NOT Every Keyword is Worth Pursuing in SEO (Here’s Why)

Just because a keyword gets a lot of traffic, it doesn't mean it's worth going after. Today I'm going to break down, how not every keyword is worth pursuing an SEO and why.



Going after keywords that are too competitive is a waste of time, specially if you have a low domain authority. Look, if you're going after keywords like credit cards and your brand new site, your chance of ranking are slim to none, you're going to spend all this time and effort and money to try to get there, and you're not going to get the results anytime soon.

You're better off going after keywords that can provide quicker results, and then once you're getting some rankings, you're generating some traffic, some revenue, then in the long run, you can invest after those harder terms that take longer to rank for.

Before I dive in with the tactics, I've got a quick stop for you. I get over 9 million visitors a month, but less than .1%, not 1%, I'm saying .1% of those visitors, ever become a customer. High volume keywords don't mean much to go after if they don't have the correct intent.

So how do you find out the right keywords to go after? Well, step one, go to Uber suggests. Step two, type in the keyword related to your industry. Step three, you'll see a report that loads on Ubersuggest that just has overview on the traffic and some stars of the keyword. In the left hand navigation I want you to click on the keyword Ideas report. And when you click on the Keyword Ideas report, you'll see a button on the very right called Keywords I Can Rank For.

If you don't see it, that means you need a log in. It's free to log in. And once you log in, you can put in your domain name. And when you put it in your domain name, Ubersuggest will analyze your site and show you that an appropriate list of keywords that you can target, that you actually have a shot of ranking for and the shorter timeframe versus waiting years to get rankings for.

Now filter the base on the intent of what is relevant to your proctor services that you're selling. And what you'll find is Ubersuggest will break down if a keyword is easy to rank for or hard to rank for. Ideally target the ones that are the easiest to rank for, because it'll show as your difficulty score.

Even though you have a list of all the keywords that you can rank for, pick the ones that are not just the most relevant to your business, but pick the ones that have the lowest SEO difficulty score. That means you'll be able to get the results faster. That's what I want you to start doing.

Now the next thing I want you to do is that you go to the Site Audit Report within Ubersuggest. If you're starting off with SEO, it's not all about traffic, it's all about ranking for the right keywords that drive a results in the short run so that you will have more money to invest in more long-term marketing approaches.

With the Site Audit report, put in your URL, it'll break down all the Errors, what you need to fix, what's the most crucial, what is more suggested and isn't as crucial, how fast your website's loading, load speeds are really important factor because more people are browsing your website or pretty much the internet these days off of mobile devices than they are on desktop devices.

And what's cool with the Ubersuggest audit report is, it breaks out each and every single error in priority. What I mean by that is the ones listed at the top show you "hey, you need to fix these errors first because they'll have the biggest impact on your rankings and track." And then you second, third, fourth. So just knock them all down in order.

The last thing I want you to do is go create a project within Ubersuggest. So go to your dashboard, add a project, put in your URL, and put in the keywords that you want to rank for, and that you're targeting.

You know, at the beginning, maybe not week over week or day over day, but in the long run, quarter over quarter, you'll definitely see your rankings go up and if you fast forward a little bit, you'll start seeing your rankings go up to page one and page two.


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    19 Responses to NOT Every Keyword is Worth Pursuing in SEO (Here’s Why)

    1. Vinod Trivedi August 14, 2021 at 2:18 pm #

      What I hate about blogging, YouTube or any other online career that after sometime self proclaim experts come on the platform and says it’s crowded it’s hard to make money.
      So, if you make six figures than please take my course or hire me .

      • Neil Patel August 14, 2021 at 4:45 pm #

        There’s a lot of competition online so it’s not going to be easy

    2. mbakmamik official August 14, 2021 at 2:18 pm #



        Thank you! 🙂

    3. Abhishek Jaiswal August 14, 2021 at 2:42 pm #

      Hey Neil.. the option of “Keyword I can rank for” is not coming for me, even after logging in !!

    4. Promothash Boruah August 14, 2021 at 3:10 pm #

      Best technique

      • Neil Patel August 14, 2021 at 4:29 pm #

        Thank you!

    5. Teena Tiwari August 14, 2021 at 3:13 pm #

      Namaste sir , I am Teena Tiwari and I want to learn and build my career in seo and I genuinely love learning and gaining so much about it .

      I am certainly reading seo books, watching videos, reading blogs but,
      sir when it comes to implementing –
      I fail to do that and also when I go to implement it , everything becomes so new and unknown that I have never heard of it,
      like I have known nothing about it and it makes me feel so low that I start all over again from the very beginning where I started .
      And this has become a cycle of my learning and not being able to implementating .
      And when I go to write my content I feel the same like I know nothing and how will I explaine the things to the people out here who want to learn .
      I really need some of your gudeince to work without these things .

      I appreciate your efforts and help.
      Thank you.

      • Neil Patel August 14, 2021 at 4:32 pm #

        Hello my friend!

        I hear you. Digital marketing can be a lot. There are tons of different components. I have free courses here that I hope can help you 🙂

        I’m always responding to my comments as well if you ever have any questions.

    6. damini parande August 14, 2021 at 3:16 pm #

      Take away from the video is, while seo for competitive keyword is a long term game, in short term play, rank for keywords that are less competitive and easy to rank for


        Exactly 🙂 Get the low hanging fruit

    7. Interior Designer August 14, 2021 at 4:41 pm #

      Hi Neil, for example, the keyword ‘marketing agency in ny’ is same as ‘digital marketing agency in ny’ or they are considered different keywords for the purpose of targeting keyword and SEO. If they are in one page are they considered stuffing keywords? If they are in different pages do they compete against each other?

      • Neil Patel August 14, 2021 at 4:47 pm #

        If they drive the same results in the SERPs they’re considered the same 🙂

      • Interior Designer August 14, 2021 at 4:52 pm #

        @Neil Patel Are they considered duplicate if I include them in meta description in two different pages and one domain? thank you

    8. Suresh Rai August 14, 2021 at 6:51 pm #

      Thank You! So much Neil Uncle 🙂

    9. Pedro Rodriguez Jimenez August 14, 2021 at 7:21 pm #

      “Keywords that I can rank for” is not working in Spanish/ Spain

    10. Saif Nirob August 14, 2021 at 8:58 pm #

      Your voice recording is a mess. I’ve finished my volume bar to scroll but still struggling to hear your voice smoothly. Please do something about it. Otherwise, every small detail of your content must help someone like me. Thanks.

    11. Marketing Harry August 14, 2021 at 9:26 pm #

      Right, focus on keyword that can get you quicker results and avoid those which are way too competitive!

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