Hey Sander,

Indeed, you can do lots of things with free keyword research tools. As you mentioned, the focus here is to have everything in one place. A combination of free SEO tools can always work if someone knows how to use them. KeySearch is a great SEO tool for bloggers if they want to use just one tool. It also has some nice extras. Long story short, for its price, I find it excellent, and I still use it; but if someone is on a tight budget and doesn’t mind coping with some limitations, then with the free tools, you can also do a good job.

Thanks for commenting,
George

Yes, I’d say better leave it like this for a couple of weeks. Try to see if you rank for secondary keywords after a couple of weeks. You will most likely start ranking for other keywords, too, not just for the ones you targeted. Check also your SEO tool -KeySearch has it, I bet yours has it too- for which Keywords your article ranks. If you see one that has volume, but you are very low in Google search and don’t get any traffic, try to add it a couple of more times in a natural way.

Thanks George, I did put quite a bit of effort into it. I think you are right, I am going to leave it as it is with the current title and do other things to try and improve the rank as you have suggested. The post title sounds much better now anyway, than it would be if I changed it. It’s much more likely that someone would want to read it if they saw it on my blog, or if they saw it after going a Google search with the current title. It just goes to show how important keyword research is. Where I didn’t rank at all, gets just about no traffic anyway, so there’s not much point in trying to be number 1 on Google for that search query.

Hey there, John. Thanks for the update. I’m glad that your article ranked well! I just checked your article, great work; it seems that you put lots of effort. Some great photos too 🙂

Now, it takes definitely time to rank on page 1 of Google. As far as I know, older posts tend to occupy the first Google positions. I think that -initially- you should be very happy that you are already positioned within the first pages. It can take anything between 4 weeks and several months to see your post on the first pages. SEO gurus are claiming that reaching first place on Page 1 can take up to two years. It also doesn’t mean that you’ll stay forever on Page 3 or 4. The post will slowly climb higher, especially when more people read it. Plus, a low bounce rate is always a good SEO signal. Even the keyword “things to do in Port Adelaide” that you are currently not ranking for it can appear in the future. Subsequently, you can go down from page 1 to page 5 if google is volatile or if better articles are written. All that said, nobody can guarantee that you’ll stay forever in the same place when you occupy a spot in the SERPS; you can go up, but you can also go down.

I think that making your site secure is very important. It sends a positive signal to search engines. Plus, it’s good for the readers to see a “secure” mark. In my opinion, this is a must, and it’s far more important than the Domain Authority. DA is a useful metric but not something to get obsessed with. A high DA doesn’t mean that whatever you write will appear for sure on Page 1. On the other hand, a low DA doesn’t also mean that you stand no chance of being found (otherwise, every single blogger wouldn’t stand a chance when there are high authority websites like the Times or TripAdvisor). I think that it makes more sense using DA as a comparison tool, but even for that, it’s not a must. DA doesn’t affect rankings; it can only measure things. Quality content and backlinks are far more important, in my opinion.

Thanks for sharing!

You are very welcome, John. I didn’t narrow it down to Australia; maybe that’s why the significant difference in metrics. I usually stick to “All locations” mainly because there are readers from all over the world. I think you should also try to set the location for the country that brings the most visitors to your city. Do a quick check and see if, for example, the Americans are the main travelers there and set the location accordingly.

Hey there, John.

Indeed, KeySearch is a very good product. It helped me a lot with the “unseen” work that I have to do while blogging. To your question, the metrics are always hard to trust. They can differ from platform to platform, and as I write in the KeySearch tutorial, one should only use them as a reference. That said, the location keywords (Berlin, Port Adelaide, etc.) are usually tough keywords to rank for. I run the “Port Adelaide” on KeySearch, and I saw a different volume: 33,100 per month. Moreover, it has a difficulty of 58; therefore (I think), it’s gonna be pretty hard to rank for it. “Port Adelaide attractions,” on the other hand, receives 170 visits (again according to KeySearch) and has a difficulty of 26 -should be fairly easy. “PA attractions” seem tougher: 48 in the score, 2900 visits. I’d trust more the scores than the volume.

I think that we should never avoid writing about the things we want to write. Even if you follow every keyword recommendation, it’s not for granted that you’ll rank high anyway. That said -and as I stated in the article- part of the blogging fun is to write about the things we love/want. I’ll never say don’t write, even if you want to rank for keywords like “pizza” or “car.” I’d go for a long-tail keyword in such cases, as in the example in the tutorial. For your post, I’d go with “The Best Port Adelaide attractions.” You don’t have to mention it twice in the title, and words like “the” or “best” don’t affect SEO that much, in my opinion. I might consider adding some extra info after that phrase like “The ultimate travel guide” or just “Travel guide.”

Hope I helped a bit.

George