Used 'wrong' keywords in blog posts, should I go back and edit?
-
I have a bout 70 blog articles spanning about 2 years. Because I hadn't done proper SEO research, I used the term I thought made the most sense when talking about my services. However now that I have done my homework, I realize that the term I like, is not actually the term most people use to search.
Very few of these articles are time sensitive and mostly generic best practice kind of stuff. I'm not talking about keyword stuffing, simply going back and replacing one poorly chosen keyword with one that people are actually searching for where it occurs naturally in the course of the article.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
-
Thanks, that answers the question and you raise some good points... slow and steady versus a find and replace.
-
Hello,
You can change your keywords at any time you want, taking these steps:
1. Modify the page title tag.
2. Modify the page description tag.
3. modify the content according the new keywords.
Take special care about perform this task in several weeks, because your traffic will drop, and will be increased in the time ranking for the new keywords.
Hope it helps
-
Thanks so much the answer and resources, the 'keyword themes', make perfect sense and actually sheds light on a few other concepts I was trying to understand.
As far as editing those previous blog posts, it certainly makes sense to update them so as to improve them and not simply focus on replacing a keyword. If I were to do the updating do you think there there are any risks in the engines seeing this update exercise as negative?
-
You could republish to blog posts wherein you use the new keyword in principle. What i think you should take a look at though are these two posts here on Moz by Cyrus Shephard.
They are about using keyword themes which is the way to go from now on. If you are thinking about editing blog posts this might be a good thing to start doing right away.
They are invaluable resources and define the modern and future best practices concerning keyword research and optimization.
PS: If you're going to update your blog posts you might also see if they could be made better in any way. Using rich media, is the content completely up to date, is there anything else that could be added to improve the article etcetera..
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What defines what words in a title are considered Keywords?
Hi, sorry if this is a silly question. I'm curious how keywords are defined. Is every word in a title a possible keyword? If I have a keyword titled "Linear Shower Drain | 40" Long", does it take the whole thing as a keyword? Is just "Linear Shower Drain" the keyword? Would "Shower Drain" pop up as a keyword, since its nested in the title? Thank you in advance for your answers!
Keyword Research | | ezable0 -
Why is my Google search bringing me other keywords than what I typed in?
When searching Condor Voucher on Google US where our business operates the SERP results show results on the first page that do not contain the keyword Voucher at all but instead Condor Coupons and Condor Promo Codes. Is this due to relevance of the other sites(higher search volume keyword), their domain authority, page authority, better authoritative content? Or does Google recognize that voucher is not often used in US and uses more common keywords such as Coupon and Promo Code? Therefore we cant rank for a term with such a low search volume?
Keyword Research | | MyVoucherCodes0 -
Best Tools for Keyword Research?
Hi guys, Please share your best and recommended tools for keyword research. Thanks in advance.
Keyword Research | | KLLC0 -
Local Keyword Strategy
Good morning! I'm working on building out a new website for a regional insurance agency specializing in auto insurance for high risk drivers (ex. Tickets, Accidents, Dui's, etc.). Due to the competitive nature of our industry, I believe it is best to focus on very localized long tail keywords, instead of broad terms I don't have any chance of ranking for. Our keyword research indicates that there is an opportunity to optimize and potentially rank for keywords that include geographic modifiers for towns and cities within a roughly 50 mile radius. The problem is, there is only so much you can say about auto insurance. On the one hand, I would like to have individual landing pages for each keyword phrase. On the other hand, I don't want to look manipulative to Google or hurt user experience by creating a bunch of pages with relatively similar content. Can anyone offer some advice on how I can structure the site/content to optimize for each geographic modifier without having lots of pages that are very similar? Thank you!
Keyword Research | | matthewbyers0 -
Is there a pro tool or google service that I can use to see which sites rank for certain terms? Without having to first identify the url's?
For example I want to see the top 20 sites in order of ranking for top keywords in my industry. Without having to know in advance the url's.
Keyword Research | | CURT-208170 -
Keyword Finder
I'm looking for some direction to find better keywords for my sites. Any tips would be appreciated? This question could potentially be too broad.
Keyword Research | | CPP-3601 -
''furnace filter'' or ''furnaces filters'' Broad or Exact???
Those keywords are the one that will bring the most traffics. They are the one I should use, what will be your recommendations for bring more traffic to home page, using furnace filters or furnace filters? These are the results from Keytools Google: furnace filter (broad local search local): 12,100 furnace filter (exact mach local search) 390 furnace filters (broad local search): 5,400 furnace filters (exact mach local search): 880 After selecting one keyword, should I optimize one page for the other keyword? Thank you for your help. BigBlaze
Keyword Research | | BigBlaze2050