How To Rank For High Competition Keywords

High competition keywords are the keywords that almost all your competitors are using and ranking for. They're often advised to not to look for when you're doing keyword research. It's time to know the truth -

Everyone advises to look for keywords with decent search volumes and low competition keywords. But aren't high competition keywords worth it? Obviously they are, and that's why people are searching using them and your competitors are using them to rank.

While there are no actual tactics or shortcuts to rank for high competition keywords, let's get into it deep and approach it stepwise, slowly and effectively.

In this blog, we'll discuss some steps you should take to rank for high competition keywords. So, let's get into it and take a step forward to success.

1. Pre-work 

Can you start something you're not aware about? Well, no. So, before getting into keywords, let's check our own website first. Go through your website and know it. 

Check how old your website is. Because, the older a website is, the more search engine trust and the more authority it has than a newly created website.

Secondly, take care if there's an in-built network to drive traffic to your website. I.e., is any social media platform, or any other website connected to your website which leads traffic to the main website and where you can promote new content?

Taking a look and analyzing an already existing website is important before taking any step further, so that, if you find any errors, you can fix it before you get into a new thing. It's just like clearing the backlog.

1. Keyword Research 

Conduct basic keyword research. Find keywords through Google search bar, competitor's website and all the places you can think of. Follow the same procedure as you do for Keyword Research. 

Use a keyword research tool to gather more ideas, new keywords but while doing that, look for keywords that are in high competition and have a good search volume. Find keywords that are high competition as well as relevant to your business.

[ Remember, if the high competition keywords aren't relevant to your website, no one can help it rank on search engines like Google]

1. Checking The Competition 

How can you get ahead if you don't know the place of your competitors? But the first step is to know who your competitors are. A simple step you can take is, to put that keyword in the search bar, and pick the top 3 - top 10 websites on the SERP. 

Focus on some questions like -

• Which websites and URLs are ranking for those keywords?

• Do the top results include that keyword?

• Is the keyword present in the title tag?

• What's the type of content they're ranking for? Is it a blog, a video, a product or some other things? 

• Are they a big brand or a startup or a small business?

To get more information, use tools like SEMrush, or Ahrefs to check the keywords that your competitors are using and ranking for. Also, you can check their age, link profiles through various SEO plugins.

1. Knowing The Search Intent 

When you know the search intent of people who're searching and using the specific Keyword to gather information, it becomes easier to provide them what they're looking for. With that, the intent also helps you in gathering more relevant keywords for your content to rank.

The best way to know the search intent is to basically put the seed keyword, or the high competition keyword in the search bar, and search. The topmost results will tell you all about what the users actually want.

1. Planning 

Nothing goes right without a proper plan. And here, we're on the way to be successful; how can we leave the planning part? No way!

Firstly, find the concept. What do you want to provide or, more specifically and correctly, what does the user want? Is it an article? A blog? A product page? A video? Or something else? Know the intent and the type of content your audience wants.

Then, use the keywords. Use them in the title tags, headings, subheadings, descriptions and evenly and naturally throughout the content. 

Make sure to use the targeted keyword at the earliest and starting phase of the body. 

Also, in your content, focus on Interlinking other relevant content. This helps you drive traffic from many sources.

1. Optimizing For Voice

This is a not so considered fact but, voice search is going to take over search engines in future. Every 5 in 10 people use voice search these days, the number is increasing continuously.

So, optimize your content for the voice search. And this means, use the long tail keywords. While you're using that high competition keyword, that doesn't mean you can use more, so, go for the long tail keywords. 

• Use conversational tone.

• Use simple keywords but targeted keywords.

• Focus on making secondary keywords as a question type.

These secondary keywords support the primary high competition keyword to rank on search engines.

1. Analyze And Improve 

After you're done publishing, regularly check the metrics. See if your website's ranking or not. If it's ranking, focus on keeping it up to date and revamp regularly.

If it isn't, know the reasons. Check where you went wrong and how you can improve it.

Ranking for high competition keywords can be a bit tricky but never impossible. All the efforts you put into it, and analyze regularly will turn into a better result. Remember, there's no perfect way to achieve ranks on search engines. So, keep trying and keep testing!