How to Rank for A Keyword Fast In 3 Easy Steps

Do you want to know how to rank for a keyword fast in 2023?

Just imagine ranking #1 for a commercial keyword like “best DSLR cameras”. You’ll be making a ton of affiliate commission every single month.

Quick note: Selling a $2000 worth camera at 4% commission (Amazon associates standard commission) can earn you $80 per each sale! Even if you get 1 sale a day, you’ll be earning $2400 every month i.e $80 * 30 days. And that’s just for one keyword. Imagine ranking #1 on Google for more such commercial keywords!

But here’s the thing: ranking #1 on Google for any keyword is NOT easy.

It becomes even more difficult if you want to rank for “commercial intent keywords” unless you’re using the most effective off page SEO techniques.

Now, if you’re wondering about the difference between informative vs commercial intent keywords, have a look at this illustration.

That being said, if you’re wondering about how to rank for a keyword fast in 2023, this post will shed some light.

Are you ready to find out how to rank for a keyword quickly? Let’s jump into the details.

How to Rank for A Keyword Fast: A Simple 3 Step Tutorial

Step 1: It all starts with keyword research

Keyword research is the first thing to learn if you want to know how to rank for a keyword fast.

In fact, keyword research is the most important step when it comes to ranking for any keyword of your choice.

Did you know the primary reason most people struggle to increase their search traffic?

• Ignoring keyword research (OR)
• Finding and using high competitive keywords

You won’t get any traffic from search engines if you’re publishing content without targeting a primary keyword.

Simultaneously, you won’t get 1st page results on Google if you target highly competitive keywords.

So let’s now talk about some of the proven ways to find better keywords that actually help you get first page rankings on Google.

Target long tail keywords

I’ve a simple tip for you if you’re just getting started with keyword research: find long tail keywords.

Long tail keywords usually contain 4 more words.

Ex: “how to rank for a keyword” is a 6-word long tail keyword which is easier to rank for when compared to a competitive keyword like “keyword research”.

Long tail keywords are holy grail of search traffic.

If you’re still wondering about the importance of using long tail keywords, have a look at this illustration.

It’s easier to rank for long tail keywords because less people will be searching for those phrases. Which also means that you’ll be attracting “targeted visitors” to your sites with minimal efforts.

Are you getting me?

So if you want to get first page rankings for any keyword really quickly, there’s only one way: target long tail keywords with low competition.

If you’re wondering about how to find long tail keywords, here’s a great tutorial by Brian Dean.

Discover top performing keywords of your competitors

One of the most effective ways to rank for a keyword fast is to do a competitor research. Find out what are all the keywords your competitors are getting traffic from.

Once you know the traffic generating keywords of your competitors, it becomes easier for you to work on similar content and use strategies like skyscraper technique to outrank your competitors.

How to find competitors keywords for free?

You need to get access to an incredible SEO tool like SEMRush if you want to see what keywords a website ranks for.

Here’s a simple and quick tutorial on how to use SEMrush to find competitors keywords.

#1. Go to “Organic Search” report and enter your competitors’ URL on SEMrush (grab SEMrush free trial from here)

#2. SEMrush will display a list of all the keywords that are sending your competitors the most traffic from search engines. Here’s how it looks like;

#3. Once you’ve a list of all the potential keywords that your competitors are ranking on Google, you can filter the results by finding long tail keywords with less keyword difficulty and search volume so you can create 10x content around those topics to rank for any keyword fast.

Analyse the competition for the keyword

The most important step while doing keyword research is to check the competition for the keyword. There’s no point of targeting high competition keywords, here are few simple things where you need to pay attention;

• The domains and URLs – How many search results contain exact match domains with the keyword? Does every URL in the top 10 include the keyword you’re trying to rank for?
• The titles – How do the title tags incorporate the keyword?
• The type of content that’s ranking – Are the search results contain product pages? Blog posts? Videos? Or reviews?
• The types of businesses that are ranking – Are they BIG brands? Small businesses? News sites? Aggregator sites? Forums? Or platforms such as Quora, Medium?
• How authoritative those sites are – You can use Moz DA metrics to analyse the authority of a website.

Understand people’s search intent

There’s no point of ranking for a keyword without understanding the search intent. Because Google gives top priority to the keyword’s search intent.

So what is search intent?

Let’s say someone is searching for “damaged memory card”

Here’s what the keyword intent can be;

Intent A: I want to buy a new memory card

Intent B: I am looking to fix or repair my memory card

Intent C: Show me how to do it myself

As you can see from the above example, Google is showing us “how to repair damaged cards” in the #1 result (which means, “Intent B” as discussed above).

That means, it is a clear indication that a higher percent of Google searchers are preferring or looking for this B intent stuff. You can apply this to any keyword that you’re targeting for.

Step 2: Try to get into the top 10 search results first

If you’re targeting commercial intent keywords (which help you increase your website sales), you should be first focusing on getting into the top 10 search results instead of directly aiming for the #1 spot.

Why?

That way you won’t go insane. Remember, SEO is a long term game. Expecting quick results (you can’t get #1 ranking for a keyword within an hour after publishing) can only disappoint you.

That’s the reason why you should focus on getting into the first page results. Then, try to get into top 3 search results and #1 spot. Here’s how to rank for a keyword and get into the first page search results.

Create detailed content around your primary keyword

Try to answer the following question.

Do blog posts written with more than 2000 words rank significantly better in Google search results than a 1000 word blog post?

I don’t know whether you prefer reading a 1000 word or 2000 word article but Google always prefers detailed content. That means, you can increase your chances of getting first page results for a keyword by creating long form of content around it.

Have a look at the following illustration for more understanding.

By looking at the above illustration, you can clearly understand that the average word count of the first 5 search results is over 2000 words. It applies to every industry!

Now you know the importance of creating long form of content.

Here’s how can you create long form of content fast.

Optimize your content for relevant keywords

In step 1, we discussed about the importance of keyword research and how you can find low competitive long tail keywords to rank for any keyword quickly.

Keyword research is only the fundamental step. You need to do proper on page optimization in order to rank for a keyword fast.

Here’s how you can optimize your content for your desired keywords.

Make sure to insert your primary keyword in the following places;

• Title
• H2 and h3 tags
• Image alt tags
• Meta description
• URL (keep it short and simple)
• Sprinkle your primary keyword 3 to 4 times within your content

Quick tip: If you’re a WordPress user, make sure to install WordPress SEO plugin (free) which helps you easily optimize your content for higher search rankings.

Backlinks play a crucial role

I said it thousands times and I’ll say it another 1000 times that you can’t rank for a keyword without backlinks. Even if you’re luckily ranking for any keyword in the top 3 search results, your keyword positions won’t sustain for longer time.

Do you know why?

Googles gives a lot of preference to the pages that has quality backlinks. Have a look at the following case study by Moz about the importance of backlinks and their direct correlation with Google rankings.

99.2% of all top 50 search results had at least 1 external link. That’s shocking, right?

So if you’re looking for ways to rank for a keyword fast, make sure to focus on building quality backlinks.

How do you attract better links to your site?

Although there are a ton of link building strategies out there but nothing beats “high quality content”.

In Moz’s classic book, How to Rank, Cyrus Shepard recommends that “90% of your effort should go into creating great content and 10% into link building.”

Here’s the illustration of 90/10 rule of link building.

That means, if you really want attract more links to your site, make sure to spend more time in creating quality content.

Step 3: Keep an eye on your keyword rankings

Keyword rank tracking is one of the most important things you need to keep an eye on while learning on how to rank for a keyword fast.

Why?

Keyword ranking tools help you find where your site ranks for a keyword that you’re targeting. Without tracking your keyword rankings on Google, how can you make necessary changes to your content or SEO strategies?

How to track your keyword rankings?

There are so many keyword tracking tools out there ranging from free to premium, so I’ll be listing both of them.

Let’s start with the most accurate SEO tools for keyword tracking. Here are my top picks;

• SEMrush (grab SEMrush free trial)
• Ahrefs

The above tools provide you accurate details about where your keywords are actually ranking (they also show you if there are any up and downs in your keyword positions on Google which is really helpful).

The great thing about using SEMrush position tracking tool is that, you can easily discover local competitors apart from keyword rank tracking.

Here’s how the SEMrush position tracking looks like;

As you can see from the above screenshot, you can also do a side-by-side comparison of your rankings versus your competitors’ keywords so you can find out where you need to focus on more.

So why not give SEMrush a free try?

Try SEMrush for free to track your keywords

In case if you’re looking for the best free keyword rank tracking tools, here are a few of them. Make a note that, these free tools usually don’t get updated often and don’t provide you much accurate data!

• Moonsy keyword tracking tool
• SEO Centro

How much time does it take to get first page rankings for a keyword?

I work with a ton of clients to improve their website’s search traffic and sales.

Do you know what’s the most common question my clients ask me all the time?

How long does it usually take to rank for a keyword?

My answer is always the same.

Here it is.

It depends.

It depends on various things such as;

• The keyword you’re trying to rank for
• Your website’s authority
• The number of backlinks your content has
• The industry you are in and so on

At an average, it usually takes anywhere around 3 to 4 months to get into top 3 search results for most keywords (in almost any industry).

But if you’ve optimized your content well by also building quality backlinks, you can rank for a keyword even faster.

Pro tip: Frequently update your blog’s content

Let me tell you a secret tip most SEO experts use to get top rankings for their keywords.

Update your blog posts often.

Did you know that HubSpot’s organic traffic increased by 106% after they updated older content?

Yes, updating your articles with highly relevant keywords (also known as LSI keywords) is the surefire way to increase your search traffic.

As a rule of thumb, update your most important blog posts every single month in order to achieve higher search rankings.

Here’s how to update your content if you want to know how to rank for a keyword fast.

• Go to Google Analytics to find out your top 10 blog posts which are sending you the most traffic from search engines. Find a list of relevant LSI keywords and start working on each of those 10 posts. Try to leave blog comments and write guest posts to build backlinks to your top 10 posts. This tactic alone helps you rank for your keywords really quickly. I do this thing a lot when working my clients websites and it always gives us great results!
• Tweak your meta description and blog post titles for more click through rates. Install WordPress SEO by Yoast and write click-worthy headlines. Make sure to include your primary keyword within your title tag to jumpstart your search traffic.
• Make sure to push your updated blog posts to your website’s home page so more people can read, share or link to it. Also fetch as Google from webmaster tools once you’ve updated your content to get indexed by Google faster. After all, Google likes fresh content.
• Find out if there are any broken links while updating your content. Add more relevant links and include images if missing. Proof read your content for any mistakes or typos. Most of all, update your content with latest information. Also make sure to add related posts so your audience will spend more time on your website (known as “dwell time” which is great for SEO).

Final thoughts on how to rank for a keyword quickly in 2023

Keyword research is what makes or breaks your website’s success. If you’re struggling to increase your search traffic, start finding low competitive long tail keywords, do competitor research and use the 3 steps mentioned on this post to rank for any keyword of your choice.

Did you find this 3-step simple tutorial on how to rank for a keyword fast in 2023 and beyond? Do you have any more questions? If yes, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments below.