Keywords

[Bengie]

A million sites talk about keywords and how you need them or suggesting commercial sites that can see to this.

Am I wrong here, but to me a keyword is something someone searches for so if you have that keyword in your forum, they will see you
and hopefully click on you.

The thing is, how do we know what people are searching for, I've been around the engines over and over and not one of them actually
say they can suggest a keyword, all they say is they will find keywords on your site, well that don't make sense to me, if it's already there
then why do i need to be told.

Please, will someone let this 80 year old man in on the secret so I can do something and hopefull get a member or two to sign up to mine ?

 

[ThornInYourSide]

Keywords are what people search for, but a site has to have something people are searching for in order for keywords to work.

Yes, that's kind of a circular file, but what I really hate are keyword spammers. If your site is about woodworking for example, there would be no reason to list every make and model of automobile ever made or to list a series of airline company names or televisions shows. Yet, that is the kind of thing some site try to do in hopes of getting random hits

Now, if you happen to be discussing making wooden models of cars or airplanes ....

 

[zappaDPJ]

Keywords are what people search for, but a site has to have something people are searching for in order for keywords to work.

This pretty much on target and this is what Google has to say about why you should avoid keyword stuffing: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/irrelevant-keywords

Hopefully that goes some way to answering your question below.

The thing is, how do we know what people are searching for, I've been around the engines over and over and not one of them actually
say they can suggest a keyword, all they say is they will find keywords on your site, well that don't make sense to me, if it's already there
then why do i need to be told.

You don't need to know what people are searching for because if they want what your site has to offer then the search engine is likely to find it for them. In short your site needs to offer something of substance and preferably something that is fairly unique and of interest.

 

[mysiteguy]

Google Trends

trends.google.com

 

[Bengie]

Keywords are what people search for, but a site has to have something people are searching for in order for keywords to work.

But that's just the point, how do we know what people are searching for ?

 

[Nev_Dull]

You know what people are searching for by understanding your site and your audience.

Presumably, you know what your site is about and you've gone to the effort of making sure the content on your site fits within that subject area. That may seem obvious, however many forum owners will expand their site into unrelated areas in order to get more members, views, or posts. The dreaded "Off Topic" section is notorious for this, in some cases becoming more popular than the rest of the forum. That can muddy the waters when it comes to search terms and keywords.

You also need to understand who you created the forum for -- your audience. You need to know there are enough people out there interested in your subject area to make the site viable. If your site speaks to that audience, they will provide useful content that is on topic. In turn, that content provides the key words and terms that others interested in the subject will search for.

The bottom line is good, on-topic content that engages your target audience will generate the right keywords. If you have to pack your site with made up lists of words and terms in order to trick people into finding your site, you've missed the whole point.

 

[Harvey]

I use this:

Keyword Planner Alternative #1 FREE ᐈ SEO, Google Ads PPC

The #1 (FREE) alternative to Google AdWords Keyword Planner that you can use for SEO & PPC keyword research. Find 1,000s long-tail keywords in a split of a second!

keywordtool.io

Not for my forum. It's REALLY hard to optimize a forum because you can't change the posts of members.

I use it on my blog. It's not cheap but it's a great tool.

If you are looking for free, try google search suggest.

 

[Bengie]

What if I don't know what subject will be popular, do I have a site on cooking, gardening or how to build a nuclear submarine, I just don't know.

If I knew what people were searching for then I could make that the central subject.

 

[Lakuma]

You can also take a look at your Google Search Console to get a very high level of what people are searching for and clicking on to get to your site: https://search.google.com/search-console/performance/search-analytics

 

[Bengie]

I use this:

Keyword Planner Alternative #1 FREE ᐈ SEO, Google Ads PPC

The #1 (FREE) alternative to Google AdWords Keyword Planner that you can use for SEO & PPC keyword research. Find 1,000s long-tail keywords in a split of a second!

keywordtool.io

Not for my forum. It's REALLY hard to optimize a forum because you can't change the posts of members.

I use it on my blog. It's not cheap but it's a great tool.

If you are looking for free, try google search suggest.

Now that site is asking to enter a keyword, that is just it, I don't know any keywords because I don't know what people are searching for.

 

[Bengie]

You can also take a look at your Google Search Console to get a very high level of what people are searching for and clicking on to get to your site: https://search.google.com/search-console/performance/search-analytics

So I clicked on your link and it says "To get started, add a new property in the navigation pane". what is that all about, what does it mean ?
The page is blank except for that.

 

[Lakuma]

So I clicked on your link and it says "To get started, add a new property in the navigation pane". what is that all about, what does it mean ?
The page is blank except for that.

You need to sign in with a Google account and set up your site with Google. Once you have this it will give you a small snippet of code that you need to integrate (insert) into the header of your site to verify that you own that particular site. It sounds complicated but once you have it set up it returns a lot of useful information on how Google is seeing your site along with the information that you are asking for, extremely useful.

 

[Bengie]

Ah thanks Lakuma, I've seen that before, I'm using xenforo, so where would I put the code ?

 

[Bengie]

Ah well, not a lot of help here.
All these 'We help you find keyword' sites have a box at the top saying 'Enter your keyword here', and that is the point,
I don't know any keywords or I would be using them now.

 

[Overscan]

Starting from the beginning. What was the idea of your forum? Looking at https://westcountrylink.com it seems to be primarily a forum for a geographic region, the West Country in the UK. Then there's sections for motor sports, computer support... its a little unfocused. Are you hoping to get a better idea of how people are finding the forum? Or do you want to attract more users via advertising?

If you set up Google Analytics for the site (which is what the above people are advising) you can find out what 'keywords' people searched for that got them to find your forum. This may give you an idea what content attracts people to it, though this can also be obvious from what posts are being made and which sections are most popular. It might not be that revealing - my own "keywords" are, overwhelmingly, the name of the forum, then very much random different keywords relating to specific topics on my forum.

The keyword sites you are talking about are primarily for finding out what people are searching for in order to know what keywords to place Google Ads against. So for example you could type in "west country" and it will give you a list of popular searches related to "west country" showing volumes of searches being done on search engines e.g. "west country cider", "west country news", and show you competitor sites - which other websites are ranked highly for that search keyword. You could then pay Google so that searches for "west country news" will be shown your Ad Words advert.

There's no point in just stuffing your forum with "west country cider" in every post. Maybe you could make a discussion about West Country cider on the forum, if that's something lots of people are searching for, but that's really looking at things backwards.

For a hobbyist forum I wouldn't be too concerned. Concentrate on making good and unique content that interests YOU and Google will index it and people looking for that type of content will arrive. You can't just say 'what are lots of people looking for" and then try to shoehorn whatever that is that into your forum.

 

[Nev_Dull]

What if I don't know what subject will be popular, do I have a site on cooking, gardening or how to build a nuclear submarine, I just don't know.

If I knew what people were searching for then I could make that the central subject.

I don't understand what you're asking here. Are you talking about basing a new forum on whatever subject is most popular? You can certainly do that. Google is quite happy to tell you what the most popular search topics are, but I don't fancy your chances of being successful unless you know enough about that particular subject to generate a large enough body of good content to attract anyone.

If you're talking about your existing westcountrylink forum, and are looking to make that more focused, it will take some detective work. First figure out who the forum is for (people who live in the west country or people who want to visit). Then you need to do some research to determine what topics those people are most interested in. Then you can choose which of those topic areas you want to focus on. It may be just one or several. And finally, you need to be able to build a body of content on those topics that will attract and engage anyone who searches for that topic and comes across the forum.

 

[Harvey]

Ah well, not a lot of help here.
All these 'We help you find keyword' sites have a box at the top saying 'Enter your keyword here', and that is the point,
I don't know any keywords or I would be using them now.

You're not a lot of help either.

Try SEMRush or Google Search Console to see what you are currently ranking for. Find things your rank 3-10 for and try to build out content.

I still say optimizing content written by others is not a simple matter. I suppose you could start thread that target the keywords you are interested in.

Also remember, the higher the search volume, the harder it is to rank for. You'll get more traffic ranking for 1-3 for a keyword with 100 monthly searches than being on page ten for a keywords with 10,000 monthly volume.

 

[Bengie]

So i went to SEMrush did as they asked and they want me to enter 10 keywords.
I don't know any keywords or i wouldn't be asking, so that is out.

Google gives me a code to put into my site (xenforo), so where do i put it please?

 

[Harvey]

SEMRush: Just enter your URL at the top.

 

[Bengie]

I did that and it then asks for up to 5 keywords

I love the look of your forum Harvey