While Google and other search engines are constantly introducing new algorithm updates, there is a persistent need for keyword searches to optimize websites for marketers. It is time to demystify the keyword research and find out how it really works to improve the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. This article is a comprehensive guide to keyword research for SEO to help business owners and marketers understand the topic and its importance in digital marketing.
What is keyword research for SEO?
It all starts with a “search term” when people try to find something on the Internet. Keyword research is one of the most important aspects of all sustainability SEO strategy. It helps to find out what search terms your target group uses to find the products you offer.
In other words, the goal of the keyword research is to analyze which words, phrases or questions your target group uses to find your products or services. The selection of the right keywords and their ranking can decide on the success or failure of your online marketing campaigns. If you are not sure which keywords are important for your website, your social media and your paid advertising campaigns, how would you optimize your content?
If it is carried out correctly, the keyword research is a valuable and profitable search marketing activity. So what do you know about the search terms that your interested parties enter in the search engines? Knowledge of these terms will play a crucial role in the success of their SEO efforts.
Before we continue and examine the process of keyword research, it is important to understand search queries. According to A Current reportThere are three types of search queries: transaction, information and navigation queries. However, search queries can also be commercial in nature, i.e. represent people who want to buy something or do research before making a purchase.
Keyword research process
In the past, marketers were used to using certain key words that potential customers could look for and use them. Things have changed dramatically in recent years.
If you are new to SEO and digital marketing, make sure that you learn and master the keyword research process to establish and implement a keyword strategy with high ROI. You have to do the following:
Start with the brainstorming of subject areas
Most SEO beginners make a mistake right from the start by relying on a keyword research tool like the Google Keyword Planner (GKP). These tools are ideal for generation of terms that have a close connection to their topic, but they lack the ability to develop new keyword ideas.
For example, what do you think when you hear the word football? Whether you like this sport or not, here are some words that could come to mind: apart from, Christiano Ronaldo, World Cup 2022, penalty shootout, etc. If you use a tool and enter the term “football”, this is probably around Finding terms such as football games, soccer online, football games for children, etc.
So start the process with a brainstorming on the topics for which you want to create a ranking and consider 8–15 subject areas that you think are of crucial importance for your company. If you are a blogger, these topics could refer to things that you most often blog about. You can use these subject areas later in the process if you develop certain keywords.
If you sell products online, you sort out topics that can help you the most conversion. One of the most effective techniques is to put themselves in the position of your readers or buyers. If you sell marketing software, you may have subject areas such as “marketing analysis”, “inbound marketing”, “lead generation” etc.
Understand what your audience wants
When creating a list of potential keywords, the way people look for their content or products and a better understanding of their target group plays a key role. As soon as you find out how your interested parties are looking for your content, discover a completely new world of strategic SEO.
Fill your subject areas with keywords
When you are ready by brainstorming different subject areas, fill these areas with a few keywords. If one of your subject areas is, for example, “digital marketing”, there are some keyword phrases that could use your target group:
- Digital marketing tools
- Does my company need digital marketing?
- Lead generation
- What is digital marketing?
- Top agencies for digital marketing
The goal here is not to prepare the list of the final key words, but to collect phrases that can enter potential customers to search for content that relate to this specific subject area. There can be hundreds of keyword phrases that you can integrate into your content. It is not yet time to narrow your list. You can repeat the same process for any subject area.
If you do not come up with some helpful search terms, you can speak with your sales team or customer care to find out which terms your interested parties or customers use or what questions you frequently ask. Keyword research is more about how well you understand your audience. Answer the public is a great tool to generate some good ideas based on the knowledge wishes of your audience.
Go to Google.com
It may be difficult for you to fill your subject areas with keywords. If this applies and you have difficulty finding the keywords that your target group is looking for on a specific topic, go to Google and enter a topic in the search bar. There you will find a list of related terms.
If you start a search on Google, you will see some suggestions for related search queries below in the Google results. You can use these “related search terms” to let your imagination run wild and generate new keyword ideas.
Use a mixture of long-tail and head terms
It could be difficult for beginners to distinguish their meaning between long-tail keywords and head term. Long-tail keywords are long keyword phrases that can contain three or more words. Head terms, on the other hand, are generic and can only contain one to three words.
Make sure your goats contain a mixture of long-tail and head terms. It will help to develop a solid keyword strategy that aims at short-term success and long-term goals. It is important to take into account that the main terms are often searched for and it is almost impossible to rank them. Let’s take an example: Which of the following search terms would be easier to rank in your opinion without looking for the keyword difficulty or the search volume:
- Web content
- How do I write content for a website?
It is really difficult to rank for search terms such as “web content”. However, there is no point in giving up hope. While main terms create the most traffic, the traffic, which you will receive by the term “How do I write content for a website”, will be more relevant and fertile. Because long-soil search terms will help you to redirect more qualified traffic to your website. As a startup, it is advisable to attract a targeted target group or people who use long search terms to find their products or services.
It is of no use to strive for top terms at the beginning if they can only generate generic traffic. For example, it is difficult to recognize the intentions of people who use the search term “web content”. During the other search term “How do I write content for a website” clearly reveals the intention of a searcher.
Nevertheless, it is not right to ignore the main terms. Make sure you use a mixture of long-tail and head terms. You can include main terms in your long-term SEO strategy, while long-tail keywords help you to achieve faster results.
Study your competitors
When it comes to developing an effective SEO strategy that can withstand hard competition, it is important to find out which keywords your competitors want to get a ranking. You don’t have to copy everything your competitors do. Just because a keyword is decisive for the success of your competitors does not mean that you should concentrate on it. However, it is helpful to find out which keywords your competitors concentrate on so that you can evaluate your keyword list.
Here it is important to consider that you shouldn’t miss any keywords that do not care about your competitors. This will help you to conquer market shares on important conditions. It is a good approach to maintain a balance between terms that are difficult due to the competition and terms that are a little more realistic. Here, too, the goal is to create a list of keywords that can generate quick successes and help them achieve more demanding, long-term SEO goals.
The question is how to find out, for which keywords the competitors rank. There are tools like Semrush The different reports generate that help you find the terms that your competitors are looking for. You can also do this manually by looking for keywords in an incognito browser. Based on the search result, you can see in which positions your competitors are located.
Use the Google Ads keyword planner to refine your list
Now that you have a list of estimated keywords, it is time to use it Keyword planner for Google Ads to narrow down your extensive list using quantitative data. There are other tools with which you can optimize the process of keyword research. The keyword planner makes it easier for you by showing traffic estimates and search volumes for various keywords.
The keyword tool, an old version of the keyword planner, was more diverse in terms of functionality. With a combination of keyword planner and Google trends, however, you can still achieve good results.
With the keyword planner you can highlight terms on your list that have too much or too little search volume. Before you remove these terms from your list, however, take a look at the trend course and the forecasts in Google Trends. Platforms like Google trends will help you understand which terms are trendy.
Strategies for identifying keywords
As already mentioned, the use of keywords that are probably used by their potential customers is one of the most natural and effective techniques to improve the ranking of your website in the SERPS. From content marketing to paid advertising, your list of targeted keywords serves as the basis for your digital marketing strategy and the subsequent creation of all content.
1. Keyword value
It is important to have a list of keywords that have the highest relevance for your products or services. Your selected search terms must receive a reasonably high number of monthly search queries. It is of no use to be in the top 5 or 10 of the search results for key words that nobody is looking for. Also integrate variations of your important keywords to achieve the maximum presence.
2. Take into account the keyword difficulty
Let us assume that you want to write an article about Chow and have to carry out a keyword research in order to reach a high rank. If you only concentrate on the search volume, you will probably select keywords like “Chow my recipe”. However, if you take a look at the keyword difficulty metric, you will find that the competition for these keywords is very large and it would take years to beat the competition and evaluate your article. In addition, your blog or website is probably not as relevant as so many other websites in your niche.
If you deal with the keyword difficulty, you will explore many other search terms for which it is not difficult to create a ranking. The use of keywords such as “Chinese Pork Chow Mein Recipe” makes it easier for you to achieve the desired results.
Search terms with a lower level of difficulty are not as popular as the main search terms, but they have less competition and save time that you can invest somewhere else. The ultimate goal of keyword research is to generate more qualified leads and non-irrelevant traffic.
Best SEO tools for keyword research
The keyword research is the core of every search campaign. If you learn how to carry out a keyword research, there are numerous SEO keyword tools that will make your work easier for you later. Here are the 4 most important SEO keyword research tools that you must have:
1. KW finder
Kwfinder is one of the best tool for long-tail keyword research. It helps you to understand variables such as search volume, level of difficulty, trends, CPC etc. As the name suggests, it acts as a keyword finder. When you click on a single keyword, its level of difficulty, the domains on which the keyword concentrates, is displayed traffic, social shares and side backlinks. This information plays a crucial role if you have to integrate your content marketing with SEO. In addition, you can also dive into the local keyword research with KWFINDER.
2. Google Keyword planner
When it comes to keyword research tools, you should not miss the Google Keyword Planner, which will help you reach the right customer with the right keywords. You can start looking for phrases or words that are relevant to your company. The Google Keyword Planner will find the keywords for you that are most relevant for your products or services.
3. MOZ keyword explorer
MOZ A great tool to effectively complete a keyword research project. Keyword Difficulty & Serp Analysis is an intelligent tool that shows the percentage of difficulty for every keyword on your list and explains how difficult it would be to tend on a keyword or how important a keyword for your campaign is. You can also see the top 10 websites for your carefully selected keywords. MOZ offers tools that can give their SEO and paid advertising campaigns a real added value.
4. Semrush
Semrush is one of the most diverse keyword research tools and offers a wide range of functions. From SEO and PPC research to competitive analyzes, Semrush helps you to improve your entire SEO results.
How to use keywords in your content
You must strategically integrate targeted keywords into your websites. Not every keyword placement leads to the same results. There are places on your website that are more important than others. Here are some elements on your website that must be optimized for the keywords you have chosen:
- title
- Descriptions
- Image title and alternative text
- Urls
- Descriptions
- Web copy
If you have not yet optimized these places with relevant keywords, prioritize this task. Small optimizations or the rewriting of the above -mentioned elements will pay off in the long run. Focus more on the pages that receive most traffic, or on the sides that are of crucial importance for your company. Don’t forget to optimize the pages that you will create in the future.
Diploma
Keyword research is the first step when it comes to writing web content or SEO texts. Before writing a web text, a blog, a display text or something else that you present on the Internet, deepen into the minds of your potential customers and find out which words you use in the search.
If you master the keyword research, you can create highly productive SEO campaigns. Be sure to find out about the keyword research before working on an SEO strategy. In conclusion, it can be said that you work through the keyword research process and use key words as guidelines for your content efforts. Write valuable blogs and articles on every single key word for which you want to be found. Use this keyword research guide for SEO to build a profitable online presence.
If you are not sure where to start or how to develop a successful SEO strategy for your company, contact an agency for results-oriented digital marketing. Reach First is one of the leading online marketing agencies in Canada, where we help our customers to achieve maximum online presence through strategically developed and implemented SEO strategies. Contact us to discuss your online marketing requirements!