Topics Versus Keywords in Search Engine Optimization

Show: Voices of Search

Topic: The Difference Between Keywords and Topics

Major Takeaways 

In this episode, Ben J. Shapiro (Host of the Show) and Jeff Coyle talk about the difference between topics and keywords in creating an effective content strategy to create relevancy, authority, and user satisfaction. This type of strategy addresses an entire content cohesiveness based on generating content matching the user’s need (intent) on every sales funnel stage. Different sales funnel layers correspond with different search intent. Authority cannot be secured only by generating better content than your competitors but also by reaching out to the user at every stage of the sales funnel (addressing the needs on each level of the search intent). This approach creates cohesiveness at your website and content and allows you to construct a healthy internal linking practice along with a backlinking strategy.

Concept versus Topics versus Keywords In SEO

Concepts are big ideas that are timeless and universal, topics are more specific times, people, things, or places, and keywords are related to the user intent associated with that concept or topic. Therefore, your keywords are in the pool of either concepts or topics.

Example:

Concept: Water shortage
Topic: Water saving tools
Keyword: Compare water-saving tools (which denotes commercial investigation intent on the mid-funnel buyer journey)

Having the Breadth and Depth of Coverage :

Covering a topic by creating different articles addressing diverse search intents and keywords is the key to having breadth and depth of the content piece.

You can make an analogy by thinking about a matrix and its dimensions. Your topic needs full coverage by including all the different aspects, and that will help you achieve Google’s favorite intent. Because you show how much expertise, competence, and authority you are in presenting your topic by discussing all the different dimensions with the help of the keywords. 

Monitor your pages individually and collectively to see how you can make improvements. Always look at the perspective of the user and how Google matches the results with the user intent and the keywords.

If you have not come across some of the concepts before, you can find relevant explanations here:

What is search intent?

It is the primary goal of a user when making or completing a search with a keyword, phrases, or longtail keywords. Google defines its purpose as satisfying the search intent of its user. Therefore, the higher a page meets the search intent, the higher the page listed SERPs on Google.

There are four search intent categories:

1. Informational
2. Navigational
3. Transactional
4. Commercial Investigation

Search Intent Keywords

Types of Google Search results for each Search Intent Type

What is a sales funnel?

Potential customer’s cycle and steps through completing a purchase of a product or service.

Steps of the sales funnel:

• Top funnel: Awareness
• Mid funnel: Interest
• Mid Funnel: Decision
• Bottom funnel: Action (purchase)

Why did I like this article?

Keyword theory is one of the pillars of an SEO effort but to be able to understand it thoroughly is a real challenge. This episode provides a broader perspective in evaluating how to deploy, organize and optimize with the keywords.

Would you like to get more insights, please click here…

You can also read the following articles from Moz and Ahrefs

Search Intent and SEO: A Quick Guide 

Searcher Intent: The Overlooked ‘Ranking Factor’ You Should Be Optimizing For

This article was written by Firuze Gokce (Startup and Nonprofit Advisor)

If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to offer you a FREE 30-minutes consultation call.