Le natural referencing (SEO) is an essential pillar of digital marketing. But for an SEO strategy to be effective, it must be based on carefully selected and optimized keywords. Finding relevant keywords, sufficiently relevant and targeted, is therefore crucial for the success of a website.
However, with millions of search engine queries every day, it can be difficult to navigate. How to sort between very generic terms and others that are too specific? On what criteria should you base your choice to aim correctly? A successful SEO strategy always starts with careful keyword analysis.
In this article, we will see what are the best practices to put in place to determine the key words and expressions that constitute the foundation of quality SEO. By applying these wise tips, you will be able to define a targeted, relevant and sustainable SEO strategy for your business!
C'est quoi un mots-clés en SEO
A keyword in natural referencing (SEO) designates a term or an expression that Internet users will type into the Google search engine to find information. For example, quelqu'un qui cherche un restaurant italien à Paris peut taper "restaurant italien Paris" dans la barre de recherche Google. Ici, "restaurant italien Paris" constitue le mot-clé saisi par l'internaute pour trouver des adresses correspondantes à sa requête.
En optimisant le référencement de ses pages web pour certains mots-clés, un site web cherche à apparaître le plus haut possible dans les résultats de recherche Google. Ainsi, ce restaurant italien parisien aurait tout intérêt à optimiser son site et ses pages pour le mot-clé "restaurant italien Paris". L'objectif est d'attirer vers son établissement les clients potentiels qui effectuent cette recherche précise sur Google. Les mots-clés permettent donc de comprendre ce que tapent les internautes dans Google pour trouver un site web.
Tips for Finding Good Keywords
Here are some tips to help you find the right keywords to target in your SEO strategy:
✔️ Analyze your current traffic
La première étape pour trouver les bons mots-clés consiste à examiner de près le trafic que votre site reçoit déjà. Pour cela, l’outil Google Analytics est indispensable. Il vous donnera de précieuses informations sur les habitudes et les comportements des internautes qui visitent vos pages. Plus précisément, rendez-vous dans la section "Acquisition" then "Organic Keywords". Cette partie répertorie toutes les requêtes, mots et expressions clés qui amènent les visiteurs sur votre site depuis les moteurs de recherche.
Find out which pages generate the most traffic and the best conversion rate. Then analyze the top 10 to 20 search terms used to land specifically on those Powerful URLs. These are most likely the most relevant keywords that already meet the expectations of your visitors. They absolutely must be among your priority SEO targets.
Further optimizing their positioning will allow you to ride the wave of their popularity among Internet users. Targeting these relevant terms is a good way to further improve your current SEO results. So, by starting directly from what works on your site, you can be sure to base your keyword strategy on concrete data and real conversions. Enough to aim right from the start!
✔️ Study the competition
Another valuable source of inspiration for finding the right keywords lies in analyzing your competitor sites. Indeed, your rivals probably face the same challenges and questions as you when it comes to SEO. Start by doing a Google search with the main keywords related to your industry. Identify the first 5 sites that appear on the SERP (results page). These are your direct competitors.
Then go to a SEO analysis tool comme Ahrefs ou SEMrush. Entrez le nom de domaine de chacun de vos concurrents pour découvrir leurs pages et mots-clés les mieux positionnés. Dans la section "Mots-clés organiques", vous trouverez le Top 10 ou 20 des termes qu’ils ciblent en priorité. Prenez le temps d'analyser précisément cette liste. Certains mots-clés pertinents pour votre activité y figurent peut-être déjà.
Indeed, if these terms work well in terms of traffic and conversions for your competitors, they also have great potential for your own site. Go dig into their winning keywords! Studying what other players in your sector are doing represents a gold mine for determining the right keywords to target in SEO. To perform, focus on what works!
✔️ Use keyword suggestion tools
Once you've analyzed your current traffic and studied your rivals, it's time to take things to the next level. Many powerful tools exist to generate optimized keyword ideas in one click. Let’s take advantage of it!
First, define a list of 3 to 5 key words or phrases that represent the core of your business. For example "pizzeria Naples", "restaurants italiens Paris" etc. Rendez-vous ensuite sur des outils réputés de suggestion de mots-clés comme :
- Ahrefs Keyword Explorer
- Google Keyword Planner
- From UberSuggest
Entrez un à un vos termes de base et lancez la génération de suggestions. Ces logiciels vont analyser des milliers de données pour trouver des variantes de mots-clés pertinentes. Ainsi, en partant de "pizzeria", vous pourriez obtenir :
- pizzeria delivery
- pizzeria address
- vegetarian pizzeria menu
- Italian pizzeria Paris 15th
etc.
Keep the top 20 to 30 suggestions from each tool in your list. You thus enrich your thinking thanks to new opportunities for synonymous, complementary or derived keywords. By taking advantage of the algorithms of this intelligent software, save precious time to accelerate the optimization of your selection of key words and expressions. Enough to quickly move up a gear in SEO!
✔️ Fine-tune your targets
Once your list of keywords is established, the work is not finished. On the contrary, now is the time to further refine your targets to keep only the most promising ones. Immediately delete all terms that are too generic and broad like “restaurant” or “pizza” which refer to billions of pages. These queries are far too competitive in SEO and you have no chance of appearing on the first page.
Also screen your list for relevance. Eliminate suggestions that have no concrete relationship to your business or products. No need to waste time optimizing them! Then, strive to favor long tails in your keyword choices. For example, prefer “vegetarian pizzeria home delivery Paris 15th” to a simple “pizzeria Paris”.
The more precise the query and the Google-friendly wording, the more likely it is to attract a qualified Internet user ready to convert on your site! Finally, keep refining! Do research, read industry news, talk to your customers. And continually, finely adjust your selection of keywords to stay as close as possible to the needs of the moment. With this permanent refinement strategy, your list of target keywords will always maintain its full conversion potential!
✔️ Test and validate
Once your selection of keywords has been established, it is time to move on to the final step: testing them to keep only the most efficient ones. To start, select 5 to 10 of your priority keywords. Create or optimize as many pages or articles specifically targeting the SEO of these terms.
For example, write a blog post about “The best vegetarian pizzerias that deliver to your home in Paris” using this target keyword in some titles and subtitles. Then wait 2 or 3 months for search engines to properly index your optimized content.
Then analyze precisely in Google Analytics traffic and conversions obtained specifically on these pages and for these keywords. Do some work better than others? Did they result in sales or qualified contacts? Keep only the really effective terms in your list and delete the others. Repeat the operation regularly with new test keywords to further refine your selection.
This progressive testing and validation strategy will allow you to sort so that you only keep the very best keywords in the long term. Those who transform! By adjusting your targets as you go, your SEO will reach an optimal level of performance and relevance.
Different types of keywords and web traffic
There are mainly 3 types of keywords to take into account in an SEO strategy:
✔️ Generic keywords
Les mots-clés génériques (aussi appelés keywords "tête de requête") font référence aux termes et expressions les plus vastes et populaires liés à un secteur d'activité. Some examples : "hôtel", "restaurant", "pizzeria", "boulangerie", "voyage", "chaussure", "assurance", etc.
Ces mots-clés ont l'avantage d'avoir un volume de recherche énorme. Ce sont les requêtes les plus tapées par les internautes dans Google. Optimiser pour ces termes permet donc de bénéficier d'un trafic entrant potentiel très élevé. De plus, les mots-clés génériques sont connus du grand public et constituent les mots initiaux utilisés par les internautes pour entamer leur recherche.
However, the disadvantages are major. Generic keywords are ultra competitive, car tous les acteurs d'un secteur les ciblent en priorité dans leur stratégie SEO. Il devient alors extrêmement difficile de se positionner en top 10 des résultats de recherche Google pour ces termes, à moins d'investir énormément de temps et d'efforts en optimisation.
In addition, by targeting only broad queries, you run the risk of artificially inflating your traffic with unqualified visits, which will convert poorly once on the site. Although difficult to rank, it is however strategic to keep a few generic keywords in your selection, if only to capitalize on your existing traffic. But be careful to balance them with more specific and targeted requests!
✔️ Specific keywords
Specific keywords are targeted, specific queries that go beyond simple generic terms. For example, instead of optimizing only for “hotel”, we will target “Nice 5-star hotel with sea view” or “design hotel Paris center”. The major advantage of specific keywords is that they are less competitive than general queries. In fact, they concern a well-defined need of a more restricted part of Internet users. As a result, fewer players position themselves on it, which makes SEO easier.
Targeting specific queries also makes it possible to attract more qualified traffic, truly interested in the type of service or product we offer. These visitors will therefore be more likely to convert once on the site. Specific keywords create tailor-made traffic, perfectly aligned with its offer.
On the other hand, the monthly volume of searches will logically be lower than for generic keywords, given that we are targeting a more niche part of Internet users with well-defined needs. But what matters, it’s the quality of the traffic! 500 highly targeted and interested visits will often yield more in terms of conversions than a vague flow of 5000 visits with no purchase intention. The ideal is to combine several of these approaches to identify many variations of specific keywords, before selecting only the most relevant ones to target.
✔️ Long size keywords (long tail)
Long-tail keywords, also called “long tail keywords” in English, refer to keyword formulations containing 3 or more terms.
For example:
- "chaussure de randonnée Goretex femme soldes"
- "pantalon de ski enfants débutants pas cher"
- "location appartement vue Tour Eiffel 5 personnes"
These ultra-specific formulations have many advantages in SEO. First of all, they benefit from very low competition, given their precise nature which sticks to the well-defined needs of a small research group. In addition, the conversion rate of this type of traffic is excellent. An Internet user who types such a targeted query knows exactly what he is looking for. Once on a relevant page, he therefore has a good chance of becoming a buyer or a qualified lead.
Another advantage is that this long tail traffic, thanks to its high intention, goes directly to the niche pages and articles that correspond precisely to the service or product that interests it. We therefore observe fewer bounces and better user journeys.
Certainly, the monthly volume for a long tail keyword remains limited, of the order of a few dozen or hundreds of searches. But the ROI generated largely compensates for the relativity of the volumes, thanks to the excellent conversion rates. To identify these rare pearls of long tail keywords, several approaches:
- Analysis of existing traffic
- Examination of questions asked in after-sales service and in chat
- Customer verbatims in reviews and surveys
- Brainstorming with front-line salespeople
- Keyword suggestion tools
Although tedious, collecting long-tail keywords is well worth it, as their ROI is so interesting. A few hundred of these ultra-specific queries in your keyword mix are enough to significantly boost your SEO results!
Conclusion
Trouver les bons mots-clés est un exercice crucial pour le succès d'une stratégie de référencement naturel efficace et durable. Une sélection pertinente de termes ciblés vous permettra d'améliorer considérablement votre visibilité dans les résultats de recherche Google. En analysant votre trafic existant, en étudiant vos concurrents et en utilisant des outils de suggestion, vous partez sur des bases solides pour identifier les meilleures opportunités de mots clés. Complétez votre démarche en peaufinant vos cibles et en ne conservant au final que les requêtes réellement performantes depuis de les avoir testées.
Une compilation intelligente de mots-clés génériques à fort volume, de longues traînes ultra spécifiques et de requêtes intermédiaires pertinentes est la clé d'un référencement naturel de qualité. En ajustant régulièrement votre sélection selon les résultats obtenus, votre site se hissera progressivement vers les premières places des pages de résultats Google.
FAQ
Qu'est-ce qu'un mot-clé en SEO ?
A keyword designates a term or expression that Internet users will type into Google to find a website. Example: "pizzeria Paris 15ème". Bien optimiser son site pour certains mots-clés permet de mieux ranker dans les résultats de recherche.
How to find ideas for good keywords?
To find keywords to target, you can: analyze your analytics to identify queries that are already working, study the keywords of competing sites, use keyword suggestion tools (GKP, Semrush, etc.), do Google searches for potential keywords.
Should you target generic or specific keywords?
L'idéal est un mix des deux ! Les mots-clés génériques (exemple : "pizzeria") amènent beaucoup de trafic mais sont ultra compétitifs. Les spécifiques ("pizzeria bio Paris 5ème") sont moins concurrentiels et attirent un trafic plus qualifié et conversions.
Qu'est-ce qu'une longue traîne ?
Il s'agit de requêtes très précises avec 3 mots ou plus (ex : "pizzeria végétarienne livraison à domicile Lyon"). Bien que peu recherchées, ces expressions ultra ciblées convertissent très bien une fois sur votre site.
How many keywords should you target?
For E-commerce site, il est recommandé de compiler une liste d'environ 200 à 300 mots-clés optimisés sur les pages et articles importants. Pour un blog, vous pouvez monter à 500 voire 1 000 mots-clés cibles.