Why is Keyword Research important?
If you know anything about SEO campaigns/strategies, you would know that Keyword research is the initial yet crucial stage. With keyword research, you increase the possibility of your website ranking well in search engines by researching and identifying the most effective target keywords.
Keyword research can tell you what phrases people are actively searching for, as well as the competitiveness of those terms. That can help you drive your content marketing strategy in the right direction to boost organic search exposure, rankings, and traffic.
Keyword research can help you know some points like:
- What is your audience searching for?
- What are your competitors ranking for?
- Which keyword has more traffic?
Steps to Keyword Research
Understand Seed Keywords
Seed keywords are typically one or two words long, with no modifiers. It can be anything that you want to rank for, something like ‘marketing’ or something as basic as ‘pen,’ but the idea is that it should serve as the starting point of your keyword research. After which every other Keyword you will probably use will come from these Seed Keyword (there is a reason why they are called “Seed” Keywords)
To get the most out of SEO, you need to identify the correct seed word; it should be the most crucial part of your research plan. So, while doing so, consider answering the following questions:
- What are you hoping to rank for?
- What are your current rankings?
- What are your competitors’ rankings?
Try answering these questions, and you can find the top Seed Keywords you are looking for.
The Google Search Console can be a good start to extract the seed terms, and it’s pretty handy. The great thing about seed keywords is that they can help you build a whole list of keywords that can be used as a reference point for helping you create more relevant content, hence ranking you higher.
Build the Perfect Keyword List
After you’ve found your seed keyword, it’s time to create a list of the Keywords that will help you in the future to generate more business based on these keywords.
But while you are creating a keyword list, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind:
- Consider your target audience.
- Choose keywords that are relevant to your target audience.
- Select broad keywords to reach a larger audience.
So, when you are trying to curate a perfect keywords list, make sure that it is relevant and can help your current and potential customers to locate you. In addition, you can always alter, remove, and add keywords as needed until you find something that works.
Prioritize Keywords
When it comes to keyword optimization, you must avoid repetition. Thousands of keywords have been produced, recycled over time, and will continue to be recycled in the future (and there is no going back there), but finding and prioritizing the ones that are still relevant is the key to outperforming your competition. Some keywords will create more leads than others, and it’s your job to figure out which ones to target for the best possible outcome.
Ask yourself which term will bring you the most profit, and then utilize the keyword metrics to figure it out. It is essential to keep these factors in mind while selecting your keywords
- Relevance
- Volume per month
- Keyword difficulty
- Organic click-through rate (CTR)
- Priority
And knowing how to use these indicators is what sets you apart from someone who is still battling with SEO. As a result, you rank higher.
Benefit from On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization (also known as on-page SEO) refers to all the steps taken within a website to optimize and boost its search engine rankings a.k.a search engine results page (SERP). This usually involves refining the meta descriptions, title tags, alt tags and optimizing the page content.
If you want to rank higher on search engines, you need to figure out what your audience is looking for and what they expect to see. This knowledge gives you the insight to decide which keywords to utilize and develop only relevant content.
Track Keyword Rankings
You should constantly try to understand how your keywords perform in search engines. It can tell you how much traffic to expect on your website and whether your efforts are paying off.
Because of personalization, localization, and dynamic competitive environments, tracking and ranking keywords for your website are not synonymous anymore. Google Rank Checker, for example, allows you to watch the position of keywords in search engine results and is extremely precise. It can also help you learn how to organize the Keywords based on their ranking.
TOOL SELECTION FOR KEYWORDS
In the sea of keywords, finding what would work for you can be a little overwhelming, but your work can get so much easier by using some of these tools.
Here are some top tools that you must try.
- Google Search Console: One of the most valuable features of Google Search Console is identifying the most popular keywords users use to locate your website.
- Google Trends: This tool can tell you how many people are searching for your keyword, where they’re searching, and what topics and queries they’re searching for. You can also compare different searches.
- Ubersuggest: is a completely free tool. Ubersuggest, created by Neil Patel, allows you to search for relevant keywords, compare them, and offer a fantastic feature to help you see the current ranking pages.
- Ahrefs: This site offers basic SEO tools for keyword research, but it also focuses on helping you to compare your website to your competitors & identify areas where you can work to improve your ranking.
- SEMrush: Another excellent tool for promoting organic growth on your website. SEMrush has all of the standard features you’d expect.
- Google search: Last but not the least, using Google search engine when searching for keywords can be the easiest and most basic tool to start your Keyword Research. You can look out for “people also ask” “related search” sections to get more insight into your keyword research.
Have something more to add? Or did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below.
