Do I understand this correctly?

[Hunkwithsomefunk]

3/21/2015

Ok, so I just finished with A LOT of deep niche / keyword research. I feel that I've learned 2 really valuable lessons today:

1) I think I the whole concept of site building for seo has become much clearer. From what I understand, ranking your main keyword is your primary goal, with it being the most broad and highly searched of your keywords (I.E. "Puppies"). Secondary keywords are phrases that have your main keyword in them, but they get more specific, with less traffic potential and are kind of like categories of your main keyword (I.E. "Labrador Puppies). Long tail keywords are really specific phrases that are related to both the main keyword and secondary keyword, but have the lowest traffic potential (I.E. "Labrador Puppies with Pimples").

Essentially, you're trying to rank your main keyword, by using phrases that can also rank for themselves and generate their own traffic. Is this the gist of it? Should all of my articles be somehow related to my main keyword?

2) I learned that my main keyword is going to run out of steam really fast. I found 3-4 secondary keywords and some long tail keywords, but I can't see being able to have more than about 30 posts between all of them. However, is it ok to use the "same" secondary keyword, but twist it? I.E. if one of my secondary keywords is "cute puppies", could I also write an article about "puppies that are cute"? Would this send a "red flag" to google and hurt my rankings?

 

[Nargil]

1. You grasped the concept correctly.
When it comes to "keywords being related to your main keyword", actually yes, if you are building a niche specific site. If your website is about puppies, then it's obvious that your articles will be related to puppies. All depends on how broad your niche selection is, because you can always go narrower.
For example.
1. Dogs - Super wide
2. Puppies - More narrow, but still dog related
3. Puppy training - Even narrower, still related
4. Puppy potty training - Narrowest

The broader your niche, the more content you can generate. However same applies about competition. Wider niches tend to have much more competition.
So basically, if your website is about Puppy training, then all your articles should be related to puppy training. If your website is about puppies, then all your articles should be related to puppies. For example article "how to take care of an old dog" would be slightly off your niche, considering that your website is about puppies. I hope you understand. This is a nice rule of thumb.

2. I mentioned the amout of content before, but you can always use some google suggestion scrapers to find more keyword ideas, even though they won't have much search volume. This one for example. http://ubersuggest.org/ Or this one http://www.tinysuggest.com/ But there is more on the forum and you can easily google them.

About that topic twist you mentioned, don't do that. It's called content cannibalization. Those 2 keywords count pretty much as the same one, so what will happen is, that if I search for "cute puppies", only one of your pages will be shown, the other will be omitted from search results. You can read more about it in one of the Phpbuilt's threads here - http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...diot-proof-guide-authority-site-building.html

 

[joe000]

Yes, you basically got it right.

 

[Hunkwithsomefunk]

1. You grasped the concept correctly.
When it comes to "keywords being related to your main keyword", actually yes, if you are building a niche specific site. If your website is about puppies, then it's obvious that your articles will be related to puppies. All depends on how broad your niche selection is, because you can always go narrower.
For example.
1. Dogs - Super wide
2. Puppies - More narrow, but still dog related
3. Puppy training - Even narrower, still related
4. Puppy potty training - Narrowest

The broader your niche, the more content you can generate. However same applies about competition. Wider niches tend to have much more competition.
So basically, if your website is about Puppy training, then all your articles should be related to puppy training. If your website is about puppies, then all your articles should be related to puppies. For example article "how to take care of an old dog" would be slightly off your niche, considering that your website is about puppies. I hope you understand. This is a nice rule of thumb.

2. I mentioned the amout of content before, but you can always use some google suggestion scrapers to find more keyword ideas, even though they won't have much search volume. This one for example. Or this one
But there is more on the forum and you can easily google them.

About that topic twist you mentioned, don't do that. It's called content cannibalization. Those 2 keywords count pretty much as the same one, so what will happen is, that if I search for "cute puppies", only one of your pages will be shown, the other will be omitted from search results. You can read more about it in one of the Phpbuilt's threads here -

Excellent information, thanks. It's funny that I used the puppy example before even reading phpbuilt's thread, haha.

However, if I understand his thread correctly, if my main keyword is "puppies" (and say my domain name contains the word puppies), then I shouldn't write every article with "puppies" in it. I.e. puppies with pimples would be a no-go? Or, should I just focus on not mentioning my keyword in the article very much (i.e. less than 2%) When I did my research, I had my main keyword in every sub-keyword and long-tail keyword.

 

[Nargil]

Yeh it's either puppies or dogs or widgets these days.

Well if you are asking, whether or not your article, which actually targets the kw "puppies", will get cannibalized by some other article, then yes, there is this possibility, but it shouldn't happen really. Most of the time you will target the main keyword on your homepage and it will have the strongest backlinks, so don't be afraid about it too much. It's normal that your main keyword is a part of your longtails also. It mostly can't even be avoided so don't worry. Phpbuilt's thread explains this quite nicely, so just go through it and write down notes and you will do well. Just don't overthink it too much.