Keyword Research

Keyword research done right shows you the terms, phrases, questions and answers that your target audience are asking.

Keyword research is part of the puzzle when it comes to:

Getting more pageviews
Getting more leads
Selling your products or services

In this post you will learn:

what keyword research is
why it’s important
how to conduct your research for your SEO strategy
choose the right keywords for your website.

So, let’s dive right in.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research finds and analyses search terms that people enter into search engines.

The goal of keyword research is to use the data from the search terms you find for either SEO content creation or general marketing.

A few examples of what keyword research helps to do is:

Queries to target
How popular these queries are
How difficult they are to rank

Why is keyword research important?

Keyword research is important because it helps you find the best keywords to target with your website and its content.

Keyword research also gives you details of search queries that your target audience searches for Google and other search engines.

When people do research by searching online, they are using keywords to find the solutions to their problems.

Using the target keywords from your keyword research to write content, helps it get in front of your audience and your website gains more traffic.

It’s important to make content that your audience is searching for and not around what you want to tell your audience.

The benefits of doing keyword research includes:

Insights into Marketing Trends

Doing your keyword research the right way gives you insights into current marketing trends, helps you build your content around relevant topics and the keywords your audience searches for most.

Grows your Traffic

You can get more traffic to your website and rank higher on search engine results when you find and publish your content with the best target keywords.

Helps you acquire more Customers

By making content other business professionals are looking for, you can cater to their needs and solve their problems.

Once they see you as a trusted source of information then you can offer them a call to action into the buyer’s journey, eventually until they complete a transaction for your product or service.

To find the questions that your audience wants answers the most, research keywords by their:

Popularity
Search volume
General intent

Keywords vs. Topics

SEO has evolved and changed.

For that reason, SEO professionals need a different approach.

Instead of focusing on the keyword alone, switch your focus to the intent behind that keyword and if your content answers the questions your audience is asking to its fullest.

So, Keyword research is still important and very much needed.

Remember, keyword research tells you:

the topics your audience cares about
the popularity of those topics (when you use the right SEO tool).

So, researching keywords with high volume of searches per month, helps you find and organise your content into future topics to create content on.

Once you have found the topics of interest to base your content on, use these topics to find the target keywords for your content’s particular topic.

Keyword research factors

Keyword research falls into three main sections:

Relevance

Google bases its search engine ranking on how relevant your content is compared to the search query.

To know how relevant your content is to a searcher’s query, you need to know their search intent.

And ,your content only ranks for keywords that match the searchers’ needs or search intent.

So, you need to make your content the best resource on the search engine for the searcher’s query.

Because, Google will not rank content higher on their search engine if it gives less value compared to the other content on their search engine.

Authority

Content by authoritative publishers are more influential to Google.

Publishing helpful informational content on your website and promoting that content to gain backlinks and social signals, will eventually make you an authoritative source in your topic.

Your website and it’s content has a lower chance of ranking if:

You are not authoritative in your topic space
keyword SERPs have sources you can’t compete with
your content is exceptional and doesn’t stand out.

Volume

Targeting keywords with a monthly search volume can help you rank on the first page for that specific keyword.

But, if no one ever searches for that keyword then, you will not get visitors or traffic to your website.

Volume of a keyword is how many times that keyword is searched on a monthly basis.

Your Keyword Research Strategy

Keyword research has certain steps that help you come up with a list of search terms to target.

Following these steps build a strong keyword strategy so when your audience searches for terms in the search engines, your content can be found.

Keyword research steps:

Your businesses relevant topics.

To start coming up with relevant topics to your business:

First list all the generic topics you want to rank for, these topics can be broad too.
Come up with at least 5-10 generic topics that are important to your business

For example, If you blog regularly then list the topics you blog about the most.

Or, if you sell a certain product or service then it’s the topics you come across most in sales conversations.

Simply, ask yourself the question, from the point of view of your audience, what types of topics would your target audience search for that you want your business to provide information on?

For example, a digital marketing company, would come up with topics like:

Blogging, which has 19K monthly views
email marketing, which has 30K monthly views
Content marketing, which has 17K monthly views
SEO, which has 214K monthly views
social media marketing, which has 71K monthly views
marketing analytics, which has 6.2K monthly views
Digital marketing, which has 8.5K monthly views

The average monthly views per topic, tells you how important these topics are to your audience.

This search metric also tells you all the different sub-topics you have to make content about to rank for that keyword.

Find keywords for your topics.

Next, find keywords for the topics you have discovered.

Your target audience is searching for specific search terms related to your topics.

So, think of keyword phrases that are important for rank in the search engine results page (SERPs).

Now, going back to the digital marketing company example, in the previous section

One of the topics was “content marketing.”

Examples of keyword phrases related to the topic “content marketing” might include:

Digital marketing tools
how to start digital marketing
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing software
best digital marketing tools

Just think of keywords your potential audience might use to search content related to the topic of interest.

So, this isn’t your final list of keyword phrases.

But, just brain dump keyword phrases related to the particular topic.

Another method is…

…for keyword ideas is to find the keywords your website is already ranking for.

To find keywords your website is already ranking for, use analytics websites like Google Analytics:

Go into your website’s traffic sources
Go to your organic search traffic and find keywords used to find your website
Repeat this method for all your other topic

Keyword Research, Search Intent and Analysis.

Search intent of a search engine user is now one of the most important factors ranking on search engines like Google.

You have to solve the problem of the search than simply add the keyword to your content.

So, when it comes to your keyword research, think about the meanings and intentions behind the searcher typing in that specific keyword.

For example, the keyword phrase “how to start a blog” could have more than one search intent.

Possible questions you could ask yourself for this keyword phrase is:

Does the searcher want to learn how to start a blog post?
Does the searcher want to start a website to write blog content?

Before writing your content, you will have to answer similar questions based on your topics and keywords then tailor your content strategy to target people based on the keyword’s intent.

To help you figure out the user’s intent, simply type the keyword into Google or another search engine and see the type of results that come up.

Then, make sure your content is similar to the type of content on the search engines search results for your keywords.

Research related search terms.

Looking at the related search terms when you type in your keyword into Google, can help when struggling to come up with keywords people might be searching for.

Just type in your keyword, scroll to the bottom and you will see a section titled “related results.”

These search suggestions related to your keywords can offer inspiration for other keywords.

Then, you can search those related results, scroll down to the bottom and look at their related results.

Keep repeating this process as much as you like.

A bonus method includes, typing in your keyword and not pressing enter to see the auto-complete suggestions for more keyword inspiration.

Use keyword research tools.

Keyword research and SEO tools can save you time by helping you come up with more keyword ideas.

These tools show results on exact match and phrase match keywords based on your keyword ideas.

Some of the popular keyword research tools include:

How to Find and Pick Keywords

Now you have an idea of the keywords you want to rank for.

So, let’s learn how to find the best keywords for your strategy:

Use Google Keyword Planner.

Google’s Keyword Planner gives you the search volume and traffic estimates for your keywords.

From the information you got from the Keyword Planner, use Google Trends to find out if the keyword is trending and if it’s predicted to keep trending.

The Keyword Planner can help find which keywords have high or low keyword volumes, so you can filter the low search volume keywords out.

But, even if a keyword has low search volumes, double check it in Google Trends.

Some low-volume terms might be too early to rank for and could bring you a lot of traffic a few months down the line.

Prioritise easy to rank keywords.

When youre getting started with blogging for your business, it’s a good idea to go for keywords with little competition.

Large companies and blogs with more authority go for high search volume keywords, and because they are well-established brands, Google will give them authority over many topics.

So, go for keywords with little competition.

Keywords without a lot of articles are easy to rank for because they have less content fighting for the highest rank.

Check monthly search volumes.

The monthly search volumes for keywords will tell you the content people want to read about.

This is the best indicator for content ideas.

Monthly search volume is the number of times a search query or keyword is searched in Google or other search engines each month.

To find the most searched for keywords over related keyword clusters, use FREE tools like searchvolume.io or Google Trends.

Pick keywords based on SERP features.

Google has a few search engine result pages (SERPs) featuring snippets that can bring in traffic.

Look up your topics keywords and see the first results that come up on the page.

A quick overview of the different types of SERP featured snippets include:

Image Packs

Image packs are a horizontal row of images that come up in an organic position on search results.

Search your keyword term in Google and if an image pack appears then you should write a blog post that has a lot of images to get traffic from this feature.

Features Snippets

Featured snippets, also known as paragraph snippets, are quick answers to search queries that come up at the top of Google search results as short snippets of text.

To get your content in the featured snippet sections, first you need to understand the searcher’s intent and then give straight to the point, helpful and concise answers to their questions.

List Snippets

List snippets, or listicles, usually come from “How To” searches and are posts that give step-by-step instructions to complete a certain task from start to finish.

To get featured in a list snippet, make a blog post with direct, clear instructions and formatting that can help your audience complete certain tasks based on their search intent.

Video Snippets

Video snippets replace text feature snippets at the top of Google search query pages, with short videos.

To get features at the top of Google with video snippets, post a video on both YouTube and your website and tag the video with the targeted keywords people are searching for.

Mix of short terms and long-tail keywords.

Head terms are short keyword phrases, one to three words long.

Long-tail keywords are long keyword phrases with three or more words.

For a balanced keyword strategy that targets long-term goals and short-term wins, it’s important to mix both head terms and long-tail terms.

When comparing short and long-tail terms, then short terms are:

searched for more frequently
more competitive
harder to rank for compared to long-tail terms.

For example, without the help of any keyword research tool to look up search volume or difficulty, out of the following terms: do you think would be harder to rank for?

how to write a great blog post
blogging

The short term keyword “blogging”, would be harder to rank for.

Because head terms, like “blogging” have more search volume and potential to send traffic to your website.

But, the traffic is more generic.

However, the long-tail term, “how to write a great blog post” will drive traffic to your website that is more specific to the product or service you provide.

Plus, with long-tail keywords being more specific, it’s easier to figure out the searcher’s intent when using those types of keywords.

And with the head term, “blogging,” it’s harder to know the search intent of the seacher as their reasons could be many.

So make sure to have a mix of head terms and long-tail keywords.

The reason I say have a mix and not one or the other is because you will want some quicker, low-volume traffic with long-tail keywords whilst your head terms target your long-term, higher-traffic ranking goals.

Spy on your competitors.

Spying on your competitors and knowing the keywords they rank for is a good way to add to your list of keywords or maybe a starting point for building a keyword list.

You don’t have to copy your competitors in every way.

Like with keywords.

Just because a competitor is targeting a keyword, doesn’t mean it’s for you.

You need to work on improving your rankings for the same keywords that you and your competitors are also ranking for.

But, the opportunity lies in owning a market share on important terms that your competitors ignore and don’t seem to care about.

The same way you have a balance strategy with a mix of long-tail and head terms, is the same way you need a balance of difficult terms with more competition and realistic terms with less competition.

Remember to have a list of keywords with both quick wins and challenging long-term SEO goals.

Use these two ways to figure out the keywords your competitors are ranking for:

Free manual method: searching for keywords in an incognito browser and seeing what positions your competitors are in
With Ahrefs you can run a few free reports that show the top keywords for your competitors’ domains.

Best Keywords for SEO

The best keywords for SEO are keywords your target audience searches for a lot.

Your keyword strategy needs keywords that will help you drive traffic to your website and rank.

Remember to cross check the best keywords for your SEO strategy using these three metrics :

Relevance
Authority
Volume

Also, ask yourself these two questions before competing for high search volume keywords:

Who is my competition on these keywords?
Can I produce better, higher quality content that’s better than my competitors?

Conclusion

This keyword research guide will help you focus on the right topics for your business.

And also help you get some short-term wins and long-term gains.

The final tip would be to re-evaluate these keywords every few months.

Some businesses do it once every three months and some businesses like to do it more often.

Remember getting more authority in the SERPs allows you to:

add more keywords to your lists
maintain your current positions
Rank for higher search engine positions

Now it’s your turn to tell me…

…what is your favourite keyword research technique?

Let me know in the comments below.