While Google’s constant algorithm tweaks keep inbound marketers on their toes, one thing has been fairly consistent for inbound marketers aiming to optimize their websites for search: keyword research.
We’ll define keyword research, why it’s important, how to do keyword research for your SEO strategy, and how to find the ideal keywords for your website.
What is Keyword Research and Why is it Important?
Keyword research is the process of finding and evaluating search phrases that people enter into search engines to utilize the information for a specific purpose, such as SEO or general marketing. Keyword research can reveal queries to target, as well as their popularity, ranking difficulty, and more.
Keyword research will provide you with a lot of information about what your target audience is looking for on Google. The knowledge you gain from these specific search phrases will impact both your content strategy and your overall marketing plan.
When performing internet research, people employ keywords to identify solutions. You stand to get more traffic if your content is successful in getting in front of your audience when they do searches. As a result, you should concentrate your efforts on such inquiries.
The first step is doing keyword research. But what are the benefits of doing keyword research?
Benefits of Conducting a Keyword Research
> Insight into Marketing Trends
Effective keyword research may provide you insights into current marketing trends and help you focus your content on topics and phrases that your target customer is going for.
> Increased Traffic
The higher you rank in search engine results for the keywords that best suit the content you post, the more visitors you’ll draw to your website.
> Attracting Customers
If your company provides material that other business professionals are seeking, you can fill that need and create a call to action that will guide them through the buyer journey from awareness to purchase.
You may address the questions that the majority of your audience wants to be answered by studying keywords for their popularity, search volume, and general purpose.
Topics vs. Keywords: What Are the Differences Between Topics and Keywords?
While this is accurate to some extent, it is a different approach from the perspective of an SEO specialist. Rather, it’s about the keyword’s purpose and whether or not a piece of content fulfills that purpose.
Keyword research reveals what topics people are interested in and, provided you use the correct SEO tool, how popular those topics are with your target audience.
Themes are the crucial word here; by analyzing keywords with a large number of monthly searches, you may select and categorize your material into topics on which you wish to write. Then, based on these subjects, you may decide which keywords to search for and target.
Keyword Research Components
When conducting keyword research, there are three main factors to take into consideration.
1. Applicability
Google assigns a value to content based on its relevancy. This is when the term “search intent” comes into play. Your content will only rank if it matches the demands of the searchers. Furthermore, your content must be the most relevant resource for the inquiry. After all, why would Google give your content a better ranking if it is less valuable than other sites on the internet?
2. Authority
Sources reveal that Google considers authoritative will be given greater weight. That means you must do everything you can to establish yourself as an authoritative source by adding helpful, informational material to your site and promoting it to get social signals and backlinks.
Unless your material is extraordinary, you have a decreased chance of ranking if you’re not viewed as an authority in the industry or if a keyword’s SERPs are stacked with heavy sources you can’t compete with.
3. Quantity
You may rank on the first page for a term, but if no one ever searches for it, your site will not receive any traffic. It’s a little like opening a store in a deserted town.
MSV (monthly search volume) is a metric that measures the number of times a term is searched per month across all audiences.
How to Find Keywords for Your SEO Campaign
In this section, we will walk you through a keyword research method that will help you come up with a list of phrases to target. That way, you’ll be able to develop and implement a solid keyword strategy that will help you rank for the search phrases that matter to you.
Step 1: Based on What You Know About Your Firm, Make a List of Significant, Relevant Issues.
Consider the subjects you want to rank for in terms of general buckets. You’ll come up with roughly 5-10 subjects that are relevant to your business, and you’ll utilize those topics to assist you in coming up with particular keywords later on.
These are presumably the topics you blog about the most if you’re a regular blogger. Or perhaps they’re the most often discussed issues in sales meetings. Put yourself in your buyer personas’ shoes: what subjects would your target audience search for that you’d like your company to be discovered for?
This information will help you determine how significant these topics are to your target audience, as well as how many distinct sub-topics you’ll need to cover to be successful with that keyword.
Step 2: Add Keywords to Those Subject Categories.
Now that you’ve decided on a few subject buckets to focus on, it’s time to find some keywords that fit into those categories. These are keyword phrases that you believe are vital to rank for in SERPs (search engine results pages) since your target consumer is likely searching for them.
The goal of this phase isn’t to create your ultimate keyword phrase list. You just want to come up with a list of terms that you believe potential consumers could use to find material relating to that certain topic. Later on in the process, we’ll trim down the lists, so you don’t end up with anything too cumbersome.
Despite the fact that Google is encrypting more and more terms every day, another clever technique to come up with keyword ideas is to see which keywords your website is already being discovered for. You’ll need website analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, to perform this. Drill down into your website’s traffic sources and comb through your organic search traffic bucket to find the terms that people are using to find you.
Repeat this practice based on the subject groups you have. Remember that if you’re having difficulties coming up with appropriate search phrases, you can always ask your colleagues in Sales or Service what terms their prospects and customers use or what queries they frequently have. These are frequently excellent places to begin your keyword research.
Step 3: Recognize How Context Influences Keyword Research and Analyze the Results Accordingly.
User intent is now one of the most important variables in your ability to rank effectively on search engines like Google. Today, it’s more crucial that your web page solves the problem that a searcher is looking for rather than merely containing the searcher’s term. So, how does this influence your keyword research?
It’s all too easy to take keywords at face value, yet they might have a lot of distinct meanings behind the surface. Since the purpose of a search is so critical to your ranking potential, you must be extra cautious when interpreting the keywords you target.
Let’s imagine you’re writing an article and you’re looking for keywords like “how to start a blog.” The term “blog” might refer to a blog post or the blog website itself, and the purpose of the searcher will impact the path of your content. Do you want to learn how to create a blog post from scratch? Or do they want to know how to set up a website domain just for blogging? If you’re just targeting folks who are interested in the latter, you’ll want to double-check the keyword’s purpose before using it.
It’s a good idea to type a term into a search engine yourself to check what kinds of results come up to verify what a user’s purpose is in a keyword. Make sure the type of material Google is displaying is closely relevant to the sort of content you want to develop for the term.
Step 4: Perform a Search for Relevant Phrases.
When conducting keyword research, you may have previously considered this step. If not, it’s a wonderful method to get those lists filled up.
If you’re having trouble coming up with more keywords for a given topic, look at the related search phrases that display when you type in a keyword into Google. You’ll get some suggestions for searches similar to your initial input if you key in your phrase and scroll to the bottom of Google’s results. These keywords could give you some suggestions for other keywords to consider.
“Searches connected to cute pups” appear at the bottom of the Google SERP, along with keyword recommendations.
Do you want a bonus? Look up some of those similar search phrases by typing in a few of them.
Step 5: Make Use of Keyword Research Tools.
Based on the keyword ideas you’ve developed so far, keyword research and SEO tools can assist you in coming up with more keyword ideas based on exact match keywords and phrase match keywords. The following are some of the most well-known:
- Ahrefs
- SEMrush
- Ubersuggest
- Google Keyword Planner is a tool that allows you to find keywords
- SECockpit
- Keywords may be found anywhere.
- Moz
- KeywordTool.io
- KWFinder
How to Do Keyword Research and Select Keywords for Your Site
Now that you have a general concept of the keywords you want to rank for, it’s important to narrow down your list to the ones that would work best for your plan. Here’s how to do it
Step 1: To Narrow Down Your Keyword List, Use Google Keyword Planner.
You can acquire search volume and traffic predictions for phrases you’re considering using Google’s Keyword Planner. Then, using the data you’ve gathered from Keyword Planner, utilize Google Trends to fill in the gaps.
Use the Keyword Planner to highlight any phrases on your list that have far too little (or far too much) search traffic and don’t contribute to the healthy mix we discussed before. But, before you remove anything, go to Google Trends and look at their trend history and forecasts. You can see whether some low-volume phrases, for example, are something you should invest in now and reap the rewards later.
Or maybe you’re just looking at a long list of phrases and need to condense it somehow. Google Trends can assist you in figuring out which terms are growing upward and so need greater attention.
Step 2: Concentrate on the Low-Hanging Fruit.
Prioritizing low-hanging fruit means focusing on keywords for which you have a good possibility of ranking based on your website’s authority.
Large corporations often target high-volume keywords, and because these brands are already well-known, Google tends to reward them with authority across a wide range of topics.
You might also think about keywords with low competition. If there are no other articles vying for the top place, keywords that don’t already have numerous articles vying for the top slot can afford you the top spot by default.
Step 3: Look up the Monthly Search Volume (MSV) for the Terms You Want to Use
Checking MSV can assist you in writing material that rchanges around what people desire to learn.
The number of times a search query or phrase is put into search engines each month is referred to as monthly search volume. Free tools such as searchvolume.io and Google Trends can assist you in determining the most sought terms across comparable keyword clusters.
Step 4: When Choosing Keywords, Consider SERP Characteristics.
If applied appropriately, Google will highlight many SERP feature snippets. A simple method to learn more about them is to Google for the keywords you want and see what comes up as the first result. However, for a fast review of the several sorts of SERP highlighted snippets, we’ll list them below.
Image Collections
Image packs are search results that appear as a horizontal row of photos in a natural order. If there is an image pack, you should compose a post with a lot of images to get into it.
Snippets From a Paragraph
Featured snippets, also known as paragraph snippets, are brief text snippets that are displayed at the top of Google search results to provide fast solutions to frequently asked questions. Understanding the searcher’s goal and responding with brief, concise responses will help you land the spot.
Snippets From a List
List snippets, also known as listicles, are snippets created for blogs that outline how to accomplish anything from beginning to end – frequently for “How To” searches. Making postings with clear, concise instructions and formatting will help you land this position.
Snippets of Video
Short videos that Google will display at the top of a search query page in place of text-highlighted snippets are known as video snippets. If tagged with the appropriate keywords people are searching for, posting a video on both YouTube and your website can help you get this spot.
Step 5: In Each Bucket, Look for a Combination of Head Phrases and Long-tail Keywords
Head terms are keyword phrases that are normally shorter and more generic, ranging from one to three words in length depending on who you speak with. Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, are keyword phrases that are three or more words long.
It’s critical to double-check that your keyword strategy includes a combination of head keywords and long-tail phrases, as this will ensure that your keyword strategy is well-balanced, with long-term objectives and short-term victories. Since head phrases are searched more frequently, they are often (but not always) far more competitive and difficult to rank for than long-tail terms.
While head phrases often have the highest search volume (meaning they have a higher chance of sending you traffic), the traffic you’ll get from “how to produce a great blog article” is usually more desired.
Why?
Because someone searching for something so particular is likely to be a far better-qualified searcher for your product or service than someone searching for something broader.
Since long-tail keywords are more particular, it’s typically easier to figure out what individuals searching for them are truly looking for. On the other hand, someone looking for the phrase “blogging” might be doing so for a variety of reasons unrelated to your company.
So double-check your keyword lists to make sure you’ve got a good balance of long-tail and head terms. You’ll want to take advantage of the rapid gains that long-tail keywords provide, but you should also strive to chip away at more challenging head terms over time.
Step 6: Look at How Your Rivals Rank for These Keywords
You don’t have to do anything just because your opponent is. Keywords are the same way. It doesn’t imply a keyword is significant to you just because it is to your opponent. Understanding what keywords your rivals are attempting to rank for, on the other hand, is a terrific approach to help you re-evaluate your keyword list.
If your competition is ranking for the same keywords you are, it makes sense to focus on raising your ranking for them as well. However, don’t overlook the ones that your rivals appear to be unconcerned about. This might be an excellent chance for you to gain market share on key phrases as well.
Understanding the difference between phrases that are more challenging due to competition and terms that are more realistic will help you maintain the same balance that the combination of long-tail and head terms permits. Remember, the idea is to come up with a list of keywords that can help you achieve some early victories while simultaneously progressing toward larger, more difficult SEO goals.
You may wonder how you may find out what keywords your rivals are ranking for Ahrefs allows you to run a number of free reports that show you the top keywords for the domain you input, in addition to manually searching for keywords in an incognito browser and seeing what places your rivals are in. This is an easy method to see what kinds of phrases your rivals are ranking for.
SEO’s Best Keywords
Understand that there are no “best” keywords, only ones that your target audience uses often. With this in mind, it’s up to you to devise a plan that will aid in page ranking and traffic generation.
Relevance, authority, and traffic will all be factors in determining the optimum keywords for your SEO campaign. You wish to uncover highly searched terms that you may compete for based on the following criteria:
- You’re up against a lot of competition.
- Your capacity to create material that is of higher quality than what is already ranked.
- You’ve also chosen the best keywords for your website’s SEO.
- You now have a list of keywords to help you focus on the proper subjects for your business and earn short- and long-term benefits.
Make sure to re-evaluate these terms every few months – once a quarter is a decent starting point, but some companies prefer to do it even more frequently. As your authority in the SERPs grows, you’ll be able to add more and more keywords to your keyword lists to handle as you focus on sustaining your present presence and then expanding into new areas.
