Every time you look into SEO you hear about keywords. You know they’re necessary, but each article and salesman you speak to spouts jargon and buzzwords – ‘keyword rich’, ‘keyword friendly’, ‘keyword optimized’. With so much jargon it feels impossible to get the facts on how to choose keywords. So we’ll teach you how.

Keywords are crucial to your SEO campaign.

If you use the wrong keywords, your site won’t appear on Google and you’ll end up wondering why your inbox is empty while your competition keeps snapping up customers.

If you’ve jumped on Google looking for advice on how many keywords to target, you might have seen people recommend stuffing keywords in at every opportunity. This is an example of optimizing your website for Google when really you should be creating a website that helps your customers.

Keyword stuffing is an outdated SEO tactic that won’t help your rankings. If you want to use keywords properly you need a strategy that puts you in front of the right people. At Tradie Digital, here’s our approach to choosing keywords:

• Figure out how many services you provide
• Figure out your budget (you can target more keywords by creating more content)
• Figure out the volume of keywords you’re targeting (e.g. “bathroom renovations New York” is different to “bathroom renovations Brooklyn”)

In this article we’ll tell you how many keywords we target, explain why our keyword strategy leads to better rankings and more leads, and leave you with a few tips on what to do next if you’re new to SEO.

We get it, when you’re paying for SEO you want to see results.

As a contractor your business relies on getting new customers.

No matter how good your regulars are, you need fresh clients to keep revenue coming in and to pay your bills. So if you’re spending money on advertising and you’re not seeing any money come back the other way, you’d be pissed, right?

We keep those goals in mind across every SEO campaign, so we don’t give a crap about your rankings. That’s right, we’re an SEO company and our goal isn’t to send you monthly reports to show off how good we are at getting you better rankings.

That doesn’t mean we won’t improve your rankings (we will), it’s just not our #1 priority.

We focus on revenue, not rankings.

It’s a common mistake to think SEO is about moving your business higher and higher on Google. If that was the case we could charge you $10,000 and rank you in the #1 spot for ‘Why contractors wear steel-toe boots’.

We’d write a 2,000-word article on wearing steel-toe boots, attach photos of you in new boots, and cover the topic of trade workwear from every angle. Give it a couple of months and you’d have the #1 spot – and in return, you’d have to give us $10,000.

Would you be happy with that SEO campaign?

Of course not. That campaign wouldn’t bring in a single new client. No one is searching for content about why tradies wear orange high-vis, and if they do use those keywords it’s probably to settle a bet, NOT to pay you for your services.

We focus on revenue, not rankings.

It’s a common mistake to think SEO is about moving your business higher and higher on Google. If that was the case we could charge you $10,000 and rank you in the #1 spot for ‘Why contractors wear steel-toe boots’.

We’d write a 2,000-word article on wearing steel-toe boots, attach photos of you in new boots, and cover the topic of trade workwear from every angle. Give it a couple of months and you’d have the #1 spot – and in return, you’d have to give us $10,000.

Would you be happy with that SEO campaign?

Of course not. That campaign wouldn’t bring in a single new client. No one is searching for content about why tradies wear orange high-vis, and if they do use those keywords it’s probably to settle a bet, NOT to pay you for your services.

Our keyword approach focuses on growing your business, and if that puts you in the top spot on Google, great. But we care more about putting leads in your calendar and money in your bank account than where you rank on Google.

Don’t give up if your competition has more to spend on marketing than you. Click here to discover how you can pummel your competition by spending less on SEO

Our SEO campaigns target two separate types of keywords:

• High Volume Keywords
• Low/Medium Competition Keywords

A high-volume keyword is one that’s searched multiple times each month. We’re talking 500, 1000, 2000 times or more.

The more searches a keyword has, the more potential site traffic you can earn. And with more people on your site, your chances of attracting leads goes through the roof.

The problem with a high-volume keyword is that EVERYONE in your trade niche wants to rank for them to take the leads for themselves.

“High volume keywords sound great, why would I bother paying for any other type of keyword?”

High volume keywords have the potential to bring in tons of leads, and those leads have money to spend. But that makes them very popular.

Imagine walking into a busy bar to watch your favorite team and there’s only one spare chair in front of the big screen, otherwise, you’ll need to stand in the pokies and listen to the commentary through the wall. That chair is going to be VERY sought after – and so are high-volume keywords.

We balance out each SEO campaign with low and medium competition keywords that don’t necessarily have super high volume, so they may only be searched 10, 50, or 100 times a month. But they’ve also got very few businesses for you to compete with, which makes them easier ranking targets.

In short:

• high volume keywords offer more potential site traffic, but you’ll face more competition
• low/medium competition keywords are easier to rank for, but there’s less potential site traffic

At Tradie Digital, we target BOTH of these keyword variations to give you a surge in site traffic, and the low-hanging fruit that’s easier to rank for.

Wondering if we can back up our claims with results? Discover our SEO guarantee.

The number of keywords we target depends on the SEO package you choose.

Generally speaking, each page on your website should have ONE singular focus. This helps you solve a customer’s problem in depth, and on-topic. When you provide relevant and detailed information to help your customer’s, they’ll see you as a trustworthy expert and be more likely to fork over their cash.

By combining high volume and low/medium competition keywords we snap up low-hanging fruit and help you rank for easier keywords (these are your SEO quick wins) while we work towards attracting site visitors and generating leads through high volume keywords that attract leads with high intent to purchase (which can take a little longer).

Since you’ve got traffic coming from your quick wins AND your high volume keywords, you get the best of both worlds.

Google’s SEO algorithm in 2021 doesn’t match up your keywords with your customer’s exact keywords.

If your content is in-depth, thorough, and written to help people, you’ll end up covering one topic from multiple angles. That means 1 of our keywords could rank for 10 or more different keyword variations.

For example, if you’ve got a page on ‘Emergency Plumbing’ that’s full of tips and tricks, prices and packages, reviews and testimonials, and info to help people identify their emergency plumbing problems, you might end up ranking for:

• ‘emergency plumbing’
• ‘24/7 emergency plumbing’
• ‘plumbing emergency’
• ‘plumbing emergency prices’
• ‘how much to fix plumbing emergency’

The point is, when we create quality content around 1 keyword, that content naturally ranks for more long tail keywords (these are search terms of three or more words). So when you pay for 14 high volume keywords, you’re actually paying for 25, 50 or 100 keyword variations.

Curious about SEO but not sure if we’re the right agency for you?

Claim a FREE consultation to learn about our strategies