Aella Johns / 5 Mins Read
Updated: February 23, 2023
Top 3 alarming signals can be immensely useful in discovering how you are optimizing the wrong keywords and how to fix it.
Keyword optimization is all about carrying out adequate research, analysis, and selection of the right keywords.
Ideally, if you get it right, you should see some astonishingly positive results in terms of better traffic, higher click-through rate and so on and so forth!
However, a lot of people do not get the expected results and lose sleep over what went wrong.
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What if you could find a way to anticipate, deal with and fix the real causes that prevent you from achieving expected results?
This is where the top 3 alarming signals can be immensely useful in discovering how you are optimizing the wrong keywords and how to fix it.
Here’re the 3 alarming signals and how you can relate them to optimization of wrong keywords:
Let’s say you get the users on your site.
So far, so good.
But if there is a high bounce rate or low time on page, you might wonder what you did wrong. But it is actually a telltale signal that it has something to do with a keyword. In other words, you have optimized the wrong keywords.
Of course, there could be other reasons for a high bounce rate or low time on page. But assuming you have got everything else under control, optimizing wrong keywords is the only plausible explanation.
High bounce rate or low time on a page means that users do come to your site but are quickly going away. When you optimize keywords, you end up putting them right at the forefront of everything whether it is content, meta description, title tag, links, and even images.
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When the users come to the site expecting certain kind of content and get disappointed, they will leave quite quickly. Your content basically contains certain kinds of keywords that you have integrated based on your keyword research which may not be what users are looking for.
Any surprise that users come and leave quickly?
Basically, you have optimized the wrong keywords and which is why users do not find your content and site engaging, relevant or useful.
If you are looking to arrest the optimization of wrong keywords at the outset, keep an eye on high bounce rate or low on page time to identify it and fix it.
Here’s a familiar scenario:
And then you expect your site to rank higher in search results and draw thousands of visitors.
But it does not turn out that way. You have little or no organic visibility in spite of all your efforts.
This is not your scenario alone; there are many who suffer the same fate.
But if you are willing to learn and improve, bear in mind that search engines do not lie!
Google is sending you a signal that you have to decode well.
The signal is quite alarming because, without organic visibility, all your plans can go awry.
When you see little or no organic visibility, you need to revisit your keyword optimization. There are users searching for products or services that you provide. You have tried to use and integrate certain keywords but you have failed to gain the visibility that you were hoping to get.
Simple: you are optimizing the wrong keywords. In other words, you have not researched, analyzed and selected the keywords that are at the heart of the users’ search intent.
Failing to attain organic visibility is a compelling sign of wrong keywords that you are optimizing.
So if you are looking to achieve accelerate your business, monitor the organic visibility you have got. It is one of the most alarming signals not just for your business but also for the fact that you have optimized the wrong keywords and your SEO campaign is on the wrong track.
It’s not the end of the world though; you can revisit the keywords and do your thorough and rigorous research again to optimize the right keywords and start all over again!
Let’s say you achieved it; you got a higher ranking and you got visitors to your site.
To your dismay, you might discover that there’s a low click-through rate in spite of high impressions.
At times, there are various reasons for it. But assuming you have taken care of the rest, it could be because of the optimization of wrong keywords. You may have focused on broad keywords and got the traffic but users may not get the specific things that they are looking for.
For example, you focused on “cars” as a generic keyword but users are looking for “used cars” or “race car”. Instead of that, your content is probably focused on new cars and their features.
It is obvious that users are going to come to your site but not click as expected because you missed the specific keywords and their search intent. If you miss the specific keywords and their search intent, you would wind up with high impressions and low click-through rates.
In other words, optimizing the wrong keywords could very well be the reason for high impressions and low click-through rates.
It would be a lot worse if you fail to connect to dots and discover the real cause.
Therefore, you can fix the issue of optimization of wrong keywords if you spot the high impressions and low click-through rate quite early on.
As an alarming signal, it is quite significant because if you spot it early, you can turn things around and power your content and the rest with the right set of keywords!
You need to sharpen the focus on keyword optimization in order to arrive at the right kind of keywords which can deliver the expected results.
For this to happen, do your keyword research properly and study the search intent and study your content to discover the alignment or the lack of it. Ask yourself, what are users looking for?
There are two types of things one can associate with searches:
Are the users looking for information regarding products or process and is your content aligned with that? In other words, do you content answer the “what” types questions?
Secondly, are the users looking for “how to” type solutions and is your content in alignment with that? In other words, does your content provide the solution that the users are looking for?
This extends beyond keywords in a literal sense. It means that you do not merely look at the keywords alone and whether such keywords exist in your content but the search intent and relevance of your content.
If you can identify the right keywords, understand the search intent and align your content and other stuff to make it relevant for your users, you can fix it.
However, you would never come to that stage if you ignore the 3 alarming signals!
To continue the previous argument, it all begins with your understanding of these alarming signals as they go off, one by one or all together!
As early you can spot them, the more quickly can you fix them.
Your interpretation of these alarming signals must drive you in the single direction- optimization of right keywords.
Once you spot the problem of optimization of wrong keywords and take measures to set it right, you can hope to accomplish whatever you set as your goal- higher SEO ranking, better traffic, higher click-through rate, more time on page and so on and so forth!
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Aella Johns is a SEO Professional in Ranking By SEO a company which provide excellent SEO Services. She has written on many topics related to SEO, link building and in social media marketing, Website designing and development and many more.
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