All SEO services company tell you that keywords are the most important for your position in the google search result page. And they are not wrong. Keywords are very important. But we can be one step ahead if we focus more on topical search than keywords. Let us first understand the difference between the two.
Buyer needs to buy something- let us assume it is makeup and more specifically eyeshadow. Yes, our buyer is a woman. Women seem to shop a lot online. Well, to buy eyeshadow online, she types ‘buy eyeshadow online' on the google search engine. Google will display results which have eyeshadow in it in the order of credibility of such site over the internet.
Now have a little peek on how google works to understand better the concept of topical search. A search engine is a software supported by many algorithms. Firstly, it read your website, different articles, content and ‘index' them and from a database. Now when the user searches for specific keywords, it ‘processes' it and compares with the indexed database. With the help of algorithms , it ‘calculate the relevancy' of your website content with searched keywords and then ‘retrieve' the results displaying them on the browser.
So this is how google puts you on top. Now how can topical search help you? Back to our female eyeshadow buyer. So she wants to buy eyeshadow and she lands on our page. Now since we were all about keywords so we backlinked our eyeshadow page with foundation, concealer, primer, lip stain and what not. But put yourself in the position of the buyer. Would you visit the foundation page if you want to buy the eyeshadow? No. If you wanted to see foundations, you would have searched for a foundation. The ‘eyeshadow' is the core term and you need to display results which contain that term.
Hope the idea is getting clearer to you. Now topical search. Divide the one keyword into as many sections as you can. You can divide ‘eyeshadow' to eyeshadow for warm skin tone, eyeshadow for cool skin tone, organic eyeshadow, powder eyeshadow, cream eyeshadow, pencil eyeshadow etc. Thus, the buyer will visit your each page in an effort of selecting the best for her. Now as the next step, you can insert links for other products like eyeshadow base, eyeshadow dust, eye primer, eyeliner and eyebrow pencil. What we are saying is that showcase all your products that have ‘eyeshadow' in it. Thus even if your buyer wants to buy eyeshadow base rather than eyeshadow itself, your content is relevant.
It appears we have used the word ‘eyeshadow' more than ‘topical search'. But topical search is best defined using examples. So understand the intent of your audience and always remain one step ahead with a topical search.