One of the most important steps in SEO is keyword research. This involves identifying the terms and phrases people in your niche use to find products and services, and optimizing your articles for them. A good keyword research strategy involves finding the terms and phrases that you can easily rank for.

If you run a beginner website, you need to find keywords that are easy to rank for and have low competition. One way to find such keywords is through the keyword golden ratio. In this article, we guide you on how you can use the keyword golden ratio (KGR) in SEO to rank your website fast.

What is the Keyword Golden Ratio?

KGR is a keyword research strategy that uses data to enable website owners and marketers to find low-competition keywords that will help them rank in the top 100 of the Google SERPs, or even in the top 10, fast, or even within days. The term was coined by Doug Cunnington, one of the partners in the Niche Site Project. It aims to identify target keywords that many sites haven’t covered in depth. It can, therefore, be a powerful tool for finding high-intent keywords that boost conversion rates.

These keywords are often long-tail terms that many websites overlook because of their low search volume. In most cases, these keywords have fewer than 250 monthly searches. But why focus on low-search-volume keywords? Actually, this is what drives the KGR's success, as the strategy aims to find many KGR keywords and use them to create many high-quality pages.

That means when KGR is done well, it will enable your brand to rank at the top of the SERPs quickly. This makes it a better strategy than competing for high-volume keywords. Additionally, if you have a well-established site, you can have the KGR-specific target pages ranking within a few days after their publication.

How KGR Keywords Are Calculated in SEO

To use KGR in SEO, start by researching potential keywords and calculating their ratio using two data points: keyword search volumes and keyword results. This now brings us to the next question: how do you find this data?

One way is to use “allintitle” first in the results. This is an advanced Google Search operator that helps you find pages that contain a matching term in their titles. For instance, let’s assume you want to search for the phrase “how to find kgr keywords”. To get the keyword results, you will need to go to Google and search using the phrase “allintitle: how to find kgr keywords,” as shown in the image below.

When you search using that parameter, you are basically finding all the sites with the title “how to find kgr keywords”. However, unlike in the past, when Google showed the number of search results, this data is currently hidden. Therefore, you may need to use a third-party tool to find the number of results.

Again, use a keyword research tool to find the search volume for each keyword. To get the KGR, you should divide the number of “allintitle” results by the search volume of the keyword.  If the results are below 0.25, that’s a super-easy keyword to rank for. Targeting such a keyword can help you rank on the SERP within a few days.

If a target keyword has a KGR of 0.25 and a search volume of 250, it means the “allintitle” results are around 63. That means there are only 63 pages on the internet that target those keywords. It clearly shows that, in the worst-case scenario, your page will rank at number 64 for the keywords. Assuming that the competitors aren't creating high-quality content, you can then easily rank better for the phrase.

Rules for KGR Keywords Research

For the best results with KGR, you must follow these rules:

Maximum Search Volume of 250

Sticking to keywords with a maximum monthly search volume of 250 may seem counterproductive due to their low volume. However, keywords with low search volume are usually easier to rank for than those with thousands of monthly searches. When you optimize your site for several KGR keywords, you can improve your ranking on the Google SERPs. After you have gotten enough traffic from the content, you can start going for keywords with a higher search volume. 

Focuses on Longtail Keywords

KGR is also about supply and demand. If many people are searching for a keyword and only a few pages are optimizing for it, it indicates a content gap. When you create some well-written articles that seek to fill that gap, you can easily get on the first or second page of the Google results in a few days instead of waiting for months.

These methods usually work well for long-tail keywords consisting of three to five words with relatively low search volume. Many large and authoritative sites often ignore these keywords because they have lower search volumes. However, when you target a dozen of these keywords with good quality content, your traffic can quickly grow.

KGR Keywords Aren’t Magic Tools

One thing to note is that KGR should help you filter for keywords you can easily rank for, but it's not a guarantee. The quality of your content, outstanding on-page SEO, and topics that answer the search query will also determine your ranking. Therefore, KGR should be the first step in your keyword strategy, not the only one.

Tips for Ranking KGR Keywords

When using KGR to increase the organic traffic to your site, follow these tips:

Create a Lot of Pages with KGR

If you only create a few pages optimized for KGR keywords, you might feel like the strategy isn’t working. A good strategy for using KGR in SEO is to create separate articles for each KGR. You can then write the articles and publish them consistently over a period of three months or more.

Once you get into a content-publishing rhythm, Google will appreciate your unique, fresh content. These KGR pieces will also help you build your topical relevance, improving your Google ranking.

Determine the Search Intent

When optimizing for KGR keywords, you need to consider the search intent behind them. You need to understand why people are searching for a given query so you can provide them with the content that best answers the question. For instance, determine whether the search queries are informational, transactional, navigational, or commercial. You can then do keyword clustering based on search intent.

If you are optimizing for the information question, you can consider writing how-to articles. On the other hand, commercial questions can be answered in the form of reviews, listicles, or pros-and-cons pieces. For navigational and transactional queries, you can direct your audience to your landing pages, where they can find information about the products or services they are already searching for.

Link Building

Remember that KGR isn’t a magic bullet. While it’s a great tool that can help increase the traffic to your site, on its own, it will not work perfectly. You need to complement it with other strategies, such as high-quality content and adding backlinks.

In Conclusion

If you want to generate some organic traffic to your site in a short period, KGR can help you achieve that. The goal of this keyword research strategy is to find keywords whose search queries aren’t adequately covered by other websites. That means when you create high-quality content on such queries and complement the content with quality backlinks, you can rank on the first or second page of Google within a few days.