How to Quickly Test SEO Keywords
SEO is a necessary long-term traffic strategy. Long-term is a subjective phrase, not objective. I want to shed some light on this topic by using a study by Ahrefs to determine how long it takes to rank a site in the top 10 on average. Ahrefs is an amazing SEO tool for keyword research, analyzing links, etc.
After determining what long-term means, I want to address how to test keywords quickly to make sure they’re going to bring quality traffic.
Ahrefs sorted through PEDABYTES (!) of data and pulled 2 million keywords at random. The company then compiled a list of the top 10 ranking sites for these keywords. This is simply a massive amount of data that very few organizations even have access to.
Hold on to your hat, the results are shocking…
- The average first ranking page on Google is 3 years old
- The average top ten ranking page on Google is 2+ years old
Are you receiving SEO offers on LinkedIn of “experts” claiming they can get you a top 10 ranking in just a month or two on new pages? Yeah, you might want to ignore those….
Okay, that might sound insane, but how many pages are less than 1 year old and ranking in the top 10 on average?
5.7% !!!!!
You have approximately a 5.7% chance of ranking in the Top 10 within the first year of publishing a new page. Keep in mind that pages with high Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) will rank better than those with low DA and PA.
Why use SEO as a tactic if it takes so long?
- There are methods to rank specific types of pages faster.
- Planning for the future is important. Eventually your labor will yield fruits as organic, targeted traffic. Organic traffic rocks.
How to test Keywords Efficiently
If SEO will take so long to yield results, how can we test the keywords quickly to ensure that we’re placing our eggs in the right basket?
Step 1
Determine what constitutes a good keyword -
You might have a long list of keywords that an SEO expert generated through keyword research. It’s imperative that your traffic has a low bounce rate, and converts / buys your product. Without testing your keywords, you might be targeting non-buyers or people who are simply not going to convert. After investing over a year on SEO, that can be a serious bummer and waste of money.
After you determine what percentage of traffic should convert from a specific keyword, and what the average purchase order should be, move on to step 2.
Step 2
Google Ads is the perfect tool to quickly test keywords to determine if the traffic is right for your business. I suggest using only Exact Match keywords here to test your potential main keywords.
When creating your campaign, keep in mind good practices to get your Quality Score (QS) to a 10. You’ll need to find a top-notch user acquisition expert as most “experts” don’t know how or don’t want to take the time to hit a QS of 10. If you do this, you’ll be paying about 30% less than your competitors and get a higher ad spot (preferably #1 as 15% of the traffic for a search will click on the first ad spot).
You’ll be surprised to find that many of the keywords you had wanted to target don’t convert, while others unexpectedly do. This is going to save you a lot of time, effort, and money in the long run while maximizing your revenues.
Conclusion
Please don’t buy snake oil SEO services and test your keywords with Google Ads before embarking on an SEO campaign.
There are no short cuts for sustainable organic traffic. Using Google Ads properly will give you the edge you need to test your SEO keywords.
Jason Adam Raphael is an executive level digital marketing and sales consultant with over 17 years of B2B and B2C experience. PM me now to discuss your project / company goals and start increasing revenues.