How to Score SEO Relevancy: A Guide
Term | Definition | Importance |
---|---|---|
Relevance Scoring | Assigning numerical values to search terms to indicate their relevance to a given topic. | Helps identify the best terms to target for SEO campaigns and assess their effectiveness. |
Third-Party Relevancy Scores | Proprietary scores from keyword research tools that indicate the frequency of a keyword's appearance in the overall search volume of its main parent topic. | Useful for keyword research within a specific topic and for finding related keywords, however not suitable for keyword valuation. |
Creating Your Own Relevancy Score | Developing a scoring system based on your customer avatars, their search intents, your conversion goals, and the alignment between your keywords and your content. | Enables a tailored approach to SEO strategy, ensuring the scoring system is unique to your business and its goals. |
Search Intent | The why behind a search query, indicating what the searcher wants to achieve with their search. | Understanding search intent helps tailor your keywords and content to match the needs of your users, boosting SEO effectiveness. |
Conversion Goals | The desired actions you want visitors to take on your website, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. | Aligning keywords and content with conversion goals can increase the likelihood of achieving these goals. |
Keyword Alignment | The degree to which the keywords you target match the content you present. | Strong keyword alignment enhances the relevance of your content to searchers, boosting SEO performance. |
Transactional Query | A search query indicating a high intent to make a purchase or other transaction. | Targeting these types of keywords can improve profitability, given their potential to convert. |
Navigational Query | A search query indicating the intent to reach a specific website. | Properly meeting these search intents can improve user satisfaction and rankings. |
Informational Query | A search query indicating the intent to learn more about a topic or answer a question. | Addressing these queries effectively can highlight your expertise and increase your ranking for educational searches. |
SEO Relevancy | The level of appropriateness of your content in relation to a user's search query. | Achieving SEO relevancy through relevance scoring can improve your search rankings and drive more traffic to your website. |
This article discussed relevance scoring, different relevance scores, and how to develop your relevance scoring system. Relevance scoring is assigning numerical values to search terms to indicate how closely related they are to a given topic. It is a valuable tool for keyword research and assessing the effectiveness of campaigns.
Third-party relevancy scores are available, but creating your relevance scoring system is essential to ensure it is tailored to your business and its goals. This involves considering customer avatars, search intents, conversion goals, and the alignment between keywords and content.
Introduction
What is Relevance Scoring?
Third-Party Relevancy Scores
Developing Your Relevancy Score
Conclusion
Introduction: Relevance scoring is assigning numerical values to search terms to indicate how closely related they are to a given topic. It is a valuable tool for keyword research and can help marketers and businesses identify the best terms to target for their campaigns. Relevance scoring can also be used to assess existing campaigns' effectiveness and develop new strategies. In this article, we will explore relevance scoring, the different relevance scores available, and how to develop your own relevance scoring system.
What is Relevance Scoring?
Relevance scoring is assigning numerical values to search terms to indicate how closely related they are to a given topic. The values are typically assigned on a scale from 1 to 3, with 1 being the most relevant and three being the least relevant. Relevance scoring is used to measure the effectiveness of a keyword or phrase about a particular topic or query.
Third-Party Relevancy Scores
Some keyword research tools offer proprietary “relevance” or “relevancy” scores for search terms. This is not the same “relevance” that we’re talking about in this article. Third-party relevancy scores measure how often a keyword appears in the overall search volume of its main parent topic or parent keyword (if you’re researching similar terms). This can be useful for keyword research within a specific topic and for finding related keywords, but it isn’t a good metric to use for keyword valuation.
Developing Your Relevancy Score
Rather than relying on a third-party score, it is essential to consider your customer avatars and their search intents, your conversion goals, and the alignment between your keywords and your page content. This will help you to develop your relevance scoring system. We suggest a scale from 1 to 3, with 1 being a highly relevant transactional query (likely to convert), 2 being a reasonably relevant navigational query (may convert), and 3 being a general informational query (unlikely to convert). It is important to remember that your relevance scoring system must be unique to your business and its goals.
Conclusion: Relevance scoring is a valuable tool for keyword research, allowing businesses to identify the best terms to target for their campaigns. Third-party relevancy scores are an option, but creating your relevance scoring system is essential to ensure it is tailored to your business and its goals. By taking into account customer avatars, search intents, conversion goals, and the alignment between keywords and content, you can develop a unique scoring system for your business and its needs.
Achieving SEO relevancy requires a combination of strategy and attention to detail.
David Lipper is an experienced and successful SEO professional. He has worked in the industry since 1997 and has been with his current company since 2006.
David is a highly sought-after consultant and speaker and has given presentations on SEO at various conferences worldwide. He is also a contributing writer for Search Engine Land.
When he's not working or writing about SEO, David enjoys spending time with his wife and two young children.