Have you ever heard the expression – “You want to hide something? Put it on the second page of Google!”. This is our reality nowadays. When looking for something online everybody is more prone to taking the easy route and just grabbing whatever comes first then searching thoroughly. Consequentially, this is also the reason it’s essential for your site to be on top of the pile and one of the first things your potential visitors/users will see when searching for content that interests them.
SEMScoop is a service that can immensely help you with your SEO optimization by giving you the best keywords to use based on extensive analytical information.
We’ll go over the main features and who knows, maybe by the end we’ll even throw in a few surprises for you – a giveaway where three lucky winners will get a free SEMScoop license! If you are here just to participate in the giveaway, click here and good luck!
The importance of SEO and keywords
Briefly touched on in the intro, before we go any further, let’s try to get a good grasp on why SEO and keywords are so important for your site and what a keyword research tool like SEMScoop actually is.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the key aspects of creating, growing and maintain your sites’ presence on the web. In a nutshell, it’s your online visibility in search engine results, not counting paid results, and it’s important to start the right way. Imagine for a moment how many individual searches are done daily on Google. Now imagine how many of those pertain to content your site is running. If you have excellent SEO your site will be in the top results, if you don’t it’ll be further down the line (meaning less of a chance someone will actually scroll enough to even see it). It’s plain to see the marketing potential in this. Being seen and raising your traffic without having to put money into it is a site owners dream.
Keywords are one of, if not the most, important tool in obtaining a better SEO. A good combination of keywords can easily push you over the top and make your site stand out in a crowd. Coming up with good keywords to use is a job for a keyword research tool – one such as SEMScoop.
As already mentioned, you’ll be getting a complete rundown of how a word or combination of words performs in a search engine, as well as, alternate suggestions and in turn giving you a chance to shift your focus when emphasizing your content.
How SEMScoop works
In its essence, SEMScoop works just like a search engine in itself. You’ll insert a keyword or phrase, put in the search parameters (language and location) and you’re off. The language and location input is very important because the results will vary based on those parameters. You should make it as specific as possible – going to broad (i.e. leaving them blank) will overwhelm you with unneeded and overly complicated you won’t be able to use properly.
The UI is quite simple and works like any search engine
Search results
At first glance, you’ll probably be in awe of all the information you’re presented with but don’t worry it’s actually quite straightforward after you get into it. We’ll go through it step-by-step to cover all the important elements of the analysis. For this analysis, we’ve used the term “football drills”.
Keyword ideas
The first thing from your left is the keyword ideas list. Here you’ll be presented with variations of your initial search. This is great for helping you come up with ideas that convey the same message you want but are more optimized.
Get the best alternate ideas for your keywords
These results can be further filtered, sorted and even saved and exported for future use. Additional options such as these will put you in a better position to find what you’re looking for.
Filter, sort, save or export your keyword lists
When filtering you’ll be able to add more keywords to the search or remove some of the ones you don’t want. One important thing that may be looked over is the long tail and medium tail options. Usually, long tail keywords will get better scores because the more words are used, the more unique it will be making it easier for a search engine to rank.
Add to that the CPC (cost per click) value and the search volume (number of times the term was searched in the last 12 months) and you quickly go from a list of hundreds to a dozen or so best choices to use for maximum effect.
When you’ve filtered through to your best keywords you’ll want to sort them. This can be done by:
- Search volume – the average number of searches in the last 12 months
- CPC – cost per click – the average cost you’ll pay for the keyword if you use ads
- PPC – pay per click – lets you know how much paid ads are there for the keywords
- Relevancy – how relevant the suggestion is to your initial query
- Keyword difficulty – basically how hard is it to rank your keywords (more on it later)
Finally, you’ll also be able to save, export or delete the performed search after you’re done with it.
In-depth analysis
On the center and main part of the page, you’ll be presented with a host of various statistics concerning your searched keywords. First among them are average general stats on top. Below them, you’ll get detailed information regarding actual sites who are ranked on Google by using the same keywords you’ve searched.
Check on your keywords average scores across the web
The far top stats we’ve already covered (search volume, CPC etc.), but now we have even more information to look through. It’s important to note once again that these are average numbers pertaining to your keywords, so while they make a good reference point actual number can and will vary.
- Keyword difficulty – keyword difficulty is a measure of how quickly the keywords will rank in the top ten results. The lower the number, the better the chances:
- 0 – 10: No competition
- 11 – 20: Extremely low competition
- 21 – 30: Low competition
- 31 – 40: Moderate Competition
- 41 – 50: Somewhat High Competition
- 51 – 65: Very High Competition
- 65 – 100: Not worth using
- Domain authority – the average domain authority presents a sites’ ability to rank higher in search engines when using the keywords (the scale is 1-100, the higher number is better).
- Domain age – shows the average age of domains (how long it’s been registered and active) using the keywords. Longer activity means it’s more trustworthy and therefore ranks higher.
- Referring domains – gives you the number of other unique domains which have at least one link referring back to the top ranked pages.
- Content size – simply gives you the average word count on sites or blogs using the same keywords. You should look to be close to, or above this number.
If you want even more information you’re in luck. Aside from the average numbers, you’ll also be able to check how the top-ranked results measure in these metrics. We’ve singled out the first, fifth and tenth site, just to give you a comparative example of how the numbers stack through the ranks. Note that the page authority and age are the same as domain authority and age just for specific pages that contain the keywords.
This is how the metrics look for the top rated sites
Diving even more into the stats pool you’ll also be able to check out the links profile, content analysis and social engagement for the top ranked sites.
You’ll get a better rank if more sites link back to your page
The link profile lets you see the internet presence of top sites through other domains referring to them. You’ll definitely want as many total links and especially referring domains, because these directly redirect towards your site. If the numbers are higher, chances are you’ll be getting a better ranking in search engines. A couple of new terms here:
- MozRank – ranks the popularity of the page on the web (scale 1-10)
- MozTrust – ranks if a site is trustworthy from the search engines standpoint (scale 1-10)
- Linking C-blocks – the total number of C-blocks the page has links from – more trustworthy and therefore higher ranked with more links
- Top backlinks – gives you info on the top three backlinks for the page
- Top anchors – gives you the top three anchors used for the page
Content analysis lets you, just as the name implies, check to what degree is the content saturated with the chosen keyword.
Sort out your content to be more focused and more keyword oriented than the competition
- OnPage score – shows how optimized and focused the general content is in regards to the keywords. The focus is greater if the score is higher.
- Content-length – as we’ve already mentioned, this shows the word count of a page or blog that contains the keywords.
- Keyword density – show how often the keyword is used compared to the total word count.
- Social engagement – gives you information about mentions, shares, likes etc. on social media platforms.
Nothing works without a strong social media presence
Pricing
With all the content and features covered, it’s time to see how much this will all cost you.
Monthly subscription
You can see the prices really aren’t that high and you even have a free option that is limited by the number of uses and not available features. If you opt for the annual billing, you’ll receive a discount on the total price making the service even more affordable.
Annual subscription gets you a discount
Special giveaway
Remember way back in the opening lines we mentioned a possible surprise by the end – well here it is! If you’re still on the fence about giving SEMScoop a try, then maybe a generous giveaway will sway you. If you participate in this giveaway, you’ll get a chance to win one of three prizes:
1. Prize – Business plan (one year)
2. Prize – PRO plan (one year)
3. Prize – basic plan (one year)
Summary
We’ve already mentioned constantly throughout the article how important internet presence is for a site. Your site has very limited non-paying options to raise its rank among all others out there vying for their spot under the sun. SEO and by extension keywords are your best bet for keeping up with and surpassing the rest.
With most internet browsers offering a search engine as a homepage and most of using it tens if not hundreds of times a day you really can’t afford not to seize your opportunity. The reality is, you should be looking at this aspect of running a site as an advertisement, take full control of it and reap the rewards, especially if using a premium tool such as SEMScoop.