Keyword Research and the Conquest to Create a Ranking Juggernaut!

Keyword research represents the first critical step in your SEO campaign. In fact, it lays the foundation of future traffic and distinguishes how your pages will ultimately fare in the SERPs. Coupled with content creation and building links, this unstoppable trifecta embodies the characteristics of a bona fide SEO Ranking Juggernaut.

Once your keywords gain momentum, your pages are a true force to be reckoned with as they gain velocity toward the Top 10. The more (traffic-bearing) keywords your pages are optimized for, the more traffic each keyword can potentially yield in search engines.

For those unfamiliar with the context of the word “juggernaut” according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary the term Juggernaut means;

“a massive inexorable force, campaign, movement, or object that crushes whatever is in its path”. Combine that with Ranking i.e. : “having a high position: as a: of the highest rank” and we have defined the perfect equation summarizing the perfectly executed SEO campaign (aside from the obvious play on the well established Marvel Comic Book Character) the similarities are astounding.

Now, let’s take this theory and translate it into a blueprint using a series of meticulously chartered steps.

The first step: Plotting your expedition

This is the part where it pays if you have done some homework, researching your competition, mining a few of their back links to find out what keywords they are targeting and taking a good look at the market and the potential profit involved.

This will be both your game plan and your motivation when your patience runs thin and you wonder if many of your more competitive keywords are ever going to make it to the top. I assure you, they will, if you adhere to the fundamentals, each keyword in it’s own respective time will in fact rise to the top, as long as you keep feeding it a healthy supply of fresh links and revisions to keep the spiders happy (which is while blogs serve as great tools for SEO).

It’s important to move on many fronts simultaneously (like chess) when building keywords to create a nice spread of traffic, relevance, authority and virtual theming of your information to create the right signals for search engines. Just like a good chess game, you may not have moved but you are thinking six moves ahead, this is the analogy of this stage.

As you know, the desire to rank for competitive keywords is essentially the goal of millions, but what makes this tactic any more refined or distinguished?

This simple point, the fact that you can flank keywords by the dozens simultaneously by applying a simple principle. Once they all solidify, your site transforms from just another website to a website with authority (which can rank on a title or tag alone for multiple keywords from any page with link juice).

The Second Step – The Premise of Keyword Saturation:

Keyword saturation is merely a term that dictates that each website has a balance. This balance is comprised of content, site architecture, internal links and external links.

By making the needed adjustments (which include but are not limited to server side variants such as .htaccess files, robots.txt, and preferably having a dedicated IP address for hosting) this creates a perfect starting point, this is your vessel, but it is just that, a starting point.

You haven’t set out on your voyage yet, as you are still parked in the marina, but know that for each keyword that is on your page, there is an accommodating ratio that exists in the sea that is the web (with it’s tumultuous ebb and flow). Once you find what that ratio is within your site, it becomes buoyant and can move about at will.

Ideally, the rankings for your keywords will move up and out (into the long-tail of search) which is the goal. But before your vessel can do this, you need to fuel it with links.

When you reach a critical mass for the required quantity of quality of links pointing at your most relevant pages that creates relevance, then any time that keyword is used or referenced in that search engine (as each has it’s own ranking algorithm), depending on the underlying semantic factors and their respective modifiers, your pages will be returned in those search results in kind.

*Translation, if you optimize a keyword strong enough in your site, you will outrank anyone who has not created the same keyword saturation for both their internal (site links) and the external (links from other websites).

So, the key here is balance (between the number of keywords your target to the content you have on your pages). There is no point in being greedy, content is scalable to accommodate the end result, which is pure relevance, so you may need to hire a copywriter or break out your thinking cap to create enough content, but search engines will notice, so long as you stick to the keyword theme and game plan.

Relevance and continuity is the key to unlocking the rest of the equation, so if you are not prepared to create custom content, then this particular ranking strategy may not be for you.

The point to drive home is, if there is a website that you are aware of that constantly ranks in the top 10-15 results for a term, let’s use internet marketing for example, it is because they have built thousands of links to claim that spot. Everybody starts from zero and it is easier to defend a position, than acquire it, so it is all about link velocity and momentum.

The number of links required to hit the appropriate external link saturation (i.e. critical mass) depends on the keyword, the market and the competition.

After identifying that allinanchor ceiling (the competitive threshold), you can move other qualifiers into the saturation zone so that now when someone types “internet marketing services, or internet marketing solutions, or internet marketing strategy or strategies for internet marketing”, it makes no difference because you have optimized the root of the phrase by covering your bases over time.

This is the key, unlocking multiple root phrases simultaneously to achieve dominant keyword saturation for multiple terms. Just apply the same principle to every keyword and there is the magic and science of true organic optimization.

Use enough overlapping keywords strategically and you can even return double-listings in search engines and have one less competitor occupying the majority of your searches. If that does’t scream relevance to potential prospects, then you may as well go back to pay per click advertising.

The Third Step, Surveying the Landscape:

What is it you intend to gain, positioning, branding, monetization, ego gratification or bragging rights? If business is your angle, then you will need to think about each keyword as a piece of real estate, it potentially has the value of supply and demand attached to it, and based on it’s demand, pre-qualified traffic is the result.

What you do with that traffic is another topic entirely, but at least building the bridges first that all lead back to your site is the first major step.

Making the First Move;

Each SEO has their favorite SEO Tools, mine at the moment just happens to be WorZe keyword research tool. It will work just fine for this step.

1. Start with a root word, drill deeper until you can find at least 20-30 words or phrases that you can start your campaign with.

Take each one, go to Google and use the allinanchor: insert key phrase here. Make a list and write down the number of search results for the allinanchor keyword saturation threshold. If it is 20,000 results it’s as good as yours, it is it 100,000 or more, then you have to fight for it.

2. Create a page of content for each keyword, use that in your title, write something relevant incorporating as many related keywords from the list as you can, no more than three per page (unless they are essentially overlapping terms), try to make the pages at least 750 words, publish it, social bookmark it and forget about it and move on to your next keyword. Do this until each of your keywords has a masterpiece that will age and become a gem over time.

3. When you save your page, if it’s a blog, create a folder with the crowning achievement of that keyword like internet marketing for example as the name of the category. If you have an older site without a content management system then make sure that you create a new folder and then point links with the anchor text (that is the name of the folder) from 5 of your strongest pages (that have the most internal links).

Then build deep links to that folder (with external links) and whenever you create new content in that category, silo it / save it there. This way you preferably have the keyword in the domain name as a booster/keyword-rich-category/keyword-rich-title and tags all working on your behalf.

4. Eventually you will go back to it, but for now it needs to get indexed and age to be of use in your keyword Juggernaut strategy. After you have created enough content incorporating all of your base keywords and adding at least 10 pages of content for each major category (most sites already have this intact and just need some revision) then start building links to the main folders to spread the link juice to each of those pages simultaneously.

5. Now after tapping into your secret stash of places to build solid one way links from (Every SEO has one) make sure you hit each page with at least 15-20 solid authority links per month with each of the main keywords in the anchor text.

6. If you don’t have a place to gain external links, then go back to the oldest pages after a month of so and use deep links from those aging pages (which are growing stronger by the day if they are sufficiently internal linked) and use deep links to point them at your newer pages using a series of the main keyword (you want to rank for). The titles and the tags from the new pages are ideal as well as what ever is in the H1 tag, this way you create your own links from your sites internal architecture (and reinforce any external links you acquire).

7. Then build links to the root folder using a combination of relevant keywords and take a look at your results. If you use the allinanchor: keyword position check search command in Google, you should see progress in roughly 4-6 weeks.

8. Your pages will naturally rise in the SERPs through proper internal links (for less competitive terms), just make sure that you use absolute links for the anchor text to the related internal pages.

9. Now you should go hunting after authority links like ISEDB for example. For the less competitive terms you should have already acquired them on the merit of your content and theming, for the more competitive terms you need more external link saturation and preferably links from pages with more authority than yours. Which you more than likely would have acquired if the content is written well enough.

10. Combine that with RSS and the viral nature of the web (if you are promoting your work through social media) and through refining the internal links or creating even more content for the less competitive variations of the keywords and search engines will get the message that your site is honed to acquire these keywords.

If done correctly, in about 4 months you should hit your target for keywords up to 400,000 allinanchor results. If you have a stronger site, then less time is required and you should be well on your way to toppling results in the upper echelon.

If this all seems like too much work, you could after all leave it to the professionals, but if your website is your pride and joy, there’s nothing like seeing top 10 rankings fall into place like clockwork and the end game comes to a close and your competitors king must finally recede as you call Checkmate.