How to do Keyword Research in SEO
Keyword research in SEO is one of the most important, valuable, and high return activities in the search marketing field. Ranking for the right keywords can make or break your website. It’s not always about getting visitors to your site, but about getting the right kind of visitors.
Did you know that keyword research has an estimated 110,000 searches per month!
In this course we explain why keyword research in SEO is a critical first step in achieving results with your content.
Have you have ever produced a blog article and wondered why you were not getting any website traffic? The simple answer is that your article may not contain keywords people are searching for!
What is keyword research in SEO?
- Keyword research in SEO is when people use keywords to find and research actual search terms that people enter into search engines, and usually includes finding both the search volume and relative competitiveness of the terms.
- Keyword research is a critical component for search engine optimization because when used correctly it provides a road map for both the design and execution of building websites and developing content.
- Keywords are usually broken up and grouped based on the number of words within the query phrases. The more words in a keyword phrase usually the easier it is to rank for the term, since usually there is less relative competition.
Top 10 Tips to do Keyword research in SEO
1. Analyze search trends
Another variable you should bare in mind are search trends. You can get some inspiration from the keywords, if the ones you’ve chosen fit in local or global search trends, (depending on your business). If not, it would be a good idea to do additional research and add some new keywords and their variations to your list.
2. Use your own historical data
The other tool you could use is of course your analytics software. I assume that Google Analytics would be your first choice in that area. You can use it to track many types of traffic from search engines – paid, referral, social and organic. While analyzing your incoming organic traffic, if the amount of it is quite visible, you can see what keywords visitors were using in order to come to your site so far.
Related Post : : What Are SEO Keywords and Why are they important ?
3. Analyze your competition
You can also check how much competition your chosen keywords have.
Type some of of the keywords of your choice and look what results will be shown to you. Check if your competitors offer is available and look if the sponsored links of similar offers will appear. If so, then that’s the signal that this is the keyword you want to position your website in search engines. It has a big value and it could be difficult to achieve a better keyword rank than your competitors.
4. Use tools from your PPC campaigns
Researching keywords is not only important for SEO purposes, but is also essential for your paid SEM activities.
Google Keyword Research provided by AdWords advertising platform is a good place to start. You don’t have to pay money or start a campaign immediately to use it. It will provide information about keywords and phrases that people use as search queries to find your product.
5. Don’t Forget to Check Plurals :
One of the most common mistakes when doing keyword research is forgetting to run the numbers for both the singular and plurals versions of your terms.
I have found that often times one is significantly higher than the other, and quite often the plural version is indicative of commercial intent.
6. Make a list of important, relevant topics :
You’ll come up with about 5-10 topic buckets you think are important to your business, and then you’ll use those topic buckets to help come up with some specific keywords later in the process.
Related Post : : Top 10 Places to Use Keywords on your website in SEO
7. Expand Your List
Next, take your top-level target keyword phrase and throw it into a suggestion tool like ubersuggest.
Ubersuggest is a Google suggestion keyword scraper, which goes out and does the tedious work of running your keyword phrases along with every letter of the alphabet from A to Z, and number combinations 0 through 9, capturing the most frequently searched permutations.
8. Check related search terms :
This is a creative step you may have already thought of when doing keyword research. If not, it’s a great way to fill out those lists.
If you’re struggling to think of more keywords people might be searching about a specific topic, go to Google.com and take a look at the related search terms that appear when you plug in a keyword. These keywords can spark ideas for other keywords you may want to take into consideration.
9. Research for mix of head terms and long-tail keywords :
Head terms are keywords phrases that are generally shorter and more generic — they’re typically just one to three words in length, depending on who you talk to.
Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, are longer keyword phrases usually containing three or more words.
It’s important to check that you have a mix of head terms and long-tail terms because it’ll give you a keyword strategy that’s well balanced with long-term goals and short-term wins.
Related Post : : 4 Reasons Why You Should Still Use Meta Descriptions in SEO
10. Use Google Autocomplete to your Advantage :
Google’s autocomplete function isn’t just a convenience feature. It’s also a massively useful tool for SEO keyword research.
This is for two reasons; first, if you begin typing a search term into Google and it offers to complete that term, this – as confirmed by Google – demonstrates that others are searching for this term in volume.
The second reason that autocomplete terms are a good starting point for keyword research is that these terms are more likely to be searched because of the convenience factor. Many people will take Google’s suggestions when searching because they believe it’s more likely they’ll find what they’re looking for by using those terms.
BONUS – Various Tools and Sources :
Where do we get all of this knowledge about keyword demand and keyword referrals? From research sources like these:
There are also a variety of tools that provide keyword usage and competitiveness between both paid and organic search – some of which are pretty good.
SEMrush – Gives you fantastic insight into search volume, average cost per click, number of competing pages, related keywords, rank results, and even companies currently buying ad space.
SpyFu – Provides search volume, number of clicks per day and their average daily cost, the actual number of advertisers currently bidding on the keyword and the actual AdWord ads that are running.
Keyword Spy – Is one of my favorites for getting a quick sense of the landscape. It very quickly (through use of tabs) gives you access to data on PPC ads, related keyword phrases, your paid and organic competitors, and my favorite; misspellings!
All the above methods and Tools are strongly recommended for Beginners to apply them on their website to increase their ranking on the SERP’s and drive organic traffic from the Search Engine like Google.