What is Keywords Research?
Keyword Research is one of the most important aspects as far as search engine optimization is concerned. It would be best to use the right keywords, which can get you the top rankings you always wanted for your site.
Nothing good comes easy, you may need to do some work (in the form of research), and by researching the right keywords, you will not only know the kinds of phrases and terms to focus on but also give you an insight into your customers.
It is not about getting the audience but getting the right audience, and this is what happens when you use the right keywords. This makes keyword research a pivotal and probably one of the most aspects of SEO marketing.
Keyword Research is actually one of the pillars of search engine optimization as it provides a clear vision and idea for designing a website and creating valuable content.
Keywords are set, and then they are creatively inserted in web content on the basis of queries made on search engines. Usually, if the phrases have more words, it gets easier to rank.
The first step is done; we can recap and understand what keyword research is. This understanding takes us to the next step, which is to understand why keyword research is important.
Why Is Keyword Research Important?
In answering this question, it is important to understand that there is a process that matches users and web owners. Through certain algorithms, Google (and other search engines) go through contents on sites to determine the matching sites when people click on the search button.
Most people use search engines to look for information. They do this simply by typing a keyword or keyword phrases on the search engines. Consequently, the algorithms on the search engines crawl through the content on the sites and subsequently, the search engines match it with your search and show you relevant search results.
Therefore, this is what makes keywords so important for search engines. It gives the result on the basis of your web page content and what your target audience is looking for.
For a keyword to be effective, they need to be targeted at the right kind of audience. For example, if you have a keyword about basketball, it would rank better for searches that are related to basketball lovers.
Through keywords, you can ensure that you get your target audience to your site and convert them into customers.
The bottom line is that if you do not use the right kind of keywords, you may attract the audience, but your conversion rate would be quite low.
This is why the right keyword research can make or break your entire internet marketing strategy.
You shall search for keywords that more people are using during online searches but are used less by competitors.
How to Do Keywords Research?
For many years, search engines have been successful in the limitation of the significance of keywords when it comes to rankings.
Change is a constant, and today, it is not mandatory for keywords to be present in titles or tags in order to have the topmost rankings on the SERPs.
Experts have even added that the use of exact keywords in content is no longer mandatory too.
Before you rush to the conclusion of brushing keyword research apart, it is important to ask one question,
Does this mean you should not invest your time in keyword research?
Surprisingly, the answer is a resounding no!
There is no doubt when it comes to the importance of keyword research; however, it is used in a slightly different manner than before. Now, you need to concentrate on the meaning and popularity of the phrase.
The tactful use of phrases and words is still important, and online marketers recognize this importance.
Since we can both agree that keyword research is important, and then we can without further ado get into the real details.
If you were wondering how to do keyword research, I would analyze it in 6 steps.
Step 1: What Is Your Mission?
One of the biggest mistakes you might make in SEO is by labelling your success with more traffic. Traffic is good, but it shouldn’t be your only goal. In the business of online marketing, sales are much more important than gathering traffic.
To understand the goal of an action, you will need to understand the definition of success. In this case, success is measured by sales, and it is the ultimate goal. Traffic is excellent, but it is only a step towards the goal, traffic needs to become sales and subsequently become revenue.
After you must have spelt out your mission, the next step is to begin making keywords research. During this process, remember to consider your mission and research keywords that are in line with it.
When you categorize your keywords, you will easily find the right marketing strategy. Finding this strategy will help immensely in the process of creating quality content.
Step 2: Make A List Of Keywords And Relevant Topics Based On What You Know About Your Business.
Are you up to speed with the latest updates and guidelines regarding keyword research?
Keyword researching refers to the process of finding the words/terms that people search or are most likely to search on the search engines.
So, all you need to do is prepare a list of popular and relevant keywords on the SERPs.
Other than that you shall create content that targets your audience and provides valuable information about your business to the audience. This way, you are focusing on the keywords as well as generating relevant traffic to your site.
Step 3: Look At Search Intent
Remember, keyword research is not just about finding the most popular keywords; there’s more to it. Other factors need to be considered; a great example of this is the intent of the search.
For example, if someone is going to Google and searching for “paver cleaning”, what is the search’s likelihood?
You must know the exact things that folks search for—understanding what they mean when the search will give you that upper hand in creating keywords for your proposed audiences.
Although there is no such tool that can help you know what searchers are looking for when they type a particular keyword, there is a process that can give you an idea.
Once you get an idea about the way keywords are ranked, you can start finding the search intent for the same keyword. You may follow these steps to do so:
Examine the Search Engine Result Pages—elements like organic listings, ads. Graph results will give you a hint about the search intent.
Step 4: Construct Landing Pages.
Online marketing master-classes worldwide always emphasize the important role that landing pages play in the marketing process.
Your website (and perhaps your online marketing effort) is strongly hinged on how well your landing page is set. Your landing page is that first impression in the mind of a new visitor to your website.
Having the right product or service is important, but it is much more important to ensure that you creatively pass your message across.
A good landing page will show the (prospective) customers that your business is willing to do an excellent job. With a great layout and amazing content, you can constantly reap the benefits of having a magnificent landing page.
Step 5: Competitor Analysis: See What Keywords Your Competitors Are Ranking For
Competitor analysis is another important step in keyword research. It will help you in determining your position in the market against your competitors. You may need to conduct researches which include getting reviews and information about what your competitors are planning and doing. Your ultimate goal should be to know the secrets behind the success of competitors.
When you properly analyze the competitors, you will find out how they use some of the most critical SEO factors to their advantage. A proper understanding of this will immensely help your marketing efforts.
Step 6: Research Related Search Terms
If you want to maintain your rankings on the search engines, you need to be active and plan every step.
After you are done with finding relevant keywords for your business, your next step should be finding related search terms. It would help if you continued searching for relevant research terms as it will help you in the analysis and implementation of keyword research for better results.
Top 8 Free Keywords Research Tools
Choosing the right keywords can be the most stressful and one of the most expensive aspects of quality content creation and remarkable SEO strategies.
There are many free keywords research tools that you can use to find responsive keywords and discuss them here.
Google Keyword Planner
This tool is one of the most important when it comes to keyword research.
It is basically planned for advertising, but it can also use for keyword research organically. You can also customize your search results for one of the competitors.
All you need to do is:
Enter your service or product.
Add your competitor’s landing page as well as the product category.
Now, you can customize the search for some of the keywords.
Keyword planner can help you in many ways; some of them are:
- You can search for different types of keywords as well as ad group ideas.
- Receive search volume for a different list of keywords, or you can group these into ad groups.
- Obtain traffic predictions for a list of keywords.
- Multiple keywords list to get new keyword suggestions.
Google Trends
Google trend is one of the most beneficial tools for SEO. With this tool, you can check to see how frequently a keyword or term is being used.
The search results that you will get are relative. So, you can use the tool to compare phrases and keywords. It will also show you where the searches are coming from, and the change in the keywords’ volume with time.
The data on Google trends are updated every day. It can be very convenient to use it as it allows you to enter five search terms at a time. Subsequently, the results for these terms are shown on a graph.
Keywords Everywhere
‘Keywords Everywhere’ is a free tool that is used to search for relevant keywords. It is a simple and convenient tool to use. You can find an extension on both Firefox and Chrome.
It will display the search volume of the keywords in the Google search bar. You can also directly get suggestions from Google.
It will also display relevant keywords on the right-hand side of the results. In addition to the keywords you searched, you will see the phrases people use more often. Then, if you want more keywords, you can scroll down and see unique keyword ideas.
Soovle
Soovle is another amazing free tool for keyword search. It provides you with a unique search interface which puts different sites on a single page. Another thing that makes it unique is that it shows auto-completed phrases, as suggested by various search sites.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is one of the most straightforward tools out there. It will help you in getting more traffic and simultaneously increase the affiliate income. It takes the keyword you enter and provides you with related suggestions. It picks up each letter and provides you with hundreds of suggestions.
Answer the Public
Answer the Public is another tool that can be used to generate keywords. It provides you with a long list of keywords that are sorted in alphabetical order. It does the same by combining various terms “how”, “what”, “where” for relevant questions and “for”, “like” for prepositions.
It can also be used to generate content topics and creative event ideas. This tool gives you a lot of power as it helps you to create a direction for your marketing process through the generation of topics.
Long-Tail Keyword Research Strategy
There is more to the use of keywords than the mere use of short keywords or phrases. Online marketers can also leverage long-tail keywords to actualize their marketing goals. As a matter of fact, long-tail keywords are much more efficient than short keywords and here’s why;
Long-tail keywords are more defined and specific keyword phrases that are more likely to be used during a voice search.
Generally, you can see these keywords when the customer is exactly searching for a thing that he/she is going to buy.
For example, “I am looking for the cheapest ticket to New York”.
Managing such keywords is simple; all you need to do is communicate your business to potential customers in the best possible manner.
Examples of long-tail keywords.
Have a look at some of the long-tail keywords here;
- LSI Keywords
Latent Semantic Indexing is the keywords that are directly proportional to the main keywords. In simpler terms, they refer to words similar in meaning or words that can be used in similar contexts.
For example “Smartphones” and “android” are LSI keywords because they are mostly used in the same context and are mostly found together. However, they aren’t synonyms.
Three ways through which LSI can improve your rankings:
- Now, rather than looking at the keyword density, Google looks at the complete context.
- So, if you reach the limit for keywords density on your site, further repetition of keywords may lead to Google Penalty. With the use of LSI keywords, you can safely add related keywords.
- Since LSI keywords are closely related keywords, and your page will show up in the results for main keywords and LSI keywords.
- Google Autosuggest
Autosuggest is a feature in the Google search bar that is basically designed to make your search quick and easy. So, when you are typing or searching for something, Google will suggest you variants of search queries while typing in the search bar.
To get longer and more specific keywords, you can type the same keyword “dentist new york” and look for other variants that Google will suggest for the related term.
7 Benefits of Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords have innumerable benefits to your marketing efforts. They play a vital role in the SEO ranking, and you cannot miss out on the importance of long-tail keywords. Some benefits include;
- They help you gain traffic through a much more targeted approach.
- The traffic generated has more conversion rate.
- You can achieve your goals rapidly.
- They help you gain better visibility.
- You can outrank competition through long-tail keywords.
- Long-tail keyword gives subject to your content.
- Posts and blogs that focus primarily on long-tail keywords give more value to the readers
How to Calculate Keyword Competitiveness
What comes next after you find the most relevant and popular keywords? Do you sit back and reward yourself for a good job, or do you go further to do a great job?
After you must have found the right keywords, you need to ensure that you also find these keywords’ relative competitiveness. You can do this by checking out the competitiveness on the first page of Google.
This is very important because if you devote your time to finding the keyword’s competitiveness, you will get to know which keywords get better search volume and have less or no competition.
So, let us see how you can evaluate keyword competition.
- All in Title
Have you ever thought of doing a specific type of search on Google? Well, this can be possible by using an “allintitle” as a prefix. This kind of search will only look for the title text and nothing else.
Knowing the allintitle search results will not only cater to success but also establish title tags that Google highly values. Identifying the number of search results that have the desired keyword is also very crucial.
- All in URLs
AllinURLs is another Google’s advanced search operator on different SEO forums. This Google search operator allows the users to refrain their search results. You can restrict your search results to a specific URL that you want to search.
For example, allinurl: gym fitness will provide you with results with the words “gym” and “fitness” in the URL of the web pages listed in the search results.
All you need to do is type allinurl: in the search bar on Google, and you can access the advanced search operator on Google.
- Keywords Difficulty
There are a number of paid and free tools that can help you in finding the keywords. But, the hard part is figuring out the keywords that will get you to the top.
So, after you are done making a list of relevant keywords, you shall know how difficult it will be to rank a particular keyword; this is possible by using some tools.
Keywords difficulty is a tool that can help you in this process.
You can check several phrases and keywords on this tool. You will be really surprised to see how difficult it is to rank somewhat similar keywords too.
These results can be further used to figure out the possible variations in the keywords difficulty landscape.
- Monthly Searches
As the term implies, monthly searches refer to the total number of searches for a specific keyword monthly. It provides data that gives details about the keyword search, which is set over a month. Also, it gives a general idea about the competitiveness and the total volume of the keyword. It also helps SEO professionals with the proper analysis of how a specific keyword drives traffic over a certain period.
The process of calculating the overall competitiveness of a keyword can be made easy and orderly with the right tools. The volume and competitiveness of a keyword are pivotal factors that need to be considered.
For a keyword to be said to have high volume means that is likely to rank. It also means that such keywords will be highly competitive as a result of its exposure.
It is a level playing field, and you can view what your competitors are doing. Therefore, you needn’t bother about the competitiveness of a keyword because there will always be competition. It would be best if you focused on ranking the keyword rather than focusing on your opponents.
Advanced Keywords Research Strategy
Although the earlier use of keyword research was limited to keyword selection, it has become much more than that today. The selection of keywords is primary, and it is an important function of these tools.
These keywords help in the process of writing articles, blogs, and so on. Therefore, identifying them is very important.
While it is important to identify them, there is much more that can be done. With advanced keyword research tools, marketers can enjoy the identification and subsequent skilful use of keywords.
Have you ever thought what Google sees when it crawls down to all of the pages in the domain?
Well, for this purpose, Google has created the Google Search Console. The ultimate goal of Google is to give its users the most applicable content for every search result.
Google wants people to see the most relevant and helpful content on the first page.
With this tool, you can feel like you have a personal assistant that understands what you need to do. You can easily find out that for which search queries your website has been found.
This is where Google Search Console can be beneficial. It provides you with highly specific ideas like – “Add these keywords to get to page 2 from page 4.”
Example:
The tool can also show you how frequently searches are finding your content or webpage and how many times they are clicking.
Data like this are essential to ensure that your methods are effective or otherwise.
The tool also keeps users up to speed with the broken links that affect user experience on your web pages. It also gives you valuable feedback to inform you whether your pages are responsive on mobile screens.
This is how you can find these results:
Go to Search Console> Performance> Choose Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position > Pick Pages > Scroll down, & for the URL you will have to choose the double arrow on the farthest right > Pick queries.
The correct URL will show up under the “Pages” selection.
Google Analytics is a free tool that Google provides to analyze and track visitors on your web pages. You may have hundreds or thousands of visitors every week, but practically they are of no use if you don’t have relevant information about them.
Google Analytics makes it possible to analyze each of your visitors and provides you with a fair chance to convert them into potential customers.
In addition, Google Analytics also allows you to track everything from where your site is getting the traffic to the visitors’ behaviour on your website.
You can also track social media activities, monitor mobile traffic, find the latest trends, and combine various data sources with helping you achieve your goals.
This is how you can Create Google Analytics:
- Create/sign in to your Google Analytics account.
- Create property onto your Account.
- Click on the website & then, add your website name along with the URL.
- Select your industry.
- Select your time zone.
- Now, get tracking id.
Now, install the tracking ID to your website.
This is how you can use Google Analytics:
Go to Acquisition > Organic Traffic > Search Queries
Final Words on Keyword Research for SEO
It is without an iota of doubt that keywords research is important for a proper SEO strategy. You need to find terms, phrases, and long-tail keywords to generate traffic and subsequently increase revenue.
Finding the keywords is the first step that everyone must take for SEO success.
After generating the keywords, you must go a step further and ensure that you put the keywords to maximal use. There are several free and paid keyword tools that you can use to generate meaningful keywords.
Ultimately, finding the exact words or phrases that people are looking for on the search engines will help create targeted content and generate traffic on your site, targeting a larger audience, which helps in better conversions.
However, getting traffic is just not enough. What is the point of getting thousands or millions of visitors when you know nothing about them? It is pointless. But, there are tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics that you can use to track and monitor your traffic source, get details about your visitors, and many more.
Therefore, with these tools, your overall marketing efforts can be synthesized. When your marketing efforts are directed toward the right set of people, then you will gain more conversions.
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