People looking for content use search engines in many different ways, and use a variety of search terms. For example, if people are trying to find a recipe for cookies, they may use search terms like “cookie recipe,” or more specifically, “chocolate chip cookies” or “chocolate chip cookie recipe.” If you have a post on your site for your award-winning chocolate chip cookies, search engines may rank your content highly for those terms because they deem it relevant.
These main topic keywords called “head terms” hold a broad meaning. The phrase “cookie recipe” isn’t as specific as “gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe,” which makes the latter a long-tail keyword. When keywords have a more broader meaning, there is more competition against other webpages. And if there’s more competition, it’s more difficult to rank highly on SERPs. Less specific, long-tail keywords may not be searched for as often, but if you’ve optimized your content for them, there will be less competition and your site may appear higher in search results. That’s why it’s important to do research on what people are searching for, and then optimize your content for those words and phrases. We’ll dig into how to research search queries to find long-tail keywords in the next lesson.
In this exercise, you will build upon the search terms you came up with in the previous lesson, and compile your potential keyword list. First, you’ll want to make a shortlist of the most generic terms possible around your topic. It’s perfectly fine if you only have one or two items in this list of generic phrases, or head terms. You’ll be expanding upon these in a later exercise.
For now, it’s time to get organized using a spreadsheet program (e.g. Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers, or Google Sheet), a simple text or notepad program already on your computer, or even using pen and paper (but be prepared for a lot of writing). Whatever method you’re using, organize it with your generic head terms in the top row in separate columns.
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