Keyword research is a crucial component of any SEO campaign. It’s what helps you create content that targets the keywords your audience is looking for, and it gets those search engine spiders crawling up your site like nobody’s business!
In this article, we will show you how to do keyword research and give you some tips on how to make sure that your website is meeting these needs.
Contents
Introduction
Quality keyword research is the key to a successful SEO strategy. You need to find keywords that have high search volumes and low competition levels. These are the keywords you want to target in your content. But how do you determine whether or not a keyword is worth targeting? By using a variety of different tools, including:
The Google Adwords Keyword Planner
This tool allows you to see how much traffic particular keywords receive on average each month. It also tells you how difficult it will be to rank for those keywords based on current competition levels.
The MozBar
This toolbar lets you see the Domain Authority and Page Authority of any website you’re researching. The higher these numbers are, the more difficult it will be to rank for those keywords.
KeywordTool.io
This tool allows you to generate a list of relevant long-tail keywords based on search terms entered into Google Trends and related queries in Bing, Yahoo! , and Youtube .
ahrefs.com
This is another great tool that gives you various metrics on each website it researches. It also shows you the number of backlinks pointing to each site, so you can see what kind of competition they have for certain keywords.
SEMrush
This tool is great for competitor research. It allows you to see what keywords your competitors are targeting, as well as the traffic they’re receiving from those keywords.
All these resources are excellent tools in your SEO arsenal! They will help guide your keyword research efforts and allow you to create content with high rankings potential based on accurate data about their marketability. Keep reading this blog post as we outline how exactly to do keyword research using some or all of these resources!
What Is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process of finding and targeting the keywords your audience is actively searching for online. By doing this, you can create content that is more relevant to their needs, which will improve both your website’s traffic and its search engine rankings.
The first step in any keyword research campaign is to come up with a list of potential target keywords. You can do this by brainstorming terms related to your business or topic, using keyword tools like those we mentioned above, or even looking at competitor websites to see what words they are targeting.
Once you have a good list of potential keywords, it’s time to start narrowing them down. Not all of these terms will be worth targeting in your SEO efforts – some may have high competition levels, others may have low search volumes. Don’t waste your time with the latter! Instead, focus on keywords that are both popular and easy to rank for based on their competition levels.
While it’s important to target a variety of keywords in each piece of content you publish online (so as not to alienate any potential readers), make sure that at least one or two phrases appear multiple times throughout the article.
This is what will help boost its rankings when people search those terms – but only if they’re relevant! If you can find a way to naturally weave them into your writing without sounding too repetitive, then all the better!
Why Is Keyword Research Important?
Keyword research is important for both website owners and marketers because it’s the essential first step in any SEO campaign. This kind of research gives you concrete data on which keywords are most likely to drive traffic, improve your site rankings, and help you achieve success with your overall marketing goals!
The next steps after doing keyword research may vary depending on what stage of an SEO plan you’re at. Whether you’ve just started out with a new blog post or have several pieces already published online, there are plenty of ways to find relevant long-tail keywords that will bring more visitors into your audience:
- Use related phrases as tags when creating new posts (this can be very helpful if done throughout the whole blogging process)
- Research keywords using Google AdWords Keyword Planner
- Use the autocomplete function on Google to find long-tail variations of popular search terms
- Research similar topics and brainstorm other potential keyword phrases related to them
The possibilities are endless, but make sure you always target high-traffic, low competition keywords to get the best results from your SEO efforts. As long as you’re doing your research and following these simple tips, you’ll be well on your way to improving your website’s visibility online!
Keyword Strategies
Now that you understand the basics of keyword research, it’s time to learn some more specific strategies for targeting your audience. Here are a few methods to get you started:
- Targeting long-tail keywords: As we mentioned earlier, long-tail keywords are phrases that are more targeted and less competitive than general head terms. They’re perfect for those just starting out with SEO, as they’re easier to rank for and have a higher conversion rate than shorter keywords.
- Researching competitor websites: One of the best ways to find profitable keywords is to spy on your competition! Look at what words and phrases they are targeting in their content and use this data to come up with similar (but still unique) ideas for your own blog posts.
- Using Google Autocomplete: If you’re stuck on ideas for new keywords to target, try using the autocomplete function in Google instead of a keyword tool! This is an easy way to discover long-tail variations of common search phrases and gain inspiration from what people are typing into their browsers.
There’s no limit as to how many strategies you can use at once – mix and match these methods or come up with your own unique strategy tailored specifically towards your business goals!
Best of all? Once you have those killer long-tail keywords written down, it’s time to start brainstorming blog post titles that will attract even more visitors online.
Now that you have the basics of keyword research down, it’s time to start thinking about how exactly these keywords can be used in your blog post content.
Remember, Google doesn’t want to show results for websites with irrelevant information – so make sure each phrase appears at least once or twice within your posts (and try not to sound repetitive!), as this will help boost their rankings when people search those terms.
You can even use a tool like Surfer SEO to find the correlation between the position in search results and on-page factors and update your content to be exactly in line with the competition.
Title Research
Now that you’ve got some solid keywords in mind, it’s time to work on finding blog post titles around them. While there are plenty of strategies for coming up with new ideas (including using Google autocomplete!), here are a few guidelines you can follow when brainstorming your next content idea:
- Use popular keywords and phrases as title inspiration – but don’t copy these directly into your posts or else search engines will catch onto what you’re doing immediately!
- Make sure every long-tail keyword is included at least once within the body text so they get indexed by search engines easily.
- Incorporate keywords into the title itself, but keep it interesting and avoid sounding too spammy.
- Use your blog post subheadings as inspiration instead of trying to include every single keyword! Just because you’re targeting long tail phrases doesn’t mean readers need them shoved down their throats – remember that they should be included naturally throughout the text instead.
Competitor Analysis
Now that you have a few blog post titles in mind, it’s time to do some competitor analysis. Remember when I mentioned spying on your competition earlier? This is the perfect opportunity to discover what other bloggers are writing about and how they’re doing it – all without lifting a finger!
Just head over to Google or another search engine of choice and type in “keyword” + “competitors.” From here, take note of which websites come up frequently among top results (these tend to be popular sources for data), then check out their content one by one until you find posts relevant enough for this process.
Now that you’ve found one or two suitable competitors, look over their content to see what they’re doing right – and wrong. Some questions you can ask yourself during this process include:
- Which keywords are being targeted the most? Are there any patterns among these terms?
- How frequently do these phrases appear throughout each blog post (and where)? Do certain words pop up more often than others in subheadings versus body text?
- What kind of language is used within these posts – passive voice, dictionary definitions, etc.? Does it seem like a good fit for your target audience based on your own knowledge or research?
As soon as you have some answers to all of those questions, try experimenting with different methods for incorporating keywords into your blog posts. You can choose to use the same ones as competitors.
Once you’ve finished this process and started writing out actual sentences, continue adding more content until it’s done. Don’t worry about formatting or editing at this point; just focus on getting all of your ideas down before moving onto finalising everything else.
Keyword Metrics
Now that you’ve got a few blog post titles and the beginnings of some content, it’s time to start tracking your keyword metrics. This will help you determine whether or not targeting these phrases is worth your time and effort in the long run.
The best way to do this is by using Google AdWords – it’s free to sign up and all you need is a Gmail account. Once you’re logged in, click on “Tools” at the top of the page, then select “Keyword Planner.” From there, type in one of your target keywords (or even just the beginning of a phrase) and hit “Get Ideas.”
After doing this for a couple of weeks, a look at which ones are bringing in the most traffic and conversions will give you a good indication of which ones to target in future blog posts.
Search Volume
Now that you understand how to track your keyword metrics, it’s time to focus on understanding search volume. What is this? Search volume refers to the number of searches done for a particular phrase in Google within any given month (or however frequently they are tracked).
If someone enters “buy cheap laptops online” into Google and 1000 people do so each month, then there would be 1000 monthly searches for that query.
Why does this matter? Understanding keywords can help with targeting audiences who know what they’re looking for – but if you want traffic from those users who aren’t even sure yet exactly what their problems or questions are, knowing which phrases get searched more often than others will allow you to target them as well!
For example: rather than target “best laptop for students” with a blog post on the best laptops under £500, you could instead create something around “what is the best affordable laptop to buy online.” In this way, readers actually searching for that phrase would be more likely to find what they’re looking for and click through.
But remember: overall search volume will also give insight into how competitive (or easy) it might be to rank in Google results when targeting certain keywords!
Keyword Difficulty
Now that you understand how to track your keyword metrics, it’s time to focus on understanding keyword difficulty. What is this? Keyword difficulty (or KD) refers to the estimated level of effort required to rank number one for a particular phrase in Google. The higher the KD score, the more difficult it will be to rank for that term – and vice versa.
Why does this matter? Knowing which keywords are more difficult than others can help with content planning by allowing you to target those phrases that have lower competition but also higher search volumes.
This way, you’ll get the best of both worlds! For example: if “buy cheap laptops online” has a high KD score, then it might not be worth targeting that phrase as a blog post since it will be difficult to rank number one. However, if “laptop reviews” has a lower KD score, then you might want to consider creating content around that phrase instead!
How is KD calculated?
KD is estimated by looking at the following factors:
- Number of Results (Domain Authority)
- Links to Page (Page Authority)
- Authority of the Page
- Competition Level (SERP features)
Cost Per Click (CPC)
Now that you understand how to track your keyword metrics, it’s time to focus on understanding CPC. What is this? Cost per click (or CPC) refers to the estimated amount an advertiser would pay each time someone clicks on their ad as a result of a search engine query.
Why does this matter? Knowing which keywords have higher CPCs than others can help with budgeting and planning for paid advertising campaigns.
For example: if “buy cheap laptops online” has a high CPC, then it might be worth allocating more funds towards running ads for that phrase since people are willing to pay more money for those clicks. However, if “laptop reviews” has a lower CPC, then you might want to target this phrase.
What is Search Intent?
Now that you understand how to track your keyword metrics, it’s time to focus on understanding search intent. What is this, you ask? In short, it’s the reason why people are searching for a particular phrase in the first place.
For example, if someone types “Best laptop for students” into Google, they’re obviously looking for information on what the best laptop would be for students in the current year. However, if someone enters “buy cheap laptops online,” they might not actually be interested in finding out which laptops are the best value – they just want to know where they can find a good deal on them.
In order to better target your audience with blog posts (and other content), it’s important to understand the intent before keywords.
The 3 Types of Search Queries
- Navigational: This type of query is when the user knows what they are looking for and wants to navigate to that page or website.
- Informational: The user is looking for information.
- Transactional: The user is looking to make a purchase.
What are some of the best tools and techniques for conducting keyword research for SEO purposes?
Here are some of the best tools and techniques for conducting keyword research for SEO purposes:
- Google Keyword Planner
- Ubersuggest
- Import.io
- SEMrush
- ahrefs
- Surfer SEO
What is this? As you can see, there are a few different options when it comes to doing keyword research that will help with your content marketing efforts. What works best may depend on what type of data or insights you’re looking for, how much time and budget you have available, etc.
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Conclusion
Once you have discovered the right set of keywords to target, it’s time start writing content that matches up with them! You can do this by including these words throughout your blog post titles as well as your description tag (which is what will show up when someone does a search).
So how much should be devoted to each keyword? The best way to determine this is usually through trial and error which requires lots of testing by doing split tests or A/B experiments.
Once you’ve got that down then all you need to do is keep writing blog posts that are full of great content, and you’re sure to see your site ranking higher!
Now that you have a better understanding of how to do keyword research, it’s time to put this information into practice! Get started by using the tools we listed above and see where they take you. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, so don’t expect your website to start ranking #one overnight. But if you stick with it and continue producing high-quality content, you’re sure to see some great results!