Hello! I believe there is a common misconception out there in the internet marketing world. It goes something like this:
“In order to achieve high rankings in search engine result pages (SERPs), I must do extensive keyword research and target super specific keywords. If I don’t do this, I will never get high rankings in Google or other search engines.”
I am here to tell you that this is a HUGE MISCONCEPTION. I am also here to tell you and show you that you can achieve high rankings without doing one iota of keyword research.
Hours Spent Researching Keywords: 0
That’s right! I have been running KirbysMarketing.com for over 9 months. I have thousands of visitors a month with almost exponential growth. I have many posts ranking on the first page of Google with 900s of different keywords. I also even have a few posts ranking in the number 1 position under 29 different keywords!
Here you can see the keywords this website is ranking under with the most impressions over the last 30 days. Especially look at the second keyword “click4surveys review”. This keyword is in the number one spot and gets 35% of all people searching for it to click through to my website!
With so much emphasis on keyword research and finding the perfect keywords to target, how can this be possible? Most internet marketers stress the importance of keyword research because it is how they write their articles. Don’t get me wrong, I think keyword research has its place, but it is not an absolute necessity like most claim.
Natural Content Captures More Keywords
What most internet marketers won’t tell you is content written naturally will have all the keywords you need to draw targeted traffic to your page. This natural content will capture more keywords than you could ever have imagined and researched yourself.
When search engines are looking at your website they are scanning your content for phrases relevant to searches, but, they aren’t necessarily looking at the keywords you are intending them to see. They are looking at any and all keywords that occur naturally in your writing.
Here you can see a portion of the keywords that are ranking in the #1 position. Some of them don't get a lot of traffic, but when they do their click-through rates (CTR) are amazing! This shows you the power of getting your keywords into the #1 positions!
Even in a short article such as this, I could be targeting a specific keyword that I researched, such as “Writing Good Content Without Keywords” or “Is Keyword Research Necessary”. However, those are two specific keywords. When Google indexes this post, it will do so under hundreds, and maybe even thousands of different keyword combinations.
I’d say that there is a pretty high likelihood that those two keywords will be amongst the thousands they index this post under. Not to mention all of the keywords that I never thought of.
Natural Content Is Better Content
Since I have had an understanding of keywords, I have always looked to determine the keywords targeted by the content I am reading on others’ sites. There is nothing more awkward than a strange keyword phrase squished clumsily into a sentence where it doesn’t belong.
Challenge: Visit a few websites and see if you can figure out what keywords they are targeting.
It is really difficult to target specific keywords, especially long keywords, and incorporate them into your content without it sounding strange. Don’t get me wrong, it definitely is possible to do this, but in my opinion, it is a waste of valuable time.
Here you can see my top performing keywords on the Bing and Yahoo search networks. Unfortunately, these search engines don't get nearly as much traffic as Google, but it's still enough to bring a substantial amount of visitors to your website.
Remember, your goal is to get your readers to enjoy reading your content. If they have to stumble through wordy and unnaturally phrased sentences they are not going to have a good time…even if your message is super relevant!
Natural Content Gets Better Keywords…Naturally
As much keyword research as you do, you will never be able to so say for sure what people are going to type into Google or other search engines. Yes, you can get good ideas from the various keyword research tools out there, but their results are limited to what you can think of to research. Everything you cannot think of will be missing from your research results.
When you focus an entire post on only the keyword that you thought to research, you are leaving all of the other keywords that didn’t cross your mind behind. Think of all those potential clicks your are forfeiting for focusing on just a few keywords.
Because you are focusing on only a few keywords, you will write with only those in mind. Yes, you probably will rank with those, but because you’re only focused on them, you will only rank in those and not many others.
When your mind is free of keyword contamination, you will write in a way that attracts ALL RELEVANT KEYWORDS, not just the ones you thought to research. Your post will be indexed under every possible relevant keyword and every keyword variation, far more than if you focused on only a few core keywords.
Keyword Research Is Useful, But Not Necessary
With all of this, there are excellent ways to utilize the best keyword research tools out there; however, they are definitely not necessary to achieve high SEO rankings within Google and other search engines.
There are some cases and situations, such as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, where researching high-quality keywords is an absolute necessity, but simple content writing for SEO purposes is not one of them.
Learn For Yourself
In case you’re wondering how I learned what I know about keywords and internet marketing, I want to tell you I definitely didn’t learn it on my own. I actually joined a great online community by the name of Wealthy Affiliate University that taught me everything I know, even how to use, or not use, keywords effectively. If this is something you think you would be interested in as well, please check out my in-depth review of what they have to offer you!
You may also be interested in:
- Jaaxy Keyword Tool Review – Your Best Source For Finding Great Keywords
- Looking For A Job – Why Not Start Your Own Online Business And Work For Yourself
- How To Find A Free Domain Name From SiteRubix.com
-
Getting Started Online Doesn’t Have To Be Scary
If you have any comments or questions about anything I’ve said in this post please leave me a comment below. I welcome any conversation, even if you disagree with my perspective on keyword research.
Finally, please consider signing up for my weekly newsletter below. In it, I will simply keep you updated by sending out one email every Monday summarizing all of the content I’ve published the previous week. You can register here:
Hi Dustin,
Thanks for sharing this great knowledge. I can’t imagine what inside the pro WA community. I just find your marketing blog and it show itself what the community quality have.
Thanks again for this article!
Adhy
Hey Adhy!
Thank you for your comment and I’m glad you found this post helpful! Wealthy Affiliate really has taught me about everything I know in regards to building an online business. I think the fact that you found my website in Google is as great of a testament to that possible!
Anyways, if you have any questions about anything, please let me know!
Dustin “Kirby” Garness
Hi Dustin,
Thanks for sharing this great and helpful case study.
Hey man,
Thanks for your compliments! Your site is pretty sweet too! How long have you been building it? Have you had any financial success with it yet? Just curious!
Dustin “Kirby” Garness
Hello Dustin,
It’s approximately 1 year I start my blog but as I’m a part time blogger it’s take too time to make my blog popular. And also I had no financial success with this blog. But i’m trying to make some money with this and my some others blog. Basically I got success with one of my Affiliate Marketing blog where I promote niche products from Amazon. That’s all.
Thanks.
Hey man! Sorry for the really late response. I’ve been dealing with a sick mother the last few days.
I just want to encourage you to keep trucking along! I checked out your site and it looks really well put together and seems like you have lots of good content. Are you getting good traffic coming through from Google and other search engines?
Have you taken any training courses along they way or are you just going at it on your own?
The biggest thing I can suggest is to check out Wealthy Affiliate University. They have a lot of good information available for FREE and also have a premium option if you really want to make the most of it. I know it sounds like I’m simply plugging a product. But I’ve learned everything I know about Internet Marketing from Wealthy Affiliate. My blog is not quite a year old and I’m sort of in the same niche as you, but I’ve made over $700 in revenue.
If you have any questions about anything please let me know! Also, if you want to see everything I’ve done from the very beginning check out my Income and Progress Reports. I document pretty much everything I’ve done.
Dustin “Kirby” Garness
Great info, Dustin! I’m curious how you obtained the data that you present in this post pertaining the impressions, clicks and CTR for each keyword.
Regards,
Patrick
Hey Patrick! That is a great question. The first two images I have used in this post are from Google Webmaster Tools and the third image is from Bing Webmaster Tools. I’ve found that the webmaster tools give much more detailed keyword information than Google Analytics does, so it’s really helpful to see which keywords you are ranking under.
Here is a great training on setting up webmaster tools: Setting Up Webmaster Tools
Thanks for the question and let me know if there is anything else I can help you with!
Dustin “Kirby” Garness
Very helpful post, thanks!
No problem Tim! It’s my pleasure 🙂
Thanks for sharing this important information. I agree with you….writing natural content will greatly help us get found and improve our ranking. Keywords come naturall when we are writing our content in a natural way and not only with the purpose of targeting something. I really enjoyed reading this article. Thanks for the illustrative examples you provide. Blessings!
Hilda
It’s my pleasure Hilda!
I think we often misunderstand the power of writing quality, natural content. I also think focusing on keywords is a dangerous thing to do for beginner internet marketers. It often ends up being and obsession to the point where content begins to suffer and, therefore, doesn’t get ranked as well because it is not good material.
In my opinion, once you are getting thousands of visitors a month, and actually have some authority within the search engines, then you can start looking at your numbers and determining which keywords you want to focus on. At that point you will actually be able to tell results because you have enough traffic coming through your site to actually be able to draw conclusions from that analytic data.
I hope to see you around again Hilda,
Dustin “Kirby” Garness
Just read your post and found it very insightful. Sometimes I do look at my logs and find the same thing.
You never know what people will be searching for. By merely writing in a natural way you’ll kill two birds with one stone.
You’ll have quality content that your readers will benefit from and you’ll also receive free search engine traffic over a period of time. I think the main thing is to just take action and write!
Definitely Randy. The most important thing you can do is to simply write as much quality content as you can. Keywords aren’t going to make much of a difference when you’re first getting started anyways. Once you’re getting thousands of visitors a month you may want to jump into keyword research…but I am definitely no to that point yet!