"Every keyword indicates intent."

"1. KNOW (informational queries)"

"Page type: Content marketing programs target these phrases with search optimized blog posts."

"2. DO (transactional queries)"

"Conversion: If they take action, you have a new lead or a customer. These are the bottom of funnel conversions."

"3. GO (navigational queries)"

"But keyword research for branded queries is often a goldmine of insights. And the Google search results page for your brand is really your “other homepage.”"

"Research suggests that 80% of all internet searches are informational, 10% are transactional and the remaining 10% are navigational."

"A well-planned website has many pages targeting many phrases. The keyword researcher understands that it’s all about pages and phrases."

"The homepage targets the most competitive keyphrase, usually the general business category"

"Top-level pages target more general keyphrases"

"SEO tools drastically underestimate the potential traffic to a page because they show the demand for just one specific phrase. In reality, any page that ranks high for one phrase also ranks for many closely related phrases."

"Multiply the search volume estimates by 10x."

"This will help reflect the true potential traffic, taking into account the likely rankings for the dozens of adjacent phrases if the page successfully ranks."

"Longer keyphrases indicate stronger intent."

"A “long tail keyword” is a tarket keyphrase of five or more words."

"Some very long tail keyphrases have very little competition."

"The smart SEO looks for opportunities to target longer, easier to rank for, higher conversion rate phrases, even when search volume seems to be low."

"Low search volume keyphrases are easier to rank for and attract more qualified visitors."

"If you don’t actually search for each phrase (and look closely at the search results pages), you didn’t finish researching the phrase."

"Your search results are always slightly personalized for you. In other words, your target audience may not see exactly the same rankings."

"If the searcher who is looking for your topic landed on these same search results, what would they do? Would they immediately try again and search for something else?"

"The SERP features are clues into the content formats that Google has decided are best suited to meet the information needs of the searcher. They can guide decisions about target keyphrases and content formats."

"You’ve validated that someone is looking for the phrase. You’ve looked closely at what is currently winning for the phrase. Next we’ll evaluate our likelihood of ranking. It’s time to check competition and keyword difficulty."

"The phrase is likely competitive if you see any of these three things:"

"Lots of ads"

"Famous brands ranking high"

"The phrase you searched for is in the links"

"Relevance Your page won’t rank unless it’s a detailed page on the topic."

"Authority"

"Your page won’t rank unless it’s viewed as sufficiently credible by the search engine."

"Websites with higher Domain Authority have exponentially greater ranking potential."

"Typically, this is how it is distributed across types of websites:"

"The key to successfully choosing a keyphrase is to compete at or below your own level."

"Google’s authority metric is called PageRank, named after Google founder Larry Page."

"To properly research a keyphrase (and evaluate your site’s potential to rank) you need to know two things: your own level of authority and the authority of the other sites that rank for the phrase you’re considering."

"What’s a good level of authority? How much authority do you need? It all depends on the competition for the target keyphrase."

"Keyword difficulty is basically the average authority of all of the high ranking pages for a given phrase."

"If your Domain Authority is greater than the Keyword Difficulty, you should have a chance of ranking for the phrase."

"The Keyword Planner shows competition in pay per click (PPC) to give you an idea for the cost of advertising. It has nothing to do with SEO. Ignore it."

"MozBar is an extension for the Chrome browser. Add it to Chrome and search for any phrase and you’ll see the authority metrics data for each of the high ranking pages right below each search listing."

"Ultimately, the battle for rankings is fought page-against-page, not website-against-website. It’s the authority of our specific page versus the authority of their specific page. So Page Authority, not Domain Authority is the real test."

"Use Domain Authority when creating new content (i.e. writing new articles)"

"Use Page Authority when optimizing existing content (i.e. during an SEO audit)"

"When creating a new page, assume its Page Authority will be the same as the least authoritative pages on that domain."

"Target the keyphrase anyway"

"During keyphrase research, jot down all of the related phrases you find, even if they don’t end up being your primary keyphrase."

"While writing, work those phrases into your content. But don’t be tempted to do keyword stuffing."

"SEMrush has a Google Doc add-on called the SEO writing assistant. It provides recommendations and tracks keyword inclusion as you write. It’s excellent."

"If you expect to rank, you should make one of the best pages on the web for your topic and target keyphrase."