Your Official Guide to the SEO Keywords Target 10 List

My experience has shown me that nothing works faster than virulent social media in expanding brand awareness or driving new users to your website; smart content marketing, however, provides lifetime value, generating leads most likely to convert — and your keyword strategy is a key component (pardon the pun). To this day. Despite all the marketers who abused Google’s guidelines. Despite all the changes Google made to its algorithm. Search engines remain the starting point for nearly seven in 10 online experiences, and organic search drives more than half of all website traffic. Not only that, SEO can reduce the cost of customer acquisition by 87.41% because there are no third parties gatekeeping your customer data or taking money to host or promote your content.

Although the last three Google updates have demonstrated the search engine provider’s ever-expanding emphasis on on-site user experience (UX), one thing Google hasn’t done in the last decade is downgrade the value of incorporating the right SEO keywords into quality content, based on what your customers are actually searching for. Quite the contrary, in fact: Google rewards sites that answer users’ questions, address their pain points and deliver products or services they seek. 

In other words, your SEO content — the stuff that shows up in search results — needs to deliver on what it promises. Your headlines, meta descriptions and URLs have to describe what users will find when they click. Not what you think they want to see (that’s clickbait), or what you think Google wants to see (that’s keyword stuffing).

While I do believe the best SEO today is user-centric UX, it’s not because SEO is no longer important — it’s because high search rankings don’t last if the SEO content doesn’t provide value. Though more users may visit your site, they’ll leave quickly, feeling disappointed or even betrayed by your failure to deliver on your promise (to speak to their needs and goals). These users won’t convert. They won’t buy anything, and they most likely won’t return. They are wasted opportunities. But the solution isn’t to turn all your attention to your site’s user experience; if no one’s using your site, its look and feel won’t matter. 

OK, then, five years after Fred and a year since Core Web Vitals, how do we develop an SEO content strategy that guides us optimizing our content so that Google and other search engines recognize it? 

There are at least eight-billion searches a day on Google alone, and 75% of users don’t click past the first page of results. While the number-one position on a Google search results page (SERP) can generate a click-through rate (CTR) of 34.2%, results on the second page of a Google search receive less than 1% of all clicks. This is where your keyword strategy and keyword planner come in.

Developing Your Keyword Strategy and SEO Keywords Target 10 List 

What is a keyword strategy?

A keyword strategy is a critical component of a search engine optimization strategy, which, in turn, falls within a content marketing strategy. The keyword strategy, specifically, refers to how you will develop your list of target keywords and how you will target those keywords in your content marketing.

What is an SEO Keywords Target 10 List?

A target 10 SEO keywords list refers to your list of the 10 focus keywords you’ve identified as being most central to what you do as a business and what your customers would be most likely to search, along with approximately 10 additional related keywords for each keyword on the target 10 list; the related keywords often have lower keyword competition scores and/or lower search volume, but are also more specific and easier to claim in search engine results pages (SERPs).

What are keyword competition scores and search volumes?

A keyword competition score (or, difficulty score) defines how challenging it would be to claim the highest ranking for that keyword in SERPs; a very popular search term will have a higher competition score. SEO keyword search volume refers to how often the keyword is searched. A keyword with high search volume but a low competition score represents an ideal opportunity.

What are the different types of keywords?

Want to know how to use SEO keywords? There are eight primary types of keywords, or ways that SEO keywords are categorized. Short-tail keywords are the often high-volume ‘focus keywords’ that typically comprise a target 10 list, are composed of no more than three words, and refer to the broadest topics; long-tail keywords are highly focused, target specific audiences, and are made up of three or more words. Short-term keywords target a specific event, time period or campaign, while long-term keywords are keywords you will strategize around indefinitely. Product-defining keywords include a product keyword plus additional qualifiers that help define that product for potential customers; customer-defining keywords, meanwhile, include a target keyword plus additional qualifiers that further clarify the types of people searching for a product or brand. Intent-targeting keywords include terms used to indicate the likelihood of taking a specific action; they can be further categorized into navigational intent keywords, informational intent keywords, and transactional intent keywords. Finally, branded keywords are any keywords that include a brand or product name.

Do I have to use all eight types of keywords when conducting my SEO keyword search?

No, not all keyword types apply to all businesses. The best approach is to focus on your target 10 keyword list of short-tail focus keywords, along with long-tail keywords that can also be product-defining, customer-defining or intent-targeting. Of course, you should also ensure you appear first on any SERP for your branded terms.

How to Find Keywords, and How to Create an SEO Keywords Target 10 List

To be able to create SEO content based on what your user personas are searching online, your first step is to invest in an SEO tool to find out what people are searching for in your niche and to determine the keywords for which your key competitors are ranking. Semrush, the first SEO tool I fell in love with, is easy to navigate, built for competitive and keyword analysis, and offers the best SEO API available; Moz, which provides great value from its free tools, includes a free Chrome plugin for on-site and on-SERP analysis and connects you to a strong user community; and Ahrefs includes by far the best link index, a free Chrome extension toolbar, and the ability to perform keyword research across 10 search engines. If you can afford it, go with Semrush or Ahrefs; if you’re sticking to free versions, Moz is your best option. And since it’s most inclusive to demonstrate on a tool everyone can use, I’ll be using Moz for the purposes of this guide. (While I’ll be using the pro version, you can use the free tools until you’re ready to invest.)

Let’s say you own a small business that provides professional catering and planning for weddings, corporate events and social gatherings, as well as online food delivery of three of your specialty products. You’ve already begun to optimize your site for UX, but you also need to incorporate the right keywords across your site to improve your search rankings so new prospects can find you. You’ve already defined your target audiences and user personas based on your organization’s core values and offerings, as well as what your customers have searched for and told you they value most about your brand. All you have to do now is log in to Moz to get started. 

Competitive Analysis

Once you’ve signed in, start by conducting competitive research. This will tell you how your top competitors are performing, as well as which of their ranking keywords you’d be most likely to capture. For this example, I’m using Jillicious Foods and jilliciousfoods.com.

I typed the domain into the appropriate field and clicked the “Find competitors” button.

This took me to a page featuring Jillicious Foods’s top 25 competitors, with an option to click the box next to three of the top competitors to compare in more detail. I chose thevowwhisperer.com, weddingrule.com, and weddingwire.com (and you can continue to compare your top competitors until you’ve covered them all).

The results will tell you how you rank in page authority, domain authority, top positions and ranking keywords, as well as which keywords you can improve on and which high-performing content your competitors have created using keywords associated with your website.

Based on the results of this first investigation, you can see that “wedding venues near me,” “wedding photographers near me,” and “wedding cakes near me” represent three SEO keyword opportunities. 

Keyword Research and SERP Analysis

Next, click on “Keyword Research,” “Explore by Site,” and then “Site Overview” in the left navigation column. Then, type in your URL. 

This query will generate a list of your top ranking keywords. 

Click “See all ranking keywords” to expand the list, and then compare all your keywords based on their difficulty (also known as the “competition score”) and monthly volume. I like to start by viewing by monthly volume (I shoot for anything above 1,000 to start), because these are the most popular — and most important — keywords. From this list, you can then pick the keywords that also offer the lowest difficulty.

Based on this list of top keywords for jilliciousfoods.com and what we know about Jillicious Foods — that the company’s focus is event catering (and event planning), the side hustle is the popcorn and s’mores deliveries, and the service area is New York City, the Hamptons and the Hudson Valley — we can tell that: 

• Jillicious Foods has done a decent job with its content marketing, publishing unique seasonal recipes (and promoting them on social media) to bring people to the site
• Jillicious Foods has also performed fairly well in promoting its delivery products, the “perfect popcorn” and “s’mores kit”
• The site has not yet achieved its primary SEO goals: to rank on the first page of the SERPs for keywords related to its primary functions, event catering and event planning, particularly in the New York Metro area. 

If you, too, face this challenge, scroll down to identify additional keywords with higher volumes and lower difficulty scores. When I performed this action for jilliciousfoods.com, I identified the following additional keywords that fit better with the Jillicious Foods mission and specialties:

• “sample wedding menu,” with a volume of 207 and a low difficulty score of 27
• “gary’s loft” (a NYC wedding venue), with a volume of 229 and a low difficulty score of 39
• “inspired events,” with a volume of 395 and a low difficulty score of 19
• “wedding planners nyc,” with a (surprising low) volume of 163 and a still-low difficulty score of 41
• “gourmet s'mores kit,” with a volume of 132 and a low difficulty score of 32
• “food for events,” with a (low) volume of 73 and a somewhat higher (but still low) difficulty score of 47
• “event creation,” with a (low) volume of 55 and a low difficulty score of 43
• “wedding consultants near me,” with a (low) volume of 55 and a low difficulty score of 40
• “buffet menu wedding” (one of the Jillicious Foods specialties), with a (very low) volume of 17 and a low difficulty score of 40
• “best caterer,” with a (very low) volume of 39 and a low difficulty score of 25
• “Brooklyn wedding catering,” with a (very low) volume of 24 and a low difficulty score of 34
• “plan a corporate event,” with a (very low) volume of 24 and a low difficulty score of 41
• “fun corporate events,” with a (very low) volume of 17 and a low difficulty score of 47
• “wedding planner in nyc,” with a (very low) volume of 27 and a low difficulty score 39
• “wedding planning new york,” with a (very low) volume of 17 and a low difficulty score of 41

Unfortunately, I also discovered that the vast majority of the more suitable keywords have significantly lower monthly volumes. I mean, seriously, who would’ve thought that “inspired events” would be searched more frequently than “best caterer” or “food for events!?”

On a positive note, this means I’ll have to demonstrate how to find better, similar keywords for the target 10 list. To achieve this, you’ll start by searching the keywords for which you already rank.

Now, go back to the left navigation column and, under “Keyword Research,” click “Explore by Keyword” and then “Keyword Overview.” I started with the first keyword we found from our competitive analysis: “wedding venues near me.” (While Jillicious Foods is not a wedding venue, the company coordinates with wedding venues and has a venues tab/page on the site.)

As you can see, this search provides a wealth of valuable information, including the “Priority” score, which Moz uses to help you identify which keywords to prioritize. As Moz explains it:

The Priority score combines all our other metrics to create a single, sortable number you can use to effectively prioritize keywords. A high Volume keyword with a lower Difficulty score, higher Organic CTR, and higher My Score would have a very large Priority score and would be at the top of a Keyword List when ordered by Priority.

Also on the keyword search results page, you can see the "SERP Analysis," which tells you which pieces of content are currently displaying on the first page of results. To view Moz’s complete analysis, click “See full analysis” on the bottom right of the SERP widget. This is what you might see:

With this information, you can determine what you can do in your content marketing and on your website to improve your results and, ideally, take over one of the top positions.

Finally, and most importantly for developing your target 10 list, the Moz keyword search results show “Keyword Suggestions,” or keywords that are similar to the keyword you searched.

By clicking “See all suggestions” on the bottom right of this widget, you’ll see something like this (this time, order the list by “Relevancy,” or how closely related the keyword is to your original term):

Now, assuming “wedding venues near me” is one of your target 10 keywords, you would identify 10 additional keywords from this list that you would also target, secondarily, on the same pages you’re targeting the original keyword. (You don’t want to use the same keywords in different sections of your site, as this could cause cannibalization, weakening the authority and keyword ranking of each of the pages.)

From this list, I would choose the long-tail keywords with the highest relevancy and volume; I would then search each of these keywords to ensure its difficulty score was no higher than 70.

Of course, one of the most important parts of your SEO keyword strategy is — again — incorporating your keywords into your website and content. And that no longer means stuffing keywords into your titles, meta descriptions and image alt text. So, “wedding venues near me” is not necessarily a keyword you would want to add to your target 10 list because there are very few instances in which you would naturally write “wedding venues near me” on your site.

Thus, a better starting keyword would most likely derive from our second analysis, focused on keywords for which Jillicious Foods is already ranking. For Jillicious Foods, then, I would start with the highest-volume keywords that most directly relate to what Jillicious Foods does: 

• “inspired events,” with a volume of 395 and a low difficulty score of 19
• “wedding planners nyc,” with a (surprising low) volume of 163 and a still-low difficulty score of 41

So, let’s give one of these a shot.

Once again, our results aren’t particularly persuasive. First, the Priority score for this keyword is 52. Second, the keyword suggestions are a lot less popular than the original keyword. 

(One thing we can glean from the adjacent “SERP Analysis,” though, is that the articles that rank highest with this keyword don’t necessarily use the exact phrase in their titles — but do throughout, or they wouldn’t rank.)

As a result, we have to rethink our SEO research strategy. At this point, we can pretty confidently confirm that Jillicious Foods is not ranking for any short-tail focus keywords, which means we have to create them from scratch, by trial and error. 

If I were working again with Jillicious Foods, I would advise Chef Jill (who makes incredible food, by the way) to brainstorm with me about the focus areas of her business, which I could then translate into focus keywords. From there, we could restart, performing our SEO keyword analysis to identify the best 10 related keywords for each. Based on our conversations when we developed the website, here’s what I would recommend: 

1. “catering,” which has a surprisingly low competition score (52) and up to 71,000 searches per month, with potential secondary keywords such as “caterer,” “catering nyc,” “catering hudson valley,” “catering hamptons,” “vegetarian catering,” “vegan catering,” “gluten free catering,” “catering services,” “catering menu,” and more
2. “wedding catering” (in many cases, this would fall under “catering,” but for Jillicious Foods, wedding catering, corporate event catering and social event catering are three distinct business categories), which has a low competition score (45) and up to 6,500 searches per month, with potential secondary keywords like “wedding catering services,” “wedding catering ideas,” “wedding catering menu,” “wedding catering cost,” “wedding catering prices,” “wedding catering packages,” “wedding catering menus,” “vegan wedding,” “vegetarian wedding,” “gluten free wedding,” “wedding catering nyc,” “wedding catering hudson valley,” “wedding catering hamptons,” “how to cater a wedding,” and more
3. “wedding planning,” which has a competition score (61) still below ‘the red zone’ and 9,000 to 12,000 searches a month, with potential secondary keywords including “wedding planner,” “wedding planning checklist,” “wedding planning ideas,” “wedding planning tips,” “wedding planning 101,” “wedding plan,” “wedding plans,” “plan my wedding,” “plan your wedding,” how to plan a wedding,” and more
4. “event planning,” which has a similarly low competition score (48) and nearly 10,000 searches per month, with potential secondary keywords such as “event planner,” “event planners,” “event planning checklist,” “event planning services,” “event planning ideas,” “how to plan an event,” “event planning companies,” “event planning contract,” “event planning companies nyc,” and more
5. “event catering,” which has a very low competition score (28) and up to 850 searches a month, with potential secondary keywords like “catering events,” “catering for events,” “catering event,” “events catering,” “event caterer,” “event catering services,” “event catering menu,” “event catering menus,” “how to cater an event,” “cater your event,” “catering company,” “event catering nyc,” and more
6. “corporate events,” which has a low competition score (45) and up to 850 searches a month, with potential secondary keywords including “corporate event catering,” “corporate event catering services,” “corporate event planner,” “corporate event planning,” “corporate event ideas,” “corporate event planning companies,” “corporate event management,” “corporate event planners,” “how to cater a corporate event,” “how to plan a corporate event,” “corporate event planner nyc,” “corporate social event ideas,” and more
7. “social events,” which has a very low competition score (37) and up to 850 searches a month, with potential secondary keywords such as “social event,” “social event ideas,” “social event catering,” “types of social events,” “social event planning,” “how to plan a social event,” “how to cater a social event,” “social events nyc,” “hamptons events,” “unique special event ideas,” “local social events,” and more
8. “popcorn,” which has a competition score (64) still below the red zone and 118,000 to 300,000 searches per month(!), with potential secondary keywords like “gourmet popcorn,” “homemade popcorn,” “seasoned popcorn,” “popcorn seasoning” and “popcorn flavor” to describe the quality and taste, along with “popcorn recipes,” “popcorn recipe,” “best popcorn,” “popcorn online,” “popcorn delivery,” “gourmet popcorn delivery,” “popcorn gift delivery,” and more
9. “s’mores,” which has a near-average competition score (55) and up to 30,300 searches per month, with potential secondary keywords including “homemade s’mores,” “gourmet s’mores,” “best s’mores,” “s’mores kit,” “s’mores kit gift,” “s’mores maker,” “s’mores recipe,” “s’mores recipes,” “recipe for s’mores,” “s’mores ingredients,” “s’mores supplies,” “s’mores station,” “how to make s’mores,” “s’mores delivery,” and more
10. “gourmet food delivery,” which has a near-average competition score (52) and up to 850 searches per month, with potential secondary keywords such as “gourmet food delivery nyc,” “gourmet food online,” “gourmet food baskets,” “food gifts delivered,” “gourmet home food delivery,” “gourmet food online delivery” and “gourmet food gift delivery,” as well as the branded terms “grazing boxes” and “grazing tables” and related keywords “charcuterie” (59 competition score; up to 300,000 searches; and an 88 Priority score(!)), “the art of charcuterie,” “charcuterie board,” “charcuterie boards,” “best charcuterie board,” “best charcuterie,” “charcuterie board ingredients,” “charcuterie board delivery,” “charcuterie online,” “charcuterie gift baskets,” “charcuterie display,” “charcuterie board cheese” and “charcuterie board meat” 

At the conclusion of your SEO research, you should have a good mix of difficult and not-so-difficult supporting keywords for each of your focus keywords. This will help jumpstart your efforts, allowing you to capture top rankings (for the ‘lower hanging fruit’) more quickly. Over time, you’ll see the true benefits (e.g., organic traffic from SEO is more than 1,000% higher than organic traffic from social media) of a smart SEO strategy.

Of course, all of my keyword recommendations would need to be run through Moz before I provided Jillicious Foods with its target 10 keyword list. But fear not: it’s a lot easier than it looks:

• You’ll find all the right supporting keywords simply by searching each of your focus keywords
• You can enhance your keyword and content marketing strategies by exploring the SERP analysis for each focus keyword, pinpointing the phrases and terms that currently appear on the first page of the search results

Here’s one example:

SEO Keywords and Content Marketing: My Parting Advice

Now, it’s time for you to do the work. But before I let you loose, I want to direct your attention to one more of Moz’s many additional capabilities: You can easily add any keyword from a Moz keyword search results page to your own in-app target 10 list; to add a keyword to your list, click the “Add to…” button on the right-hand side just below the keyword.

(Would you rather start with a Google Sheets template? Here’s mine for free download — just replace all the Jillicious Foods keywords and analytics with your own.)

If you haven’t already, create and name your list.

You’ll see a notification that your keyword was added successfully.

When you click on the list, this is what you’ll see:

Scroll down for a quick snapshot of all the keywords you’ve added, along with detailed, real-time information, including your rankings. From here, you can track your progress and identify gaps and opportunities. 

Now your turn. Download the official Customer Engagement Insider SEO Keywords Target 10 List Template. Email me if you have any questions. And then, armed with your target 10 list, you can begin to improve your organic search results. 

Feel you need some more help? Try these, and maybe you’ll find your preferred free keyword tool or app:

The Best Free Keyword Research Tool: Your Top 9 Options

In addition to the free tools offered by Semrush (Keyword Magic Tool), Ahrefs (Keyword Generator) and Moz (Keyword Explorer), I recommend testing out the following:

1. AnswerThePublic, which analyzes autocomplete data to deliver questions people are asking regarding your keyword
2. Google Trends, which real-time and historically analyzes and presents graphs on the popularity of top Google search queries
3. Keyworddit, an seo keyword generator created by Toolbase
4. Keyword Sheeter, a design blast from the past (see below)
5. Keyword Surfer, a Google Chrome plugin
6. Keyword Tool Dominator, an SEO keywords tool for Amazon, Bing, eBay, Etsy, Google, Home Depot and Walmart
7. QuestionDB, which allows you to enter a broad (focus) keyword to generate popular questions entered into the search engines
8. Soovle, which allows you to search Google, Bing and other sites simultaneously
9. Ubersuggest, an SEO tool developed by famed search engine-optimization expert Neil Patel

No matter which tools you choose or don’t choose to leverage for your keyword research, before you incorporate your SEO content strategy into your overall content marketing strategy and start strategically — and naturally — inserting your top keywords throughout your site (and landing pages), you’ll want to run a website audit to identify what’s currently working and what isn’t — and what can be optimized for search or refreshed, redesigned or relocated for UX.

Many of Jillicious Foods’s focus keywords, for instance, would serve as ideal pillar pages for jilliciousfoods.com, providing clear direction (i.e., optimal UX) for site visitors, whether they’re hosting a wedding, corporate event or social event, or shopping online for popcorn and s’mores. And if I hadn’t done so already when designing the site, I would have certainly recommended it. 

Clearly, performing a comprehensive keyword analysis and conducting competitive research can inform much more than your SEO content strategy. 

Read this to learn how to crush your competition with a killer content marketing strategy — and write a search engine-optimized blog post like this one.

Read this to learn more about designing for the user experience, which can make or break your SEO strategy.

Image Credits (in order of appearance)

1. Photo by Afif Ramdhasuma on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/jl4BQJs87Do
2. Photo by Merakist on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/l5if0iQfV4c
3. Photo by NisonCo PR and SEO on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/40Ji24OuUeQ
4. Photo by Jill Freiberg for Jillicious Foods