If you’ve been in blogging for some time, you are most likely to know that keyword research (no matter how thoroughly you do it) is still a lottery to some extent: some keywords you bet on won’t bring you solid search traffic no matter how hard you try; however some phrases will (often unexpectedly) bring you TONS of traffic and exposure.

The important part of blog-specific keyword research is to identify those (unexpectedly) high-potential keywords and squeeze more traffic from them. The first thing to do is to dig into your traffic analytics of course, create the list of the pages that are generating much search traffic and help them by linking to them from within content.

squeeze an organge today

Another way to get even more search referrals from already high-traffic phrases is to write a follow-up or an update – this is a sure-fire way to go in the following cases:

  1. When the information in the initial post is outdated (the scenario: you wrote a post which is getting much search referral traffic but the post contains outdated information while the topic is still hot).
  2. When you want to try a shorter (more competitive) search term (the scenario: you are getting some decent amount of search traffic from a long tail and see the potential in betting on a shorter base phrase).

Let’s first discuss the first scenario:

1. Publish Up-to-Date Data in a New Post

Things are changing fast and plenty of your posts that are still getting a lot of search traffic don’t give the readers answers to their questions. Of course, you may update the initial post but there are a few benefits of creating a separate post for the more up-to-date information.

An update within the old post versus an update in a separate post:

  • A new post means fresh content which may rank even higher;
  • A new post means more in-depth research (chances are you have got even more knowledgeable in the topic, you’ve got some essential information in the comments to the old post and you have come across more relevant information on the web);
  • A new post means you can learn by your mistakes: target more specific / higher-traffic terms (to either rank higher or get more visits); you can choose a hotter angle; you can brainstorm an extra-ordinary format (video, infographic, etc), etc.

The last point brings us to the scenario #2 when an update helps us find and test higher-potential keywords and get more search traffic.

2. Discover High-Potential Terms

Digging into your search analytics is by far the most effective way to find competitive terms which still can be a comparatively easy to target. It’s called “reverse targeting” because normally you go from the base phrase to longer tail but in this case you go in the opposite direction: you first discover long tail and then estimate if the base term can be worth targeting as well:

Long tail -> base term

And vice versa: you can take a more specific angle in your update to get higher rankings for a less competitive long tail.

Do It Wise!

Avoid competing with yourself: if you already rank 1 or 2 for the given phrase (but the pst still needs an update), use scenario 2 to target a different key phrase. You can thus keep your high rankings with the old article and get even more search power with your update post.

Link the new post from the old one (to give your readers the ability to access more up-to-date data and thus offer them a better experience).

Takeaways

  • Digging into your search referral (Google Analytics) data may bring up some potentially high-traffic terms (which also means ideas for your content). You can try ranking for a broader term or, vice versa, go more specific to target a less competitive term;
  • Writing a new post to update your old content is preferable because it lets you target more terms to rank for. Besides, a new post both gets traffic (from social media shares) and brings up your old content.
  • When writing a follow-up or an update of your old post, avoid competing with yourself.

Please let me know your thoughts!

Annie Wallace is a self-made Internet entrepreneur and social media strategist for Mobile Phone Finder (Australia-based). You can follow Annie on twitter as @ViralMomTweets

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Denise Cross

Missy Diaz is primarily a freelance writer (and blogger) that offers a popular guest blogging service to website owners. She also creates WordPress powered websites and blogs and is the author of Super Blogga, a fun action packed pocket guide aimed at new blog owners with over 70 bite size tips available as an ebook and on Amazon.
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