In the ever-evolving world of search engines, Google algorithm updates have become a buzzword for websites striving to rank high and reach their target audience. These updates are mysterious forces that can either make or break a website’s online presence.

Imagine waking up one day to find that your website has dropped in search engine ranking and your traffic has plunged. It feels like being stranded on an island with no way to escape, wondering what went wrong and how to fix it. This is the impact of an algorithm update, which can send shivers down any website owner’s spine.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Algorithm updates are Google’s way of refining and improving the search experience for users. By rewarding websites with high-quality content, good user experience, and following SEO best practices, Google is helping users find the information they need quickly and easily.

So as a website owner, it’s essential to understand that each algorithm update is unique, and its impact can vary depending on several factors. However, by creating valuable content and providing an exceptional overall user experience, site owners like us can build resilience to algorithm updates and maintain their search engine ranking and traffic.

So, if you want to stay ahead of the curve, here are a couple of actionable steps you can take right now to embrace the challenge of algorithm updates and adapting your website to meet the ever-changing demands of the search engine. 

1. Analyze your website’s search performance on Google Search Console

Google Search Console is an essential tool that provides valuable insights into the performance of your website on search engine result pages (SERP), allowing you to filter historical data according to your specific needs. 

• To begin, select your website property from the dropdown menu located in the top left panel of the Google Search Console dashboard. 
• From there, navigate to the “performance” section and click on “search results.” The performance dashboard will then display important metrics, such as total clicks, impressions, average click-through rate (CTR), and average position. These metrics are crucial for understanding your website’s search performance and future projection.
• To proceed, ensure that the search type is set to “web” and select a date range of 6-12 months. This timeframe allows you to identify the impact of Google’s algorithms and compare current performance stats with previous data. 

• Once you have selected the appropriate metrics, activate the “average position,” “total clicks,” “CTR,” and “total impressions” graphs. 

• Then scroll down to the “pages” tab and order the pages based on the highest clicks, although you can choose to sort by average position or impressions.
• Lastly, compare the metrics to determine which pages need improvement. By comparing clicks, impressions, and CTR, you can identify pages that are not performing as expected these are the pages you want to first look at.

To begin the optimization process, first, you can review your Google Analytics data and identify pages that have experienced significant traffic loss after the update. Alternatively, you can tell just by looking at the performance chart and how avg. Positions, impressions, and clicks are heading compared to the previous couple of months.

• Once you have a page in your mind, you will need to select it from the list pages, and it automatically gets set as a filter along with the date and web settings you previously established.
• Once the page filter is set, you must navigate to the “queries” tab and analyze the top keywords for that page that are generating the most impressions. You can then activate the impression, clicks, CTR, and SERP position to compare the best keywords for the particular page.

• With this data, you can adjust your content to optimize for the best-performing keyword while also paying attention to other top keywords. (It’s important to note that using these keywords to update your page only pertains to keyword optimization, as you still need to ensure the page provides maximum value and a pleasant user experience.)
• This way, you can extract a list of pages that have been hit by the latest algorithm update to your Excel sheet, which gives you a filtered approach to try and recover a part of traffic by optimizing your pages for keywords and potentially driving more people than before.

2. Update your content structure

To make your article reach people and gain their love, you need to first make it lovable to Google. But how can you do that? Google doesn’t know what you are writing, but it knows what makes an article great. It’s all about making it to the first page of Google SERP. 

Google compares your content to the existing top-ranking content to determine how your page measures up. So the trick is to reverse engineer what the top articles are doing to get themselves to the top!

So before creating your article, the first step would be to create an outline that surpasses your competition. 

# Prepare your heading structure:

To do this, you need to determine the heading structure and ideal word count for your article. You can search your topic on Google and analyze the top-ranking content. Take note of the heading structure and the length of the article. 

You can also look at the second and third articles to gather more headings to include in your outline. This will result in a better outline because it encompasses all the articles that are currently ranking. You can also use tools like Frase to collect a set of headlines without manually analyzing each top-ranking page.

# Optimizer for readers and add keywords that Google would love to see:

When it comes to writing, avoid fluffing around and get straight to the point. For example, if someone is searching for how to make a website in WordPress, they likely already know what a website is and don’t need an introduction. 

When updating existing articles, you can use the keywords you have previously discovered on the GSC queries dashboard, as well as other semantic words that Google would like to find on your page. For this task, you can use tools like Surfer SEO, Frase, and SEMrush to enrich your content with relevant words that will improve your page’s relevance.

One way you can do this is by using the keywords you have discovered for a page on Google search console and then using those keywords in a content optimizer tool like Frase and letting it help you optimize the content compared to the best content on Google.

# Optimizer for FAQ and SERP:

Next, write the answers to queries in a Google-friendly format. Keep it simple and direct. For example, if someone is searching for “Does Ahref have a content optimizer tool?” you can answer with a simple sentence like “No, Ahrefs does not have a content optimizer tool yet.” 

This type of answer makes it extremely easy for Google’s language algorithm to know that you’ve answered the question, and it can skyrocket your chances of getting into the featured snippet on top of Google search.

# Add Schema to your content

Using schema markup can be incredibly useful for ranking on Google because it helps search engines better understand the content on your website. You can use RankRanger’s schema markup generator to create and validate your FAQ, Article easily, and How to schemas to your HTML code in a way that is machine-readable, allowing search engines to understand the content on your website easily.

With schema, your content has a higher chance of appearing in feature snippets, and people also ask for sections on SERP. For FAQs, you can search your topic on Google and then pick some of the most relevant questions to your topic from the PEOPLE ALSO ASK section and then try to answer those questions clearly and easier way on your page. 

Use an accordion plugin on your WordPress site to assign those FAQs and enable FAQ schema or RankRanger’s FAQ schema generator. 

3. Focus on Topical Authority

Topical authority refers to the expertise and trustworthiness a website earns by producing high-quality and informative content on a particular topic. The more quality content a website has on a specific subject, the more it becomes known as an authoritative resource. This enhances the site’s reputation among readers and improves its chances of being favored by Google for ranking purposes.

If you feel that your website lacks coverage on a particular topic, assessing your existing content may be worthwhile and considering scaling up your coverage. By producing more quality content on a specific subject, you can demonstrate your expertise and become a more reliable source of information for readers while also improving your search engine rankings.

# Create a topical map

To start creating your content strategy, it’s important first to develop a topical map that includes all the relevant topics that need to be covered. You can utilize a keyword research tool like Chat GPT to generate this map by building clusters of topics around the main subject and identifying relevant child topics. 

However, using a reliable keyword research tool to discover keywords around these topics is also recommended. While Chat GPT can assist in creating topic clusters and relevant child topics, it may not provide enough data on the actual keywords that users are searching for on Google.

You can also read this case study on how you can use ChatGPT to research keywords on your site. 

In addition, if you have pages on your website that cover random topics and receive low traffic, it would be beneficial to repurpose those pages to cover topics that align with the main themes of your site.

# Create a bond between relevant articles by interlinking

Now that you have a well-planned relevant article on your website, you can seal the deal by interlinking them and creating a net to show search engines how highly relevant your articles are!

A well-planned internal linking strategy can significantly impact your website’s search engine ranking because it distributes the authority of your website’s high-authority pages to other pages on your website. This means that a well-structured internal linking profile can have a similar impact to high-quality external backlinks.

If you cannot interlink naturally between the pages, you can use a plugin like Link Whisper that automates the linking process and find natural key phrases to link between your website pages. 

4. Run a full site audit

A website that has great content but is not optimized for technical SEO is like a book that is well-written but has no index or table of contents. Search engines will have a hard time understanding the content’s relevance and ranking it appropriately.

To improve the technical SEO of your website, it’s essential to conduct a thorough audit. Various tools, such as SEMrush or Ahrefs, can scan your site and identify any technical issues hindering your SEO efforts. 

These audits cover a range of aspects, including website speed, mobile-friendliness, URL structure, site architecture, XML sitemap, robots.txt file, canonical tags, schema markup, and more.

By conducting a single audit, you can uncover all the ongoing issues and take the necessary steps to fix them one by one. While missing meta tags or breadcrumbs may not be major issues, ensuring that your site is error-free can provide a significant advantage over your competitors. 

By addressing technical SEO issues and keeping your site up-to-date with the latest algorithm updates, you can ensure that your website is in top shape and provides search engine crawlers with the best possible user experience.

5. Check and improve site speed

Page speed is a crucial factor that affects SEO. With the introduction of Google’s Algorithm Speed Update, it’s become evident that slow-loading pages can negatively impact your rankings. In addition to being a direct ranking factor, slow page speed can indirectly affect your rankings by increasing bounce rates and reducing dwell time. 

If your pages take too long to load, Google may prioritize other sites offering similar value but with a better page loading experience. To avoid falling behind the competition, ensuring that your pages load as quickly as possible is crucial. 

You can use tools like PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Pingdom to test your pages and identify areas for improvement. 

Additionally, Google Search Console provides Web Vitals data that reflects real-world user experience on your pages. By keeping your Web Vitals stats in good shape, you can rest assured that SERP won’t impact your site due to poor page performance.

If your page speed is poor and your Google Web vital status has failed, you have a few options to fix the issue. You can try to improve it on your own or enlist the help of speed improvement experts to ensure your site passes the web’s vital records. One such expert is Team Speedy Site, and if you use the coupon code WISPEED50, you can receive a $50 discount on your first order with them.

6. Finally, prepare a link-building plan

Improving your website’s ranking and traffic requires a solid link-building plan that aligns with Google’s algorithm. Link building is still very relevant in 2023 and remains a deciding factor in high-competition SERPs. 

While working on other foundational pillars like topical authority, a strong backlink profile can protect your site from Google algorithm updates. Your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (EAT) largely depend on links and mentions on authoritative sites.

However, link-building is not an easy task to accomplish. You need to build links that work in 2023. One of the best link-building strategies is guest posting. You can do it in-house or hire a reliable service like Authority Builders. Another strategy I like is to insert links in existing articles by outreaching yourself with a quality page or again taking help from Authority Builders.

Additionally, you can get mention links by helping a reporter out (HARO) or by creating newsworthy content and outreaching journalists for links. Building a high-quality backlink profile is essential to your website’s success in the long run.

Semrush’s link-building tool is another great way to find prospects that you can reach out to and might help quicken the process overall.

It’s good to have a few trusted keyword research tools under your belt.  Our teams at Content Refined are currently using two in conjunction: SECockpit by SwissMadeMarketing, and Ahrefs.  We started using Ahrefs a while ago when SECockpit stopped returning results in certain fields and niches (i.e. we stopped getting results for cbd oil related keywords).  Ahrefs has a ton of detail in their results, and I really like the way that they suggest alternatives.

So here are the basic steps for using Ahrefs to determine whether a keyword is competitive.  For our purposes, we are looking for a few key metrics:

• monthly search volume over 500
• keyword density under 30
• most of the other top competitors have a low domain authority

These are the tried and true metrics that Content Refined usually sticks to (unless there’s a unique site that needs something slightly different).  We’ve talked about this before in an article about SECockpit.  For that article the monthly search volume filter was set to ‘over 1000’.  We’ve since found that over 500 is a valuable metric with more opportunities for a lot of sites.

For Ahrefs Keyword Research, follow these steps in this order:

1. Go to ‘Keywords Explorer’ from the headings.
2. Search for the keyword. In this example, ‘ketamine infusion’.
3. Scroll down to ‘also rank for’ and click on the ‘view all #’.
4. Click on KD and put ’30’ in the “To” section. Click ‘Apply’.
5. Click on Volume and put ‘500’ in the “From” section. Click ‘Apply’.
6. Now you’ll have a list of keywords with good metrics.
7. Click on one that looks good, in this example, ‘ketamine infusion therapy’.
8. In the new page, scroll all the way down to the ‘SERP Overview’ section. There you’ll be able to see the Domain Rating (“DR”) of the top competitors’ websites. Make sure that the majority of these are under about 35. In the example ‘ketamine infusion therapy’, most of those DRs are low, which is good!
9. Determine whether this is a good keyword for your needs, and copy the details as needed into your keyword research plan.
10. Begin search again with a new keyword, as much as needed, to complete your keyword research.

I love finding new strategies and tricks for finding the best competitive keywords in any niche.  For Content Refined we also go back once or twice a year and run some data analysis to see which tools are working the best.  We did that last year around this time, and are currently in the process of running a new set of data analysis (I’ll be sure to share the findings for you guys).

Keep me updated about what tools and strategies you guys are currently using in the comments below!

My last post reviewed how effective MarketMuse was at predicting the overall success of content in Google. This post will now dig deeper into many other keyword research tools to try and show which keyword planner and tools can help provide us with more of a competitive edge when it comes to mastering high-quality content and improving our rank in search engines.

One of the most important factors to consider when choosing the best keyword research tool to determine keyword competitiveness is keyword relevance. The more specific you are with your keyword choices, the better it will be. You want to use keywords to attract a more specific audience, rather than a large and more generalized audience.

A good keyword research tool will be able to help determine keyword relevance and it will also help you gain that advantage over your competitors, so you can build a more profitable and relevant marketing campaign.

Keyword research is one of the primary factors when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization), PPC (pay per click), and any type of content marketing campaign and strategy. Therefore, you want to be able to find the best, so you can provide the best high-quality and the most searched content that you can for your audience. Having the right content can lead your company to more leads and more customers.

A Bit of Info Relating to Keywords and Their Importance

Long-tail Keywords: These are three or four-word keyword phrases that are specific to whatever it is you are selling. With longtail search engine optimization, you are using a technique that targets highly specific niche search terms.

Keyword Suggestion Tools: These tools will provide you with better data that leads to better results. Remember, keywords are the building blocks of your SEO campaign and using keyword suggestion tools like WordStream keyword tool and Free Keyword Tool can help find relevant, accurate, and actionable data for paid and organic searches.

Keyword Difficulty: Otherwise known as keyword competition, this is a metric that is used when doing keyword research as you will see in the results below. The higher the value is, the harder you will find that it will be to compete with others using that keyword. This keyword data should be analyzed next to monthly search volumes and SERP analysis.

Analysis Summary – What Keyword Tools Competition Score Correlated with a Higher Google Rank

The list below was generated to give you a more in-depth view at what keyword tools competition scores correlated with a higher-ranking position on the Google search engine. They are ranked from the best, to the mediocre, to the worst.

• GREAT – KWFinder – 43.23%
• GREAT – LongTailPro – 39.37%
• GREAT – CognitiveSEO – 37.49%
• GREAT – Ferzy – 35.71%

 

• OKAY – TermExplorer – 28.16%
• OKAY – SEMRush – 24.17%
• OKAY – Ahrefs – 23.07%

 

• WORST – SECockpit – 17.31%

The results surprised me with both Ahrefs and SEMRush underperforming my expectations and LongTailPro overperforming my expectations. I expected SECockpit to do terrible because I never find the competition score that it provides to be a very reliable analysis of the keyword I am inputting.

Additionally, the accuracy of this keyword tool analysis essentially means that the top 3-KWFinder, LongTailPro, and CognitiveSEO were tied. The margin of error would be larger than the difference between the results.

Based on this analysis, I recommend using one of the top 3 tools as listed above when identifying keywords to create content. It is also now what we do at ContentRefined.com so we can achieve the absolute best results possible.

The rest of this post will provide you with the ability to choose the right keyword tool available to give you to offer you a competitive advantage in targeting keywords. Doing so will result in successfully ranking articles on search engines.

There are so many different websites and companies that have or are starting to develop keyword difficulty or SEO difficulty tools. But once you input a phrase and determine the existing competition and window of opportunity, what weight should the number or percentage that they provide actually hold?

Previously in “Rank in Google with Certainty,” I only analyzed Ferzy, SEMRush, and SECockpit on a very basic level. For this article, I expanded that research to include Ahrefs, LongTailPro, and CognitiveSEO while also including search volume influence (based on feedback from you in my last article).

I have also analyzed competition domain authority, trust flow, headline click-through-rate, and more; but look for that to be shared in another post!

Now for the Fun Stuff (if You are a Data Geek!)

Using some articles from my various money site portfolio and all of ‘Content Refined’ created content, I have been able to compile enough data points to provide some statistical insight into predicting the performance of ranking an article around a certain keyword.

I have broken down the six different keyword tools into two tiers and you will find that the results within the tiers are statistically indifferent.

So here are the results…

Worst Performing Group (Worst Ability to Predict)

• SECockpit

SECockpit keyword difficulty tool uses a percentage system. The percentage systems that show scoring below 30% and as close to 10% while maintaining a reasonable search volume, is a typical metric we use when determining if the keyword tool is effectively predicting. However, with only a moderate correlation of 17%, SECockpit has shown the very least predictive tendency of the tested tools.

• Ahrefs

Ahrefs provides an absolute number score out of 100 to determine the difficulty you would encounter to rank for a searched keyword. While it only held a statistical correlation relevance of 23%, I do like that it provides a suggested required number of backlinks to go with the score.

I was actually surprised by this result. The guys at AuthorityHacker, who always do great work, had found AHrefs tool to be the best when it came to Keyword Difficulty, but we found it to not perform very well.

• SEMRush

With SEMRush, you get a percentage score out of 100 with being below 70-75% as a target. Still only holding a moderate 25% correlation, SEMRush is the best of the tools found in our 2nd tier.

Best Performing Group (Best Ability to Predict How an Article Will Rank)

• Ferzy

Ferzy is a newer tool on the market and will provide an absolute score out of 100 with varying levels of ratings categories. At a 35% statistical correlation, it offers to be one of the strongest predictors of keyword difficulty and ability to rank of the tools tested.

• CognitiveSEO

CognitiveSEO is new to me and they recently came out with a new keyword difficulty and content analyzing tool. Both of these tools seem to work great and at a 37% correlation rate, it compares and competes well with some of the more well-known tools.

The content analyzing tool offers MarketMuse some competition and it comes at a more reasonable price. However, the difference in effectiveness is still to be determined…(more to come on this in the future).

• LongTailPro

Behold the LongTailPro, the final keyword research tool we analyzed. Coming in with a statistical correlation at just under 40%, it is the most predictive keyword tool, however, it is not by much.

I was surprised by these results because LongTailPro has been around for a long time and I would have thought one of the newer tools would have come out with a better predictor.

• KWFinder

Mangool’s KWFinder had not been used by me or the team until it became the most popular and most suggested and asked-about tool in the comments. Based on the recommendations I have received, I have gone back and completed the analysis to wrap up assessing the various keyword difficulty tools.

KWFinder’s tool assesses the keywords on a scale out of 100 while also giving the user a very user-friendly dashboard that provides additional search volume and SERP charts.

In my short time using KWFinder, I am very impressed with the value. In our statistical analysis, the overall correlation was 43% with keywords that have >1000+ monthly searches having a correlation of 41%. KWFinder has shown the highest correlation so far of any keyword tools researched and this remains true across various search volumes.

The tool instantly becomes an intriguing option for any level of operation with its variable pricing and added SERP Tracking features. More time spent using the tool will provide more insight, but this tool is the absolute leader of all the tools we have so far analyzed.

• Term Explorer

Based on recommendations, here is the statistical analysis for Term Explorer keyword analyzer difficulty. Term Explorer provides a score out of 10 to its users and this score is what can then determine the level of competition of the keyword in terms of using the keyword to rank. From our brief analysis, it appears a score below 2.00 is a good number to reference for researching and is a number you will want to maintain and stay below.

Overall, the correlation was 28.16% for Term Explorer; a moderate correlation that places the tool somewhere between the 1st and 2nd tiers. Its ranking scale makes it an attractive tool to operate and its ability to maintain projects and track given keywords regularly is also a plus.

Question – What if we Adjust for Search Volume?

When the varying search volumes for a keyword were separated, the results varied by little. The three successful tools we reviewed before held their ground in being the most successful predictors.

Summary

In conclusion, the results shown offer that there is a significant competitive advantage available if you are using the right keyword suggestion tool to find relevant keywords. Ensuring that you follow a keyword data strategy of 500-1000+ monthly searches and a low recommended score from the varying scoring systems from tier 1 tools, you can start your content creation process on the right foot and provide it with a stronger chance of ranking well in the end!

But remember, when looking to rank your content, there are so many factors involved that this one step of the process can only provide so much insight and competitive advantage.

While it is necessary to find good keywords, the rest of the process must be completed at the same level of effort and quality to maintain the opportunity to rank. So, combining a keyword difficulty tool with a content analyzer tool, backlink analyzer tool, and so on, is essential to maximize opportunities.

Look forward to an upcoming post where I will wrap up this round of statistical analysis by exploring additional tools and factors that help you rank such as domain authority, trust flow, and headline score. Finding out that there may be an auxiliary tool for helping rank could make all the difference.

Hope you are enjoying these more statistically driven posts!

If you have any questions or ways we could expand on this analysis, please let me know!

We have all heard it before – keyword research is the most important part of building a website. Well for an Authority website keyword research is not as important to me as it is for my micro-niche sites. However, if I were to create my authority site and right away try to rank for my primary keywords I would simply be banging my head against the wall. Let me share with you how I plan on getting traffic to my highly competitive student loan site via the “back door”. (more…)