Whiteboard Friday: Can SEOs Stop Worrying About Keywords and Just Focus on Topics?

[HurricaneK8]

This is a really great (IMO) Whiteboard Friday that I've been actually curious about for the last few months. The video goes into more detail, but in short we are evolving and Rand suggests to still target keywords, but put them in buckets and use them intelligently in titles, headlines, subtitles-- while letting the content speak about the topic you're targeting. He also suggests looking at the intent of the keywords, to make sure the content your creating is serving them.


Read the whole thing here!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for sharing Kate. Can't wait to watch.

And I hope some here will start a discussion about this as I've wondered too how to make this transition (in thinking and in practice).

 

[theitsage]

Thank you for the share. In my opinion, most experienced SEOs are aware of the pros and cons between Topics and Keywords in content creation. Issues arise when it comes to execution. In an agency-client relationship, lost in translation when creating content and building websites is the #1 challenge.

Simply put, you don't know what you don't know.

...so how are you supposed to provide the best answers for questions on topics you have little to no knowledge? The shortcut has been keywords with high volume of search.

For example, how many people at digital marketing agencies have in depth knowledge of "oocyte storage"? To able to create and optimize such website, one has to work directly with the business founder/s to not only understand that business but also know the demographics. Even then, there are nuances only people within a particular industry can pick up.

What I'm saying is many SEOs know what best to do but oftentimes constraints on budgets and expertise ultimately steer a project off topic.