How To Use Creative Seed Keywords For SEO

Creative Seed Keywords For SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is crucial for driving relevant traffic to your website. One important SEO tactic is using seed keywords – the initial keywords you optimise for that then help you rank for other related keywords. 

Creativity with your seed keywords allows you to maximise your reach while avoiding overly competitive terms. Here is a step-by-step guide to using creative seed keywords for improved SEO.

Step 1: Brainstorm Primary Keyword Ideas

Start by coming up with a list of potential primary keywords that are relevant to your content and offerings. These should be terms that prospective customers would likely use when searching for what you offer.

Aim for seed keywords with the following traits.

Specific – For example, “content writing services” rather than just “content writing.” The more specific the term, the less competitive it typically is.

Relevant – Make sure the keyword directly relates to your products, services, or content focus. Irrelevant seed terms won’t convert.

Low-To-Moderate Competition – Look up keyword difficulty using SEO tools and avoid highly competitive terms for now. Those can come later.

Good Search Volume – Look for seed keywords searched at least 1,000 times per month, indicating decent demand. But also consider locally relevant terms.

Run your initial ideas through keyword research tools to see their estimated search volume and difficulty. Remove any clearly too competitive or too low search volume terms.

Step 2: Expand Keyword Ideas Creatively

Next, get creative with your initial seed keyword list to expand possibilities. Try strategies like.

Add Modifiers – Take a base keyword and add modifiers before or after. For example, turn “content writing” into “expert content writing,” “long-form content writing,” “quality content writing,” etc.

Try Keyword Variations – Swap out words for synonyms. Turn “freelance writing” into “freelance content creation,” “freelance author,” etc.

Add Location – If targeting local customers, add your city, region, etc. “social media consulting” becomes “social media consulting London” or “social media consulting Bay Area.”

Be Specific About Industries – Turn general terms like “digital marketing” into industry-specific versions like “digital marketing for law firms” or “digital marketing for SaaS companies.”

Incorporate Buying Stages – Try “content writing services pricing,” “best affordable content writers,” etc.

Use Question Keywords E.g. “How to hire a copywriter.”

Keep expanding your seed keyword list with creative variations. Use keyword research tools to identify any new terms with strong potential before adding them to your list.

Step 3: Identify Keyword Clusters

Look for primary seed keywords that have lots of closely related variations and synonyms around them. These form “keyword clusters” optimal for SEO.

For example, “content writing” may have cluster keywords like.

– Content writing services

– Freelance content writers 

– Hire content writers

– Affordable content writing

– Quality content writing

– SEO content writing

– Content writer for hire

– Web content writing

Focus first on seed keywords with big clusters, where you can target many closely related terms. This allows you to organically rank for more keywords.

Use keyword research tools to discover cluster opportunities. Look for “Similar Keywords” or “Questions” related to your seeds.

Step 4: Research Keyword Competition

Now conduct thorough keyword research on your expanded seed keyword list. Two key factors to look at for each potential term.

Search Volume

– Monthly search volume indicates potential traffic. Look for thousands of searches per month.

– Also consider local search volume and seasonality for spikes.

Competitiveness

– Keyword Difficulty metrics show how hard it is to rank for a term. Aim for “Medium.”

– The number of ranking domains shows how saturated a keyword is. Look for under 100,000.

– Click-through rate is also useful. Look for low CTAs like under 30%.

Remove seed keywords with too much competition and not enough search volume. But keep ones in the sweet spot – good search volume and moderate-to-low competition.

Step 5: Prioritise Keyword Targets

With your refined keyword list, start prioritising which terms to target first.

Relevance – How closely aligned is the keyword to your offerings? Prioritise highly relevant terms.

Commercial Intent – Does the keyword indicate users are ready to buy/convert? Prioritise high-intent commercial terms. 

Cluster Size – Look for seed keywords with large, related clusters around them. These offer more optimisation potential.

Competition – Easier keywords should usually be optimised first, to get some easy wins. Then move to moderate competition terms.

Search Volume – Keywords with higher search volume have more traffic potential, though you need to balance competition too. 

Location – If targeting local customers, prioritise keywords incorporating your location. 

Create an Excel file or tracker to organise keywords into priority tiers, keeping these factors in mind. Update this over time.

Step 6: Start Optimising Pages

With your seed keyword list prioritised, it’s time to optimise your website pages. Follow these steps.

Choose Pages To Optimise

– Which existing or new pages should you optimise for each seed term? 

– Make sure you have strong, relevant pages for the highest priority keywords.

Incorporate Keywords Into Content

– Seamlessly work seed keywords into page content, titles, headers, image names, etc.

– Write for visitors first, not algorithms. Content should be useful and readable.

– Include keywords in the first 100 words where prominence matters most.

– Get keywords into H1 and H2 tags for emphasis.

– Include keywords in meta descriptions so they appear in search snippets.

Optimise Technical Elements

– Place the primary seed keyword as close to the start of the page title as possible.

– Include related cluster keywords in page titles too. 

– Check that URLs include seed keywords where possible.

– Use keyword-optimised anchor text for internal links between pages.

– Add alt text with keywords for all images.

Publish And Promote Content

– Publish optimised pages and make sure they are indexed by search engines.

– Build links to optimised pages using anchor text with keywords.

– Promote content widely to build engagement signals like social shares and clicks.

Rinse and repeat this process to cover all high-priority seed keywords. Be patient – it takes time for pages to rank. But you should see incremental progress.

Step 7: Expand Your Keyword Footprint

After you rank for initial seed keywords, it’s time to build on your progress. Leverage your new search visibility to target additional related terms.

Review Search Analytics

See which ranked pages get the most organic traffic and conversions. optimise these further.

Identify related keywords driving traffic to these ranking pages. Adopt these as new seed targets.

Expand To broader Keywords

Use search data to identify higher competition keywords you can now start ranking for with your domain authority boost.

For example, move from “freelance writer” to more general terms like “content writing services”.

Target Long-Tail Variations

Look for more granular long-tail versions of keywords you already rank for. Often you can rank for these easily.

E.g. move from “social media marketing” to “social media marketing analytics tools”.

Localise Keywords

If targeting a specific region, take keywords you rank for and add local modifiers.

E.g. Move from “digital marketing agency” to “Miami digital marketing agency”.

Slowly expand to cover more keywords related to your initial seed set. Think INCREMENTALLY! Don’t over-optimise existing pages.

Step 8: Track Keyword Performance

Ongoing tracking lets you see which keywords drive the most results and should be your top focus.

Search console  – Shows keywords driving organic traffic and click-through rates.

Analytics – Indicates which keywords generate goal completions like form submissions.

Rank Tracking – Monitor your keyword positions over time.

SERP Analysis – Check which keywords earn top organic spots to identify winners.

Local Keywords – Use Google Trends to uncover location-specific high-potential keywords. 

Feed these learnings back into your keyword-targeting strategy. Double down on terms driving the most conversions. 

Final Tips for Keyword Success

With the right creative seed keyword strategy, you can build SEO momentum. But there are a few final tips to keep in mind.

Play The Long Game – Organic keyword growth takes time and consistency. Stick with it!

Create Content Clusters – optimise groups of pages around seed keywords for better rankings.

Update Old Content – Refresh existing pages with new keywords periodically.

Target Multiple Keywords Per Page – Where relevant, optimise pages for clusters of terms. 

Write Naturally – Don’t over-optimise! Pages should appeal to visitors first.

Monitor Competitors – See what keywords they rank for and look to outperform them.

Using creative, strategic seed keywords is foundational to SEO success. Follow these steps and you’ll see your organic reach and traffic grow steadily.