Seed keywords are also known as ‘head keywords’, ‘primary keywords’, ‘foundation keywords’, ‘shortest tail keywords’, and ‘main keywords’.
Everyone associated with SEO will agree that seed keywords are the toughest to rank for.
Seed keywords are difficult to rank because they have the highest competition. But, they also have the strongest potential to send the maximum number of organic traffic to your site.
Why Seed Keywords?
Seed keywords have the lowest probability of conversions but they can bring in lots of traffic to your website which is GREAT for branding.
Ranking for seed keywords is one of the best ways to acquire a huge chunk of SERP real estate.
Not every website has the luck to rank for seed keywords. The ones that do have some traits in common. Let’s explore how you can rank your content for seed keywords.
For example, if an SEO agency is able to rank their website for keywords like “what is seo?”, “link building”, “seo”, “ppc ads”, etc. then they can easily convince their clients to do business with them. There is no better way to convert prospects than showing results that work in favor of their brand.
Similarly, if a private detective agency is able to rank for the keyword “detective” then it is a huge plus for them in terms of branding.
Examples of Seed Keywords
Some examples of seed keywords include:
- Dresses
- SEO
- Website
- Tax
- Shoes
- Credit Cards
- Rent
- Sunglasses
- Flights
- Weight loss
- Buy house
- Buy insurance
- Chiropractors
- Attorneys, etc.
What Sort of Results Google Returns For Seed Keywords?
Google has great difficulty in identifying the user intent for seed keywords.
For example, when the user enters the keyword “shoes”, Google tries to determine what exactly the user is looking with that search keyword. Some of the possible options are:
- Casual shoes
- Formal shoes
- Mens shoes
- Womens shoes
- Running shoes
- Sneakers
- Sandals
- Boots
- Leather shoes, etc.
With so many possible options, Google tries to return a variety of search results that match different probabilities of search intent.
You Already Have Content And You Want It To Get Ranked For Seed Keywords
Most of the tutorials that I read on the internet advises me to do one thing – CREATE MORE CONTENT.
Most of us feel like seriously? More content?
But, there are few of them who actually advise how to get your existing content ranked for the top queries related to your business.
This article particularly focuses on ranking your existing content instead of creating a new post.
The secret behind ranking your content for the toughest seed keywords lies in the ‘ICE CREAM’ formula.
Let’s understand the ICE CREAM formula and help your content to achieve the highest rankings in search for the most difficult terms.
Related: What is Content Writing? (With Examples)
The ICE CREAM Formula (The Strategy For Ranking Your Content For Seed Keywords)
The ICE CREAM formula consists of eight steps as discussed below:
I – Innovation
C – Copywriting
E – Elements of Style
C – Cannibalization
R – Readability Score
E – EAT Score
A – Attribution
M – Magic
Let’s understand each of these steps below:
I – Innovation
Innovation is a new method or a new idea. Innovation in content can be in terms of presentability or explanation.
Why do you think products like Head and Shoulders launch a new pack every year?
The content remains the same, the difference is in the presentability and this is what attracts the user to buy the product.
Content marketing is no different.
Even if you have the same old piece of content lying in your blog from ages, you can revise it by adding a unique touch of presentability to see the difference yourself.
For example, you can add an index of contents, a table, a video or an interactive game to your existing content in order to make it innovative.
Innovation makes your content look unique and uniqueness in content is one of the strongest factors in Google ranking.
Here are some examples of content that uses innovation either in the writing style or in the presentability of content.
This article from Cool Tech Zone is a good example of an article that uses innovation. It did innovation in terms of the presentability of content.
Notice the right navigation. It makes it easier for the users to browse the content without the need to scroll down to read the next subheading. It also allows the reader to jump to navigate to other chapters (other pages on the site) from the same navigation. Great user experience!
You need to take the help of a developer to improve your SEO rankings. Think creatively and sit down with your developer to make it happen for you. But, please do not replicate what Cool Tech Zone did because if you do that won’t be innovative anymore. Think something new!)
C – Copywriting
Copywriting is the art of adding words to content that can persuade the customers or the readers to act.
It is like ‘toppings’ at the top of your Pizza. Without it, no one is going to like your content. The more you have it, the more people will love it.
Google considers metrics like dwell time, bounce rate, time on page, comments, and social shares to judge the quality of content.
Proper copywriting strategies when applied to your content can improve key metrics of your target web page because people will not only spend more time on the page but they will also perform an action like ordering a product, adding a comment, sharing the content on social media or subscribing to the blog.
The Website set up guide is a fine example of a resource that follows the best practices of copywriting. The article uses some of the top words within the content like “Ready”, “Launch”, “Today”, “Start”, “This”, “Read”, “Build”, “Why”, “Get”, “Choose”, “Check”, “Finish”, “Design”, “Setting” etc.
Scan your existing content and see whether you use actionable words in your content.
Notice the above resource uses most of the words that will persuade the reader to take an action.
If you are not using enough actionable words in your content then start using them in your articles.
Here is a list of 100+ copywriting power words to use in your content.
E – Elements of Style
If you really want to improve the presentability of your content then you need to follow the Elements of Style guide.
Elements of Style is an American writing style guide written by William Strunk Jr. in 1998.
The book asks us to follow the three rules of good writing. There are 21 elementary rules of usage discussed in the book. You must apply these rules when writing articles. The most important three rules out of the 21 rules are:
- Omit needless words. For example, the phrase “in the majority of instances” can be rewritten as “usually most”. Similarly, the phrase “I quite like the song” can be written as “I like the song”. Here, “quite” is a needless word. Eliminating needless words makes your writing more clear.
- Use an active voice. A passive sentence like “The article was written by a group of authors” should be changed to an active sentence like “A group of authors wrote the article”.
- Use parallel construction on concepts that are parallel (using the same pattern of words to show ideas having the same level of importance). An example of a parallel sentence is: Alex likes drawing, painting and singing. While an example of Not parallel sentence is: Alex likes drawing, painting and to sing.
You must check your content for Elements of Style and remove unnecessary words that do not help the user, convert it to an active voice (if not present), and change the writing style to parallel.
C – Cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization happens when the pages on your site start competing with each other for the same keyword.
Identify the pages on your site that compete with each other on the exact topic like “create a blog”. Instead of having 3-4 pages that are all focussed on the same topic “create a blog”, you should merge all of them together and create a single page.
When you merge content of all the same topic pages together, your main content page will become much stronger.
What’s more is that you should 301 redirect the old page URLs to the main content so all the link values go to the main content thereby helping the main page to rank higher in the organic search results.
Please note that keyword cannibalization happens only when more than one page on your site competes for the same keyword but you can create several pages related to the seed keyword but not directly competing to the main page.
Taking the example of “create a blog” page above, suppose if I have 6 pages on my site having the below URLs:
- mysite.com/start-a-blog-guide
- mysite.com/create-blog-beginners
- mysite.com/best-guide-to-create-blog
- mysite.com/create-blog-wordpress
- mysite.com/create-blog-blogger
- mysite.com/create-blog-wix
As we can see from the URLs listed above, I would merge the content of the pages 1,2 and 3 together using the Elements of Style guidelines. But, I will leave the pages 4, 5 and 6 as it is and link to my main content page, the 1st URL from the pages 4, 5 and 6. This will give a strong boost to my main seed keyword page avoiding keyword cannibalization.
R – Readability Score
A readability score is a numeric value assigned to each piece of your content. Not everyone checks the readability score of the web pages that they wish to rank in Google. But, believe me, we should do that.
Readability score determines how easy it will be for someone to read your text. Grammarly defines readability as:
“Readability is a quality of your writing. If the readability of your text is high, people will be able to understand your sentences easily. If the readability is low, people still might understand what you’re saying, but it’s likely to be a draining experience.”
The higher the readability score of your content, the easier it is to read. Grammarly assigns a numerical score ranging from 0-100 for your content. You should aim for a readability score of 70 and above.
You can check the readability score of your content with the help of Grammarly. Simply copy the content of your web page and paste in on Grammarly, it will show you an overall score.
The secret to improve your readability score lies in writing shorter sentences. Aim for shorter, clearer and easy to read sentences. Your readability score will always remain high.
What is Marketing article from Hubspot is a prime example of an article that has a high readability score. This article has a score of 95 in Grammarly. The clarity is good, the engagement is right and the delivery is correct. The style of writing is effective and it helps to create the right impression in the minds of the readers.
E – EAT Score
EAT score is probably the most discussed metric. EAT stands for Expertise, Authority and Trust.
- Expertise: Who is the author of the content? Does he/she hold expertise in the field that’s been discussed? For example, a page on “how to get rid of stomach pain” should be written or checked by a doctor.
- Authority: Who is publishing the content? If the website where the content is published is lacking authority in its niche then the content has fewer chances of ranking higher in search.
- Trust: Do people trust the website or the author? Is the site cited in Wikipedia? How many people cite the website or its contents? Are they speaking positively about the site? Has the business received any medals or awards?
Google has a 168-page long search quality evaluator guidelines that entirely focussed on EAT score.
Pages having a high EAT score are able to rank higher in the search results.
SEMrush has a great tutorial on EAT. Read this to know more about how you can improve your EAT scores.
A – Attribution
If you say, “Applying turmeric to wounds acts as an antiseptic”, Google needs to find a source for it.
Every piece of advice that you provide (especially in case of medical or finance articles) should be sourced properly.
You shouldn’t provide advice unless it’s sourced from reputable sources.
Ofcourse, your personal opinion need not be sourced but the crux here is, properly attribute your content.
If you are lazy in adding attributions to your content, Google won’t be impressed to rank your site either.
M – Magic (Links)
What is magic? Links are the magic ingredient of ranking. Your content should naturally be able to acquire links. If it fails to do so, all your efforts will be ruined.
It has been proved time and again then people love to link to certain pieces of content like:
- Infographics
- Stats
- Reports
- Tools
- Unique advice
- Interactive content
Ask yourself, does your content have any of the above properties? If not, modify your content and add a personal touch of uniqueness to your content to see the magic.
Initially, you would need to spend some money to get your content noticed by people because no one really knows that you have published a great piece of content on your site apart from your subscribers, employees, social media followers and a few other people.
Run ads and buy sponsored posts on reputed websites to get traffic to your site. Once the traffic starts pouring in, you will gradually start to acquire links. It’s no rocket science!
Final Thoughts
The best content on the web should rank for seed keywords. Google does a great job in finding the best content and ranks it for seed keywords. The only question is – how do you know your content is the best? Follow the ICE CREAM rule. Match each and every attribute to your content. Continue to improve it. The best content takes time and constant effort to rank the charts.
