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Nowadays, WordPress (WP) is one of the most popular hosting platforms and one of the best content management systems (CMS). That said, around 36.3% of all global websites are hosted on WP, providing this platform with a 63% market share.
However, like any other website, WP websites need SEO (Search Engine Optimization). With so many WP websites online, you must ensure your audience can easily find you and access your content.
As you may already know, keywords are the essence of SEO. Therefore, have you ever wondered how exactly people find your website? The simple answer is that they use search queries and keywords to see what they want.
So, if you want to rank high on search engines such as Google, you might consider researching those keywords more deeply.
An extensive keyword analysis can help you create a solid strategy to increase your WP website’s visibility, credibility, and exposure online. With that in mind, here are a few ways to see the keywords people use to find your WP website.
Why should you track keywords?
As mentioned before, keywords are still the essence of SEO. For all you know, you might be targeting the wrong keywords, whereas your audience is using utterly different search queries.
Other than that, you might be targeting more competitive keywords when there’s an alternative you didn’t even know about. Therefore, here are a few reasons why you should track the keywords that people are using to find your website:
- Discover more relevant keywords with less competition
- Structure your SEO strategy based on those keywords
- Evaluate the performance of your marketing efforts
- Filter out keywords that aren’t valuable to you
- Expand your keyword list
- Diversify your keyword list
Get help from Google
One of the best ways to start tracking keywords is to leverage Google’s free tools. More specifically, the Google Search Console (GSC). Adding the Search Console to your WP website is fairly straightforward. Here is a brief guide that will help you set everything up:
- Create a free account on GSC.
- On the left-hand dropdown menu, click “add property”.
- Type in your website address, such as: “https://www.mywpwebsite.com.
- Verify that you own the website—There are several ways to do this. For instance, you can add an HTML file to your server, add a meta tag, edit your DNS, connect to Google Analytics, and so on.
After the setup, you’ll start seeing various data on your website. Don’t worry if you don’t see it immediately; everything might take a few hours, so be patient.
There are two ways to track keywords: one via GSC and the other via Google Analytics. Linking these two tools together is advisable to gain better insights. Here’s how the process goes.
Google Analytics
By now, you might be wondering what the difference between Google Analytics and GSC is. Let’s stop for a while to clarify the matter.
The GSC tool is search engine-oriented and will provide you with insight regarding your general rankings and activities. Google Analytics is a more in-depth and user-oriented tool.
For example, with Google Analytics, you can gather data about user actions, individual visits, page visits, and activities, such as clicks, views, shares, etc. In other words, you get more detailed information regarding whatever is happening on your website. The information is structured based on four levels:
- User level
- Session Level
- Pageview level
- Event level
That includes the keywords people use to find you. However, the data gathered this way tends to be a bit complex. If you have trouble understanding the data, you can integrate a reliable SEO reporting tool and extract more comprehensible reports regarding keywords.
In any event, tracking keywords in Google Analytics is also reasonably straightforward. Once you log on to the tool, you can access the dashboard and select the Acquisitions tab > Search Console > Queries. Here, you can learn how your users got to your website.
For example, you can discover if they came through organic search or paid ads. Also, you can determine if they clicked on a backlink or navigated from other sources.
Last, you can determine if they typed something in their search bar that led them to your WP website. Regarding keywords, Google Analytics can provide detailed details, such as the monthly volume for a specific keyword, the keyword’s competitiveness, CPC (cost-per-click in paid search), and so on.
Google Search Console
GSC is an interesting tool. It lets you learn much about your website and how users interact with it. But let’s get to the matter: using GSC to track keywords. The process is quite simple, and it only takes a few steps.
First, log into your GSC; you’ll see the “performance” tab on the left side. In this section, the “queries” tab you need will be selected by default. This section can provide vital information regarding any relevant keywords and queries people use to find you. Here are a few things you can find here:
- Impressions
- Clicks
- Average position
- CTR (Click-Through-Rate)
- Keywords
- Queries
Tracking the keywords people use to find your WP site is vital. Nowadays, SEO is a mandatory marketing strategy, mainly because the market is oversaturated and highly competitive. Surviving in such a dynamic environment becomes increasingly complex without a reliable SEO strategy to help you reach the top, especially for new websites.
Author Bio:
Jolene Rutherford is a marketing specialist and turned blogger who is currently writing for technivorz.com. Interested in digital marketing and new technology trends. I love sharing content that can help and mean to people.