arising in the future.

1. Do Some Research to Figure Out Why the Wrong Page Is Ranking

When a page ranks for the wrong keyword, it can be difficult to understand why. To identify the cause of this issue, conduct some research by analyzing different factors, such as the content currently ranking and other similar words used on your site.

Additionally, compare your website with competitive sites to see why they're getting better rankings. Knowing why the pages aren't ranking is essential in developing an effective remedy. With enough effort, you can figure out why the wrong page is ranking and take steps to fix it.

Here is an example. The third result shows LensCrafters' "Women's Eyeglasses & Designer Glasses" page ranking for the keyword "metal frame eyeglasses".

Image Source: Moz

2. Optimize the Content on the Wrong Page

Once you've identified what is causing the wrong page to rank, the next step is to optimize it. It may involve adding new content, tweaking existing content, or even completely changing it.

For example, if your page isn't keyword optimized or contains irrelevant information, you should consider editing and rewriting it. Additionally, you can add more relevant keywords and phrases to the content to help it better match the search intent of your target audience. Finally, ensure that all of the information is well-structured with headings and subheadings so that it's easier for search engines and users to understand.

Image Source: Radd Interactive

How to Deoptimize a Page?

In some cases, the wrong page may be ranking due to over-optimization. If you've used too many keywords or other optimization tactics on a page, it can cause search engines to think that it's more relevant than other pages for certain keywords.

To deoptimize a page, start by removing any keyword stuffing and excessive use of backlinks that may be affecting the page's rankings. Additionally, you can reduce or remove any meta tags and other HTML elements that could be causing the problem.

Also, consider adding more content to your page so that it is better able to stand out from the competition and effectively answer user queries. With these steps, you can deoptimize a page and make it more likely to rank for the right keywords.

1. Promote the Correct Pages

Once you've deoptimized a page, it's time to focus on promoting the correct pages. It can be done through various SEO tactics such as link building, content optimization, and keyword research.

Once you've identified why the wrong page is ranking, it's time to move on to figuring out how to make the right page rank. To do so, there are several steps you can take.

A. Create Quality Content

First and foremost, create quality content relevant to your target keyword and optimized for search engines. Ensure the content is well-written and properly formatted with relevant title tags, meta descriptions, and headings. Additionally, create backlinks to your content from high-authority websites to increase its visibility.

B. Employ SEO Best-Practices

In addition to creating quality content, use best SEO practices such as link-building and social media promotion. Link building involves acquiring incoming links to your website from other websites, which can help your ranking. Social media promotion is also important for generating visibility and increasing search engine rankings.

C. Identify the Best Keywords

You should use keyword research tools to identify the best keywords to target for your content. By doing this, you will be able to optimize the content on your pages so that it ranks higher than competitors' pages.

Following these steps will ensure that your desired pages are ranking for the right keywords and that you're getting the organic traffic you need. So take the time to do your research and properly optimize your content, and you should see your page ranking in no time!

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2. Use Negative Keywords to Prevent the Wrong Page From Showing up in Search Results

Keeping your website's traffic directed to the correct pages is an important part of optimizing user experience.

One approach to ensure the right keywords are driving the right pages is to use negative keywords, which help identify and exclude those terms you don't want to be associated with any of your content.

Adding negative keywords will not trigger your page in search results, allowing you to tailor what appears for a particular query.

Knowing how to detect and add negative keywords properly can pave the way toward preventing wrong pages from appearing, ultimately boosting your website traffic and providing a better user experience.

3. Monitor Your Progress and Adjust Your Strategy as Needed

Checking progress is an essential part of a successful keyword ranking strategy. According to experts, it's best to regularly monitor and adjust as necessary to ensure you are achieving the results desired and staying on track with your goals.

Keyword rankings constantly change, and it's important to stay ahead by checking every few weeks or months. Keeping an eye on progress helps identify issues early so they can be addressed before they hurt your rank and visibility.

Image Source: Databox

After all, understanding whether or not your campaign is working helps determine if changes should be made to optimize performance. What worked yesterday in SEO may not work tomorrow.

Wrapping It Up

If the wrong page on your website is ranking for a keyword, don't panicait can be fixed. By identifying the causes and fixing them, you can quickly rewire your SEO efforts and get your website back on track.

You can also hire DashClicks for SEO services. Our white label SEO fulfillment services will make sure you rank for the right keyword and your SEO doesn't go off track. Sign up today to access our highly-efficient, user-friendly platform for advanced SEO and other digital marketing strategies for your business.

Most agencies really have a hard time finding the right set of keywords they should use for their SEO and PPC campaigns. Needless to say that PPC keywords won't necessarily work for the organic SEO ranking of your client's website.

This article will discuss different types of keywords that you should be familiar with as a marketing agency for maximum impact and to achieve astounding results for your clients.

Why Are Keywords Important?

Google is evolving and has been testing different algorithms to provide the best search results for its users. So, choosing the right cluster of keywords for your content marketing and SEO has become more important than ever.

There are many types of keywords prevalent to rank your website on top. From short queries to lengthy sentence-long search phrases, you can use a mix of different keywords to be an SEO superstar.

So, carefully choose your target keywords because they determine your page's visibility on search engines.

We can divide these keywords into the following categories.

• SEO Keywords By Length
• Short Tail Keywords
• Long Tail Keywords
• Mid-Tail Keywords
• SEO Keywords By Buyer Intent
• Informational Keywords
• Navigational Keywords
• Commercial Keywords
• Transactional Keywords
• Targeting Keywords For Specific Industry
• Market Segment Keywords
• Customer-Defining Keywords
• Product & Brand-Based Keywords
• Geo-Targeted Keywords

SEO Keywords By Length

As is evident from the name, these keywords vary by their length. Length is the primary consideration for this subset of keywords. It reflects the customer's intent regarding the information they are looking for.

What's more, you can also get to know the specific stage of a prospect in their buyer's journey through these keywords. These keywords are of the following tree types.

1. Short-Tail Keywords

People who used most of the search terms in the early stages of the Internet were short-tail keywords. These keywords are still highly popular and have a high search volume. From weather and news updates to celebrity searches, basic information and educational searches fall into this category.

We also refer to them as focus keywords. These are the top keywords, which you can further expand based on the need and search intent of the user.

Since these types of keywords contain broader and highly popular search terms, they have high competition. Single-word keywords are not necessarily precise and don't exactly reflect what a user is looking for.

Image Source: Sherpa Marketing

For example, "restaurants near me" has a much higher search volume than "restaurants" and "restaurant" because it is unclear what the users are looking for when they use the latter two keywords.

To make the search meaningful, we need to narrow the search using ancillary words.

Image Source: AHREFs

Here is the search demand curve based on the length of the keywords. So, technically, very short-tail keywords don't necessarily have a high demand except for informational keywords such as Amazon, Apple, iPhone, & Barack Obama.

Image Source: AHREFs

2. Long-Tail Keywords

These keywords comprise more than two or three words and are peculiar and highly useful for marketers as they are highly specific regarding search intent. Some examples of long-tail keywords are as follows.

• Best free digital marketing tools
• Can meditation make your smarter
• Free games download for PC

Despite their low search volume, these keywords have a high potential to boost your page's search engine rankings and visibility. Since these are highly intent-based search terms, their conversion rates are pretty high. They attract your target audience more precisely than any other type of keywords.

Image Source: Sherpa Marketing

3. Mid-Tail Keywords

The subset that falls between the short and long-tail keywords is referred to as mid-tail keywords. They have moderate search volumes.

In the previous example, you can see a long tail keyword ā Free games download for PC. "Free Games" is a medium-length keyword here.

SEO Keywords by Buyer Intent

Buyer intent is a powerful signal for search engines to filter searches for users. It is further divided into four categories.

4. Informational Keywords

People use informational keywords to learn about an object, fact, product, or service. Most of these search terms begin with interrogative words such as 'how,' 'what,' and 'where,' etc.

5. Navigational Keywords

People use navigational keywords to get more information about a product and brand. In that case, people are generally aware of the product and store but need additional information.

6. Commercial Keywords

This is typically related to the consideration stage of the buyer's journey. These searches are mostly about price or product comparisons with similar market items.

7. Transactional Keywords

These keywords are related to the final stage in the buyer's journey, which is the decision stage.

People use transactional keywords when they have already searched online and compared different features and prices. They are happy and satisfied with the product and are ready to make a purchase.

SEO Keywords For Specific Industries

These search terms are industry specific and can vary from one industry to another.

8. Market Segment Keywords

This set of keywords is generic and belongs to a specific industry or its verticals. You can use the keywords that best represent your products and can be understood by your target audience.

For example, a clothing brand can use 'suits' as a keyword.

9. Customer-Defining Keywords

These are customer-specific keywords. Businesses use them to target customers with common traits or demographic or psychographic features such as gender, age, etc.

For example, in the previous example, you can use 'suits for men', 'apparel for teens,' etc. You can easily notice that these keywords come with a context.

10. Product & Brand-Based Keywords

When keywords come with brand names in them, conversion rates become higher. These keywords are generally used to target brand-loyal customers.

Image Source: PPCexpo

11. Geo-Targeted Keywords

Marketers use location-specific keywords to attract traffic for local businesses. A HubSpot survey reveals that 46% of Google searches are about local businesses and information.

Search queries like 'where can I buy liquor in Texas' fall into this category.

Final Words

You can grasp a basic understanding of the different types of keywords used in content marketing and SEO here. It would help you in keyword selection to achieve high rankings for your web page on Search Engine Research Pages (SERPs.) Local keywords hold immense power.

As a marketer, you should know how to use keywords to attract traffic and high rankings. Ideally, it would help if you used a mix of short-tail, mid-tail, and long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are highly conversion oriented and help you quickly rank on SERPs compared to short-tail and mid-tail keywords.

Similarly, intent-based keywords, industry-specific keywords, and keywords with demographic and psychographic context are highly useful in inbound and content marketing and help you gain high rankings and attract loads of traffic in much less time.

Even if you have the best SEO experts on board, keyword cannibalization can still happen to you.

Now what is keyword cannibalization, you may ask?

It is a common term used when different pages on a website target similar or same keywords and compete against each other to hamper the organic performance of the site.

Let’s take an example to understand this further. Suppose your website has two web pages about “on-page SEO.” If you can get more overall organic traffic by combining the two pages into a single page, it means it’s a cannibalization problem. The presence of those two pages is hurting your organic performance.

Put simply, when your content competes with itself, your rankings get negatively impacted. If you take a look at the current scenario, keyword cannibalization is something that is happening to even the best of us.

However, the good news is – you can identify and fix it!

In this post, we’ll discuss how to identify keyword cannibalization on your site and fix it. It will help you stop your own content from eating up your traffic. Let’s dive right in.

Why Is Keyword Cannibalization Not Good for SEO?

Before we discuss how to identify and correct keyword cannibalization, let's see how it's bad for SEO (search engine optimization).

Basically, you compete with yourself for ranking in Google when you cannibalize your own keywords.

Suppose your site has two posts that are on the same topic. Now, Google will not be able to differentiate which post to rank higher for a specific query. Also, crucial factors such as CTR and backlinks will get diluted because of the presence of multiple posts. This will, in turn, lead to lower ranking for both the posts.

Another scenario where keyword cannibalism can take place is when you optimize posts for focus keywords that are almost the same. For example, you write two articles about how to build a content strategy. The first post is titled ‘How to build a content strategy to boost SEO growth?’ and is optimized for the focus keyword ‘content strategy.’ The second post is titled ‘How to Build a Content Marketing Strategy?’ and is optimized for the focus keyword ‘content marketing strategy.’ You give these posts a slightly different angle but they are still very similar. In such a case, Google will face difficulty in determining which of the two posts is the most relevant.

How to Recognize Keyword Cannibalization on Your Site?

It's actually easy to spot keyword cannibalization on your site. You can detect such an issue in an exhaustive SEO audit of your website.

Without any further ado, let's discuss three easy methods to identify keyword cannibalization on your site:

1. Use Your Website Search Widget

Before starting to write a new post for your site, conduct a search for its main keyword in your website search widget. It will help you check if it appears elsewhere.Even if you are not working on a new post and just want to see if some keywords are competing with each other, you can use the search widget to search for them.

2. Make Use of the SITE:ā  Command

The SITE command helps you detect your indexed pages. To use it, all you need to do is enter site: yourwebsite.com in Google's search bar.But why are we talking about this command in this postThis is because when you add key phrases/search terms in quotes to the SITE command, you can view the content within the domain you enter.Open Google and enter this in its search bar site: yourwebsite.com + "keyword" (check the image below as an example).

The result of such a search will be a SERP containing all the URLs of that particular domain that are indexed and have in common the very keyword that you have quoted.

Now all you have to do is analyze the search results and see if you are competing with yourself for ranking in Google.

3. Use Google Search Console

You can check for keyword cannibalization if your site is registered on Google Search Console.

Here are the steps you need to follow to check for it:

A. Login into your Google Search Console account, select the property and go to the section “Search results.”

B. Set the date to last 28 days and press the New + Button. You will see a dashboard.

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C. Select “Query” and enter the keyword you want to check for keyword cannibalization.

D. After the Query is selected, you can scroll down and look for the pages.

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How Do I Fix Keyword Cannibalization?

If you find that you do have a cannibalization issue, don't worry. There are a few things you can do to fix it. Let's discuss them one by one.

1. Merge Similar Content Pages

When you check for pages with the same target keywords, you may come across different content pages that serve the same purpose. If you find such pages, you can consider merging them.When you merge pages with similar content, it boosts your SEO, simplifies your website, and may help the merged page rank higher in the SERPs.

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Note: You may also come across two pages that cover the same topic but target separate audiences. If these pages are performing well, then you don't need to make any changes to them.

2. Remove Outdated, Irrelevant Content

In case your website has a lot of outdated content pieces that no longer hold relevance, it's time to do away with them entirely. You also need to remove content that is not as high-quality as your recent posts.

Why do we recommend that you remove these kinds of posts?

It's because these posts may be cannibalizing other content on your website and may be chomping down on the ranks of your new posts.

3. Improve Internal Linking

You can also set up a decent internal linking structure to assist Google in determining which article is important. Here's what you need to do:

Link from posts that hold less importance to the ones that hold the most importance. This helps Google in determining which post it should show the highest in search results.

The bottom line? Internal linking can also help tackle keyword cannibalization. This is because it convinces search engine algorithms to rank your preferred content over other posts on your website.

4. Optimize For Different Keywords Instead

If you don’t want to merge or delete posts to tackle your keyword cannibalization problems, you have the option to keep your content as well. All you need to do is optimize it for other keywords instead.

This way, you boost your SEO efforts as well.

Check this example to understand what we are talking about.

Suppose you have two high-quality, informative articles on your website – one is titled “Step-Wise Macrame Craft Projects” and the other is titled “15 Fun and Easy Craft Projects.” Both of these posts are optimized for “craft projects.”

Now, if you look closer, the second post is more relevant to individuals searching for “craft projects.” So, what you can do is, take the first post and optimize it for another keyword, like “macrame.”

The result? You now have two great, non-competing posts that can show up in Google for two completely different keyword searches.

5. NoIndex Duplicate Content

You can also noindex duplicate content. You can do this for pages that hold importance for your business but which you don't want to rank for.

When you noindex such pages, they become invisible to search engines but stay on your site.

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How DashClicks’ White Label SEO Services Can Help You?

Are you a digital marketing agency that lacks the required time or expertise to provide the best SEO services to your clients? If yes, then you can think about hiring white label SEO services for your clients. You can partner with DashClicks, a reputed white label agency with over a decade of experience in the industry. When you hire these services from DashClicks, you get to impress your clients and get their website ranked at the top spot for multiple search terms in various search engines including Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

The panel of experienced professionals at DashClicks will deliver only the best results to your clients and help them tackle keyword cannibalization, here’s how:

• DashClicks uses professional SEO tools to research keywords and track keyword usage.
• After DashClicks’ team chooses the best keywords for your clients, they add them in the Analytics app. This app then helps track monthly rankings at any time.
• At the time of setup, DashClicks will perform an initial website audit for your client that will check for any existing keyword cannibalization issues.
• You can also provide a list of keywords you want your client’s website to rank for. DashClicks will pursue this request and also suggest alternatives or improvements based on the professionals’ recommendations.
• DashClicks also confirms topic selections that go along with your SEO subscription plan.

The bottom line? You can choose and trust DashClicks' white label SEO services to be the extension within your business that helps you grow and scale.

Wrapping It Up

We all make the mistake of pushing similar blog posts when it comes to producing content for a select range of keywords. Hence, it's crucial to know how to spot and correct keyword cannibalization. It stops your content from competing with itself and boosts your rankings.

Now that you are armed with the right tips and tricks, you can easily identify and fix keyword cannibalization on your site. Because rankings change all the time, it's best that you conduct a cannibalization checkup once in a few months. All the best!

Keywords are the bedrock of search engine optimization.

They are the tools that people use to find the perfect content online for their needs. With that known, how does Google help match the ideal page with a person’s actual search intent?

This article will explain how keyword clustering attacks this problem directly. We’ll help you gain an understanding of the strategy, its myriad SEO benefits, and how you can perform keyword clustering for your website.

What is Keyword Clustering?

Keyword clustering is an SEO strategy in which website owners group, or cluster, related keywords based on their implied intention. Google is able to better understand your content based on these relationships, and, therefore, helps your page gain visibility with the correct audience.

For example, let’s use a car dealership as an example for our business website. Our main focus is “automobiles.” However, this keyword is too vague and can apply to a wide variety of related queries that include that keyword. Therefore, we need to examine that list of terms and cluster them into related groups.

From there, we might ask what is important about the automobile business. It provides both automobile sales and automobile repairs. These can serve as the pillar pages for other keywords that end up looking something like this with “automobile as our pillar”.

From there, you can then begin to choose which keywords are important for your business. You’ll also want to be mindful of the keyword’s search intent before including it in the cluster.

In the above example, certain keywords like “automobile definition,” and “automobile insurance” do not fit into our grouping. While our auto dealer can certainly speak about either topic, the cluster is focusing on “automobile sales,” a transactional keyword.

“Automobile definition” is likely unnecessary, while we would only be able to speak about auto insurance from an informational perspective, which would be better suited as a different pillar within a blog.

Be aware that clusters themselves can become pillars for other clusters as your website expands. “Automobile parts” alone can bring up a slew of related terms that would direct users to content that helps them either purchase specific parts or learn more about their vehicle. Both of which present new content options for your site and new opportunities to boost your SEO.

The Benefits of Keyword Clustering

Keyword clustering is the best way to boost the overall SEO benefits of your website. When you build your website, you should plan all of your content around using related terms that support similar search intent.

When you do so, your website will benefit in the following ways:

1. You’re More Likely to Rank Higher Overall

Google is no longer necessarily interested in the volume of a particular keyword on a page. SEOs and content creators used to look for as many opportunities to cram a word or phrase onto a page to boost their rankings.

Now, Google’s crawler is able to understand the bigger picture. Instead of simply matching a keyword with a query, it wants to find different, but related terms that help solidify the true intention. In other words, Google wants to help users who want to buy a product do so. Likewise, it wants to provide unbiased information to a user just looking to browse.

By working with Google's needs in this way, you help ensure that all of your content gets a visibility boost. When the search engine is confident that your content will satisfy a user's full needs, the more likely it is to recommend your brand.

2. It Helps Attract Better-Qualified Traffic

This is an inevitability when using keyword clustering and gaining more visibility overall.

When it comes to your bottom line, what matters is your return on investment. If your optimized webpage gets 1,000 clicks, but only 10 purchases, it's underperforming. If it receives 100 unique visitors but converts 100 sales, it's a success.

Keyword clustering helps website owners avoid the mistake of chasing vanity numbers like impressions or clicks. While it's important to boost your traffic, it's more important to make sure your content gets seen by the people that are most likely to engage with it.

When you take the time to keyword cluster, you naturally begin to segregate your keywords by the user's search intent. By prioritizing that ahead of time, you can plan content topics that focus on the keyword AND intention to maximize your performance.

3. Boosted Rankings for Additional Search Terms

Including related terms on your pillar page will help that main keyword rank higher in search results.

The added benefit is that the high-ranking page can also help your site get additional clicks for the related terms. This is most common with long-tail keywords that typically net a lower search volume, thus leading many to avoid them.

The truth is that long-tail keywords are a hidden SEO superpower as they tend to exhibit better engagement due to the strong search intent. Because we already value user intent when clustering our content, we have an easier time getting those important clicks from our secondary or tertiary terms.

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4. It Will Boost Vital SEO Metrics

A higher engagement rate with your website content will also boost your most-tracked SEO metrics across the board.

As Google is better able to match the right visitors with your content, your bounce rate will decrease. These qualified leads want to explore your offerings making them less likely to leave. Meanwhile, your average session duration, page clicks, and custom goals will see a boost as they spend more time on a page.

You can leverage even more of an SEO boost by using the best techniques like internal linking. Take advantage of these clusters and their intent to show new customers around your brand while you already have their attention.

5. It Futureproofs Your Website

By structuring your website around pillars and clusters, you'll have an easier time adding new pages and content in the future.

Many site owners will make the mistake of creating new pages to help rank for certain keywords as time passes and the site grows. This makes sense as new information, techniques, and guides become available every day. The newest, latest information will benefit from the highest rankings.

The issue arises whenever you already have a page ranking for that keyword. By adding new pages that rank for the same keyword, you end up suffering from what's known as keyword cannibalization. Two of your pages are fighting for the same authority as opposed to having one super page that could outrank your competitors.

With keyword clustering, everything is better organized for future content additions. Similarly, you'll have an easier time referencing existing content and simply making the necessary updates to those pages. In short, keyword clustering sets you up to make smarter choices for your website's SEO.

How to Perform Keyword Clustering?

Keyword clustering is not necessarily a difficult process as much as it can be a time-consuming one. This will vary depending on how specific your niche is and how many industry-related terms are actually relevant to your brand.

To get started with your keyword clustering strategy, follow these important steps:

1. Start Compiling a List of Keywords

No matter what your strategy is, SEO content creation begins here.

The best strategy is to take advantage of whichever SEO tool or keyword finder you're most accustomed to using. We make frequent use of SEMRush, but tools like Moz or Ahrefs are excellent alternatives.

Don't forget about any existing keyword data you have on hand. You'll want to consider how you'll organize any existing content into your clusters to avoid common errors like keyword cannibalization.

Next, follow the tried-and-true SEO strategy of directly examining your closest competitors. You're not necessarily looking at the top of the ranks, but the websites that are closest to your actual position. Determine what keywords they're using, how they group their content, and what type of content they provide to support their efforts. Then, differentiate yourself and determine how you can do it better.

You'll also want to save time by pruning out any unnecessary keywords. Many of the keywords yielded may have tangential relations to your industry, but many will not have anything immediately to do with your core offerings. Avoid adding queries like this to your clusters to avoid confusing search intent.

2. Identify the Core Term to Create Your Groups

After you compile your list of terms, you'll want to begin the process of grouping or clustering your keywords.

You do this by looking for the words or phrases that appear most frequently throughout the list. This can turn into a tremendous time-sink, making it much more reasonable to seek out a service that specifically offers clustering assistance. Thankfully, all of the tools we recommended above offer clustering and segmentation tools to help you identify the most commonly-appearing terms.

When you observe your keywords by frequency, you should naturally begin to see similarities. The constant term in each is your core, allowing you then further segment your keywords into distinct clusters.

Going back to our first example in this article, “automobile” was our core, while we went on to create cluster pages for “automobile sales” and “automobile repairs.” Both are extensions of automobiles and relate, but ultimately serve two distinct purposes for our audience.

3. Plan and Create Pages for Each Cluster

With your groups made and the search intent identified, you can begin the process of creating the actual content. We started with the grouped content as it will play a significant role in building up your central pillar page.

These cluster pages are crucial for content marketing as it allows your writers to explore topics in greater depth. They should aim to fully understand the user's search intent while satisfying every need they have.

You'll want every cluster page to expound on precise topics with at least 1,000 words, if not more. Do your best to keep unrelated topics to their own page, while internally linking to those topics whenever relevant. This not only helps create a beautiful network of information but helps you maximize your SEO benefits for each website URL.

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4. Assemble the Pillar

Finally, you can begin creating a pillar page that helps deliver all of the information available on your core topic.

Many sites already have pages that serve as a pillar, whether it be the home page, a product categories page, or a service page. The mistake many make is failing to provide it with any meaningful content outside of linking to the cluster pages.

Instead, the pillar page ought to be the go-to page that someone can use to find any answer on the core topic. You should create content that effectively walks readers through the subject while taking every effort to link out to your clustered content when relevant. Then, the user has the opportunity to open the new link or bookmark your different site pages for later viewing.

Repeat the process of creating a pillar page for every cluster group you made during step two. Double-check to make sure all of your clustered content helps to support your pillar.

Common Keyword Clustering Mistakes

While keyword clustering is an important SEO strategy, it doesn't grant automatic results. Critical mistakes may prevent your site from seeing any rank increase.

Be mindful of these everyday SEO mistakes when planning your website's pillars and clusters.

1. Keyword Cannibalization

Keyword clustering generally helps to avoid this particular issue. Nevertheless, it's not uncommon for site owners to inadvertently cannibalize their keyword rankings, especially as your page number count and content library grow.

It makes sense for you to add content when you want to improve your rankings for that keyword. The problem with creating two unique pages is that Google's crawler wants to index one page per domain as this is the ideal practice. When it sees the request to index two pages for the same keyword, it's unable to pick the rightā  one. You end up hurting your ranking efforts rather than helping them.

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Instead of creating a new page, consider adding new sections of content to the existing page. As long as the old information is still relevant, it can remain while benefitting from the updated data.

Likewise, if the older page has outdated, irrelevant content, consider replacing all of the content or deleting the page entirely. There is no one correct option and your strategy should be based on your current keyword rankings.

Keep a map of all the content and keywords used throughout your site. Before creating a new page for your SEO, look back to your map and act accordingly to avoid cannibalizing your progress.

2. Keeping Your Pages Static

Another mistake website owners make is believing that creating a web page is a one-and-done endeavor. Injecting updates of new content to your site is the best way to keep your pages modern and eligible for higher rankings.

Most site owners will try to do this by creating new pages weekly with strategies like creating a blog. While this is highly recommended, your pillar and cluster pages also need regular updates.

The reason for this is that Google's crawler is always looking for the most reliable, up-to-date data. The crawler is likely to favor a brand-new page with accurate data as opposed to a page that was last edited three months prior.

It's best practice to check in on your website pages at least every few months. Of course, this frequency can change depending upon how often your industry goes through changes that could affect your content and the accuracy of the information within.

Even if your core content is still valuable, it's healthy to check in on your site and see if changes can be made to improve or merge content. You should also honestly reassess your old content for readability, grammar mistakes, or general structure errors. Completing these quick fixes is a great way to refresh the page for crawlers.

3. Failure to Implement Internal Linking Strategies

This critical mistake causes many site owners to lose out on easy boosts to their overall site performance.

When we create our keyword clusters, we are laying the template for how all of our ranked keywords relate to one another. They all feed into the core topic, the pillar, but their shared nature also allows for countless internal linking opportunities that should come naturally.

For example, when a user looks up our example website for automobile sales, there's room to explore that intention. While the core intent is to find a vehicle to purchase, you may be able to leverage that intent to explore your related content. You might want to show off different types of vehicles, vehicle parts, or specific vehicle brands.

You should ensure that each page focuses on the topic at hand. However, capitalize on natural opportunities to share your additional content with the reader as it pertains to their immediate interest. You're simply presenting them with an option to engage with more content and making it easy for them to do so.

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4. Your Pillar Page Contains the Bare Minimum

This is another common mistake that is a result of misunderstanding the pillar page's purpose.

Because the pillar page is the foundation that links out to cluster pages, site owners mistakenly think the pillar page requires little content. After all, it's the cluster pages that delve into the deep minutiae of specific products or services that your brand offers.

However, your pillage page still requires content for crawlers to understand its purpose and how it relates to other content. While you should leave the fine details for cluster pages, the pillar page is ultimately meant to provide the user with all the information they need about the core topic. The cluster pages are there if they want to expand their knowledge on the related topics.

Ideally, your pillar page should have enough content to satisfy users and crawlers, but leave enough intrigue to motivate additional clicks. By providing quality content even on your pillar page, you solidify a cornerstone of your site's foundation, hence the name pillar.ā

Structure Your Site Around Keyword Clustering

The old manner of mapping your keywords isn't enough to keep up with Google's changing algorithm.

By implementing keyword clustering, you get to put a greater emphasis on delivering high-quality content without placing as much stress on keyword frequency. Instead, you bolster your content by smartly segmenting keywords into clusters to explain their relationship.

Not only will clustering help you rank higher, but it will also help you boost your key SEO metrics across the board. Be sure to cluster intelligently, avoid cannibalizing your keywords, and make use of smart internal linking whenever possible to take your results further.

Keywords are the bedrock of a quality SEO strategy.

They influence everything from site structure to the type of content you create. Keywords are what our customers use to find us online.

That means your competitors are also performing their keyword research strategies against you.

Let's discuss competitor keyword research, what it means for your SEO, and how you can use competitor keyword analysis to your benefit.

What is a Competitor Keyword Analysis?

Before we answer this question, let's first define a competitor keyword.

A competitor keyword is any term or phrase that a company in your industry uses to vie for improved SERP rankings. They use these keywords to plan their webpage content, paid ads, blog articles, and more.

This is no different than what you should be doing for your brand's website.

A competitor keyword analysis is a process of actively researching the keywords a competitor is targeting. You can use that knowledge to investigate how the brand is using those keywords.

If a competitor outranks your brand, you can investigate their keyword research to discern what makes their content superior to Google.

Conversely, you can identify weaknesses in their keyword strategy and exploit them to improve your rankings. If your team can create more engaging, high-quality content, you may be able to leapfrog them in SERPs.

Effectively, a competitor keyword analysis is like a road map. Take a look at your surroundings, determine what gets results and what doesn't, and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly.

How to Perform Competitor Keyword Research?

Competitor keyword research is a straightforward process. However, there are a few steps you'll need to take before you can get down to the finer details.

Step 1 - Identify Your Top Competitors

The first step is to determine which competitors in your industry are in direct competition with you online.

Your top competitors will demonstrate these characteristics:

• They offer products or services that are similar to yours
• They target a similar audience
• They’re close in ranking for the same or similar keywords
• You can reasonably compete with an effective strategy and budget

Your closest competitors will also vary based on how large of an area you serve.

If you are a local brand, you'll want to focus on businesses in your industry within the same county and surrounding areas. You can perform a quick Google search to bring up the nearest companies. Bear in mind that the brands ranking well online may differ from the ones you may be directly aware of or interact with in person.

For example, if you're a brewery, you could search breweries near meā  or brewery zip code.ā  Google will pull up a list of the nearest competitors. Specifically, you'll be interested in the local 3-pack that appears at the top of the SERP.

Brands that earn the 3-pack ranking demonstrate exceptional SEO. This is the result of many factors including NAP optimization, user reviews, and effective keyword selections. You can also check out high-ranking results just below that just miss the cut for these positions.

National or eCommerce competitor analysis is similar with the exception that there is no local 3-pack. You'll want to search for online retailers that deal with the same or similar products as your business.

Bear in mind that the size and scope of the brand are important when determining competition. Your small online startup is not going to have the resources necessary to dethrone a corporate juggernaut like Amazon.

Focus on brands like you that manage to obtain and withhold the top organic rankings. It's their strategies that you'll want to investigate if you want to improve.

Step 2 - Investigate Competitor Websites with SEO Tools

With your top competitors identified, you should have a list of domains in hand.

There are myriad free and paid SEO tools to assist with competitor keyword research.

1. Semrush

Semrush is an amazing keyword research tool that allows you to research by specific terms or via domain.

You can take one of your competitor domains, enter into the organic research field, and instantly generate a list of keywords found on their site.

Alternatively, you can enter your domain. Then, underneath Domain Analytics, choose Competitors. This will generate a list of keyword rankings for your site and compare them to other domains that are just above or below you in SERPs.

Semrush allows you to see a variety of insightful metrics including:

• Position rankings
• Average search volume
• Keyword difficulty
• Cost-per-click
• Traffic percentage by domain
• How many times a domain appears as a result for a keyword

Semrush also offers a variety of filters that allow you to customize your search by specific geographic locations.

It starts at $119/95/month with the ability to track up to 500 unique keywords. However, they do offer a free trial so that you can determine if this platform is right for your business.

2. WordStream

WordStream is a platform that puts a greater emphasis on PPC marketing.

However, they do offer a free keyword tool with many of the same features and benefits as Semrush.

The research process is similar. You can enter any keyword or URL into the search tool and instantly find a list of relevant search terms.

It offers some of the same key metrics including search volume and CPC. It also has a competition metric, showing how difficult it will be to rank for that keyword. This is comparable to Semrush's keyword difficulty.

Step 3 - Compile Your Research

After you research your listed competitor domains, you need to organize your findings.

Compile all of the discovered keywords and their associated metrics into a format that's easy for your team to follow. Your SEO tool of choice will likely offer the ability to take all of your collected data and export it into a user-friendly Excel file. You can then import data from Excel into various analytics tools to further manipulate and analyze the information for deeper insights.

Semrush offers its Keyword Gap tool for this express purpose. After entering the root domains of the competitors you wish to track, simply export the data into a file format of your choosing.

Likewise, you can download any WordStream reports as a CSV file, which can be easily uploaded into Microsoft Excel. If you're working on a paid ads campaign, know that these files can also interact with Google Ads to assist with planning.

Step 4 - Analyze the Competitor Keyword Data

Now that we've isolated the data, we can begin to conduct a proper assessment of our top competitors.

For starters, it's a smart idea to eliminate keywords with a high difficulty from contention. However, do not delete the data. While it's unwise to burn resources on keywords that won't generate the best ROI, you might be better positioned to target them at a later date.

Keywords that feature a high difficulty are in strong contention by several parties. Those brands have likely been pursuing those keywords for some time, making it virtually impossible for you to make any headway at this time.

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With those terms eliminated, you should now have a much shorter list comparably.

Next, begin the process of reviewing keywords used by specific competitors. Some of these may be terms that your team is already trying to use for rankings. There may also be additional terms that are not present in your SEO strategy.

Think carefully about which missing terms are most applicable to your brand. If the keyword seems to describe something tangentially, but not directly related to your business, you can eliminate it from contention.

This should leave you with a list of the following:

• Keywords used by both your brand and competitors
• Keywords you’re not currently using, but present real opportunities for better rankings

Step 5 - Check Out Competitor Keyword Usage in Action

The final step in this process is to investigate how your competitors utilize the keyword for rankings.

This applies to both types of keywords we narrowed down in the previous step. Particularly, you'll want to focus on competitors that currently outrank you for terms you have in common.

You can do this by navigating to the URL that is ranking for the keyword in question.

Consider what the competitor is doing with the content. Many factors can contribute to superior content rankings including:

• The subject matter
• The quality of the content
• Content layout (headlines, sub-headers, clean organization)
• Internal linking and anchoring
• Keyword frequency
• Secondary and tertiary keyword usage

Also, look for other success indicators such as likes or shares. If a page or a particular piece of content is gaining large engagement numbers, you'll want to take note. Let the consumer tell you what content they want to see.

Of course, additional off-page factors may contribute to superior rankings and domain authority for a competitor. Among these are backlinks, meaning that other sources share the competitor's content with their audience.

Keywords by themselves simply tell you where to aim. However, by taking the time to better understand why a domain ranks higher for a keyword, you can gain real insight as to how you can adjust your strategy.

Also, do not simply attempt to copy or imitate the competitor directly. Focus on the aspects of your brand that help it stand out. Then, use that unique perspective to add flavor to content that only you can provide.

Finally, don't ignore or rule out competitors that you're currently beating. Rankings can change overnight with how frequently Google's algorithm changes. Stay up-to-date with their keyword and content strategies, and always assume that you could fall back in rankings at any time.

Conclusion - Should You Use Competitor Keywords?

A competitor keyword analysis is critical for any successful SEO strategy.

To improve your ROI, you need to make gains in your organic traffic and rankings. You cannot achieve this without proper keyword selection. Capitalizing on the right search terms will help you connect with the right users and help you outshine competitors in the same industry.

Whether or not you should use a competitor keyword depends upon key factors.

• Does the keyword directly pertain to my business?
• How difficult is it to rank for this keyword?
• Can I use my unique value proposition to outrank my competitor for this keyword?

If the keyword satisfies one or more of these conditions, you may want it to consider for use either now or down the line.

Finally, high keyword rankings among competitors will tell you a lot about their marketing strategies. Pay close attention to the type of content they create, how they present it, what makes it strong, and when it presents a weakness.

Then, use all of this information to guide your content creation process. Consider how you can differentiate your brand from the competition, and add that unique spin to your keyword-focused content.