How to Target Striking Distance Keywords | Digital Dot

How to target striking distance keywords

Did you know that 75% of all clicks go to the top three Google search results and that only 0.78% of users click on the second-page results? These numbers demonstrate that merely appearing in search engine results is not enough; you must dominate the first page. In such places in the SERPs, you are in a better position to reach potential customers and generate high-quality leads. Moreover, these numbers underline the significance of SEO and a well-planned keyword strategy. The best way to get targeted visitors to your website is to research and implement industry-specific keywords into its design. However, it’s not the best strategy to use if you need to see rapid improvements in your search engine rankings. To do so, you should begin focusing on “striking distance” keywords. As one of the top digital marketing agencies in New York, our team understands how to target striking distance keywords and why it’s so important.

What are striking distance keywords and how to target them?

Before we let you know how to target striking distance keywords, you first need to understand what this term means. A brand’s “striking distance keywords” are those that already have a high Google PageRank. On the other hand, they may be toward the bottom of page one, or between spots 11 and 30. This is why they’re called “striking distance” from the first page of search results — your ultimate destination.

Photo of a laptop on a table next to a coffee mug with Google opened on it
If you target striking distance keywords you’ll ensure your content ends up at the very top of the search engine results page.

To sum it up, the best kind of keywords are the ones with a “striking distance” because they require little effort but yield a large reward. It’s true that even minor adjustments can have a significant impact on your website’s performance in search engine results pages. Getting your sites to the top of the search results pages is as easy as tweaking the metadata, including LSI keywords in existing blogs, or reusing current material.

The role of striking distance keywords?

Improving your company’s SEO performance may be done quickly and easily by learning to use striking distance keywords and reusing your blog posts in new ways. An experienced New York SEO consultant claims that having keywords within striking distance indicates that Google finds your material relevant. You have a good position for that search term already; some minor tweaks will get you onto the first page.

Keep in mind that targeting high-volume search terms for which you do not currently rank is far more difficult and less fruitful than attempting to bring keywords inside ranks 11-30 to the top. Here are just some of the things you can accomplish when you center your repurposing approach around the striking distance method:

  • Achieve first-place rankings, boost earnings to their full potential, and reduce workload.
  • Improve your click-through rate.
  • Benefit from greater authority and more positive brand perception in addition to significant keyword victories.

How to find striking distance keywords?

Finding and using striking distance keywords with tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and SEMRush makes this task so much easier for you. Regardless of the tool you’re using, make sure to look for keywords that fall on the second or third pages of results.

Keep in mind nonetheless that the popularity of keywords related to striking distance is also crucial. Make sure you’re focusing on questions people actually ask. Rather than focusing solely on SEO, your primary objective should be to boost organic sales. A decent rule of thumb is to seek out keywords with a high search volume and low search competition in order to maximize your striking distance. Assuming you have identified the most fruitful search phrases, you can then analyze the top-ranking pages for those terms to identify areas for improvement.

If you are comfortable with the tools you have at your disposal, you can handle this on your own. Alternatively, you may hire an SEO firm that focuses on both technical SEO and content development to help you pick these low-hanging fruits. For instance, you can rely on experts from PPC services NYC that can not only help you boost your SEO but do so much more.

How to target striking distance keywords?

Striking distance keyword research centers on fine-tuning your current approach. Because of your current high ranking for these terms, minor adjustments should be all that’s required to maintain it. If you over-optimize, you risk Google’s as well as your users’ disapproval.

Person typing on a laptop and using Google Analytics
There are plenty of free tools that can help you easily find striking distance keywords.

Also, be aware that this performs best when incorporated into your content repurposing plan. Inspiring ideas for your own blog might be found in these doable guidelines for recycling old posts. When content is repurposed, it’s used again, or “recycled,” to reach a wider audience. It includes reworking material for a new audience and making minor adjustments to older works to ensure they remain in the public eye. So here’s the advice from social media marketing NYC experts on how to target striking distance keywords and repurpose your content.

1. Include them in your content

It’s possible for a blog to achieve prominence for a keyword phrase within striking distance without actually employing the phrase itself. On other occasions, it might just use the term once or twice. You can take the following actions if you have a blog post like this one in your possession:

  • Find out how often a specific term was typed into the blog’s search bar.
  • Depending on the frequency with which it was already used, repeat the striking distance keyword two or three times. You’ll do more harm than good to your SEO efforts if you resort to keyword stuffing.

2. Optimize your blog’s metadata

If you want to repurpose material for keywords within striking distance, a simple but effective technique is to modify the elements inside the article. Inquire if the ranking keyword may be included in the site’s metadata which consists of the title, H1, schema, alt, and image tags.

Users’ first impressions of a search result often come from the meta description, even though it has no bearing on rankings. Spending extra time and effort on description writing can boost CTRs and, in turn, search engine rankings.

3. Consider the length of your blog

Another good way to improve your page ranking is to find out how long your popular blog post is. Improving blogs that are only 200–500 words long simply requires adding more content and restructuring existing sections. Striking distance is an important term to use in the supplementary section if you want to improve SEO rankings.

Although there are no hard and fast rules, longer material seems to rank higher in Google searches. In fact, experts suggest that the average length of an article that achieves first-page organic search results is 1,447 words.

4. Find opportunities to build links

Including both internal and external links helps your post rank higher for the keywords you want to use to generate a click-through rate. The internal links in articles not only aid readers in navigating the site, but also increase its visibility to search engines. External links, on the other hand, show search engines that you can direct visitors to other useful resources, which increases your credibility.

Person typing a blog post in WordPress using an iMac
Adding internal and external links to your blog posts is a good way to boost SEO.

Get results quickly with these two tried-and-true strategies for constructing inbound links within your own site:

  • Search for popular blog posts that have already included your term in their title for maximum impact.
  • Use the striking distance keyword as anchor text for the pages you’d like to rank higher on search engines.

The bottom line

We hope our article helps you understand and target striking distance keywords. It’s something worth at least considering as striking distance keywords can help you achieve speedy SEO success and thus attract more visitors to your website.

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