Keyword relevance in local SEO and Google Ads is different
Google uses the idea of keyword relevance in ranking local results and choosing winners of Google Search Ads. If you ever step into the territory of search engine marketing, it’s good to know the difference.
How to create content relevant to a search query in 7 steps
First, make sure you have a good target keyword that’s worth the time and effort put into search engine optimization. You can check that with our guide to keyword research.
Google tends to favor what it already ranks highly, which is why the top 10 search results often look very similar. To ensure your content is keyword-relevant, it’s often more effective to align with existing successful content rather than trying something entirely new and hoping that Google will recognize your effort.
And this is also my advice to you. Make your content relevant before you make it unique. Don’t skip any of these seven steps.
1. Make sure you’re aligning with search intent
Search intent is what the searcher expects to see in the SERPs when they type in a search query. It could be a list of the best products, a video, a Wikipedia-like page, or a simple, direct answer that doesn’t require clicking on anything.
Nobody types in queries like “give me the best places to buy the doona liki trike but if there’s something important I should know before buying, lmk”. They will just type “doona liki” because they’re used to writing simple queries and expecting Google to figure them out. Google expects content creators (you) to make that content so they can index it, rank it, and show it to their users.
The most reliable way to align with search intent is to look at what’s already ranking and identify the 3Cs of search intent:
Content type . Typically one of the following: blog post, video, product page, category page, landing page.
Content format . This applies mostly to informational content. For example, a how-to guide will be a different content format than a listicle or product review.
Content angle . The specific focus or unique selling point that makes top-ranking posts and pages stand out.
For example, all the the posts below are blog posts in the listicle format. Some angles you can spot here are “that actually matter”, “important”, “key”.
Another great way to examine search intent is to check the amount of traffic generated by each type of page. To make this fast and easy, use Ahrefs’ Identify intents feature.
2. Include your target keyword in relevant places
On any page, there are a few places that Google likes to look for signals of relevance.
Page title.
URL.
Main header (H1).
Subheaders (some of your H2s, H3s, etc.).
Intro paragraph.
Here’s an example with highlighted page elements:
In other words, Google is looking for the most direct, straightforward type of relevance. Both a poem and a Wikpedia article can be about a topic like love. But the kind of relevance that you need to achieve in content is the latter type.
Keep in mind that in any text that you want to rank, however creative or unique you want it to be, Google will likely look at these places.
This step refers to words and phrases that naturally fit into the text. Once you identify them, it feels obvious. For example, if your primary keyword is ‘running shoes,’ related phrases could include ‘breathable material,’ ‘arch support,’ and ‘lightweight design.
You can manually look for commonalities among top-ranking pages or even brainstorm these words. But the quickest and most reliable way is to use an SEO tool that allows you to look specifically for those keywords.
Content structure is about serving the most relevant need-to-know information first and goo-to-know information last.
The key to understanding what is need-to-know and what is good-to-know is to look for hints in the content that already ranks; these have already nailed keyword relevance.
For example, if you’re creating content about “beginner’s guide to investing” you’ll want to start with the most essential, need-to-know information, such as “What is investing?” and “Why should you start investing?”. Opening with key takeaways, as Nerdwallet does in the example below, wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.
The structure is also about the comprehensiveness of your content. In other words, it’s about covering the topic in full and how much focus you’ll give to each subtopic.
Again, you can look at pages manually or streamline the process with an SEO tool. In Ahrefs, you can find a tool called Content Grader that scores content based on the topics mentioned and how well they are explained.
The tool will also suggest how to increase your topic coverage (AI suggestions on the right).
If you’re working on a new piece of content, you can use Content Grader to aid your outlining process. You can also use it to optimize existing content; it will help close the content gap.
Apart from what we’ve discussed so far, you may find additional clues on search engine results pages.
I used the information from meta descriptions to rank #2 for the keyword “is seo worth it” and increase traffic to the post (#1 being Reddit…).
I noticed that Google favors a quick and direct response to the question (they even highlight the most direct answer—“yes”), so I added that to the intro.
Moreover, Google also rewrote my original meta description to put the new direct answer in front of the searcher.
What Google has chosen to display as the meta description.
What I wrote for the met description.
You can find similar hints in these SERP features:
Featured snippets.
“People Also Ask” box.
“Things to know” box.
Images shown on top of the SERP.
6. Add relevant internal links
Here’s a tip for adding internal links as you write. Use the “inurl” search operator to find other places on your site where you mention a particular word or phrase. To illustrate, here’s what I would type into Google’s search bar if I wanted to find mentions of the phrase “content marketing”:
inurl:ahrefs.com "content marketing"
As for adding internal links to your existing content, you can streamline the process with Internal link opportunities tool in Ahrefs’ Site Audit. It takes the top 10 keywords (by traffic) for each crawled page, then looks for mentions of those on your other crawled pages.
It will tell you where to link from, where to link to, and which word/phrase to link.
Relevant backlinks mean links from other sites that mention your target keyword or a similar phrase in the anchor text or surrounding text.
In a short video on how Google Search works (below), Google’s Matt Cutts explains that a document can become relevant to a query by having that query included in its backlinks. Paraphrasing his explanation, backlinks containing the target query can enhance the relevance of a webpage in search results.
You can use Ahrefs’ Web Explorer to find and vet pages that already use your target keyword as link anchors and try to win over those links. Just type “outlinkanchor:[your keyword]” in the search bar.
There is also a possibility that backlinks coming from pages or sites on the same topic (or closely related) can increase relevance — some SEOs believe so. Mentions of such a system come from Google’s Reasonable Surfer patent , research on topic-sensitive PageRank . Moreover, irrelevant links were supposedly the target of the Google Penguin update .
However, at this point Google erased the only official mention of this I could find.
In 2021 Google said this :
If other prominent websites on the subject link to the page, that’s a good sign that the information is of high quality.
But then, they erased a few words, giving a whole different meaning to that sentence :
For example, one of several factors we use to help determine this is understanding if other prominent websites link or refer to the content.
If you want to see if these kinds of links work for you, you can find them and vet them using either Ahrefs’ Web Explorer or Content Explorer.
You can aim for topically relevant backlinks but make sure you don’t over-optimize your link profile. If most of your backlinks include the same anchor, it may signal link manipulation to Google.
Final thoughts
The goal of achieving high keyword relevance is to improve your organic rankings. But it’s sometimes hard to draw the line between all the different systems that Google uses for ranking. Backlinks are a great example of that. They play a role in determining relevance but authority as well.
For this reason, content optimization tools can be useful in creating relevant content, but they don’t guarantee high rankings. A high content score doesn’t always mean your page will rank well (read our study), and sometimes you can rank high even with a low score.
So, it’s best to treat SEO as a holistic process. Do what you need to do to achieve high relevance, then check all the other boxes, such as technical SEO, EEAT, and link building.
Got questions or comments? Find me on LinkedIn .