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Thank you, that was helpful, I'll certainly make use of that.

They probably use it in their Meta Title and have enough LSI keywords or related keywords that Google clearly correlates them with the keyword you are searching for.  Also, I bet they have a good amount of quality inbound links and possibly some internal or external ones pointing to the ranking page that have part of or all of the keywords in them. I would try and evaluate why Google thinks this is the best result in terms of quality and content depth, not simply if they have the exact keyword in the page copy or not.

It's still quite important and helps Google to contextualize a page effectively. If you try to have an H1 without giving it the proper / normal prominence, Google will be wise to that and they will simply devalue your H1. Either have one loud and proud, or don't bother

they are not hard your site structure matter your article presentation matter

I think that optimizing for a specific keyword or keywords is sort of out of date I think this piece of content is excellent regarding this topic. Keywords obviously matter but not in the same way most people think they do. https://www.getcredo.com/content-keyword-topics/ Also please pay attention to what Cyrus is written below this post. https://moz.com/blog/7-advanced-seo-concepts to answer your question definitely optimize all titles open graph etc. if that's what you're asking and yes do conversion rate optimization Title Tag/Meta Description optimized for CTR just in case YES

Hey Unique Digital, It's a good question, and I hear what you're saying. If Google is crawling everything as a mobile crawler only, desktop rankings should basically be the same, right? It might get there eventually, but I can say that it's definitely not there now. For one, Google is crawling mobile first, but it's also keeping an eye on desktop versions of sites. At the very least, I'm pretty sure Google is separating mobile and desktop UX metrics. Also, on queries for my company's site (international money transfers), I can tell you that 1) Google does not show the same rankings between desktop and mobile. Mobile has more answer boxes, and I've noticed that if a site has an answer box, they're less likely to also have the #1 organic result. So, at least for now, yes, you should track both. Best, Kristina

If you haven't done any keyword research, your article still contains keywords - you just don't know what they are. It will make the performance of your content erratic. Even this comment which I am typing now, contains keywords which Google will be picking up on. Google doesn't know what research you have done and all strings of text contain words, which when grouped in certain ways can form keywords You'll just get traffic for slightly bizarre queries every now and then as your work will lack focus. Keyword research is something you do to target your content. It doesn't mean that content can't perform without keyword research, though - but that un-targeted performance may not bring the visitors you would wish for

Hey, something I've been thinking about lately is "where is the point of diminishing returns for keyword research detail?" I get that keyword research is important for finding out stuff like "people generally search for 'doctor' way more often than they search for 'licensed medical professional'", but what about after that? Is there much useful information to be found by sifting through spreadsheets of stats about "doctor" vs "dr" vs "doctors" vs "physician" vs "physicians" etc? Especially when Google seems to treat a lot of those as interchangable? I wouldn't worry too much about "doctor" vs "dr" vs "doctors" - those are synonyms and the intent of the user doesn't change much. Or another example: If a remodeling company did basements, do you think there's much to be gleaned from AdWords data comparing "basement remodeler", "basement remodelers", basement remodeling", "basement remodeling contractor", "basement remodeling contractors", "basement renovation", "basement renovations", "basement renovators", "finished basements", "basement finishers", "basement finishing", etc.? Should those variations be analyzed and each targeted by their own sets of pages and pieces of content (e.g. a blog post that specifically targets "basement remodeler" and a blog post that targets "basement finisher" and a third blog post that specifically targets "renovated basement") This example is different. The intent behind "basement remodeler" and "basement remodel" are rather different. The first is looking for local businesses, the second is looking for general information about remodels. To confirm this, all you need to do is look at the search results. Remodeler has a big local pack and list of local companies when I search it. When I search for the "remodel" version, I get a big photo pack, then local businesses, then People Also Ask questions, so there is clearly multiple search intent scenarios behind that example. I wrote a bunch more about viewing the SERP closely to measure and classify intent here: https://www.contentharmony.com/blog/classifying-search-intent/ in case you're interested in diving deeper on those approaches. To your point regarding targeting separate pages for it, yes and no. A local business should try and rank for one but may not be as focused on the second one. But it is worth creating a page that captures one overall intent and then figuring out which other keywords match it. Or should the takeaway be "there aren't any combinations that people overwhelmingly prefer to use, so let's just make content about basements and topics relevant to basements. Keyword research complete." Nah you need to be more specific or intentional about it than this.

Ok, it is difficult without a full set of data. But if traffic has dropped and not rankings, then it is seasonal.  Mortgage Broker is a big term, so if that is still ranking 1 then sounds ok. What does sound concerning, is it now sounds like you have a number of sites and they could be interlinked ie a PBN.. so have to factor same in. It is tough to advise, but my view is if rankings have remained the same and online visibility if you are tracking - then all is good.  If rankings for mortgage broker and visibility have declined then it is a problem and site audit should be undertaken asap. Not sure that helps,  as data sets not great, but hopefully a starting point. Regards

thanks for this mr whippy

In terms of intent, I originally targeted "training" to compete with competitors - they were doing only classroom training and we were trying to sway customers over to online training which we do. But it's been a few years now and searchers are looking more for "online courses", which we get found for, but not positioned as well as we could be. I'll consider putting together a separate page targeting "online course" and use your advice for linking to it from a reworked training page. Thanks.

You're so welcome, Kathy. We're glad to have you here and please keep your good questions coming as you move along in the learning process.

Thumbs up, checking Ad Rank is for relevancy is a pretty cool idea - thanks for reminding me there's a whole other world out there besides SEO!

thanks again!

I'll look into a/b testing. Thanks again!

That helps a lot indeed! Thank you so much for your reply. I'll get on with this asap

I believe that the title tag is the most powerful optimization element of a webpage, and second to that is on-page anchor text links at the top of the page. We are using on-page table-of-contents more and more. We want it very high on the page, but we believe that it is very important to display our feature image with caption immediately.  And, an introductory paragraph should be above the TOC.   So, on desktop and mobile, the site presents as below... ON DESKTOP Title of Article -- introductory paragraph --     -- feature image --- -- table of contents --- ON MOBILE Title of Article -- feature image-- -- introductory paragraph-- -- table of contents --

Thanks effectdigital, Screaming Frog did show H1s on blogs so I am going to assume it is a non-issue.

Thanks very much for your help Andrew!