As Google’s search algorithms continue to evolve, keeping up is one full-time job for inbound marketers trying to draw traffic from organic search.
So, in this post we are going to cover what keyword research is and why it matters when you are building your SEO strategy as well selecting right keywords for your website.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the practice of finding and analyzing actual search terms that people enter into search engines. When you know what keywords your desired audience is using, it allows to focus on creating content and offering products that align with their search intent, bringing more people back to (and onto!) your site.
Why is Keyword Research Important?
Here are the most common reasons why keyword research is so important:
- Knowing User Intent: It helps you understand user intent by discovering what your audience is searching for, which in turn provides deep insights into their queries and requirements. This awareness has paved resultantly enables one to also write content that correlates well with their pain points.
- For SEO influence: When you are correctly optimizing your content for good keywords, this essentially makes it easier increase the visibility of your website in search engine results pages (SERPs). When your business ranks higher, it is more likely to be found through organic search traffic (free traffic), which typically has a lower cost than paid advertising.
- Competitive Advantage: Being able to scope out and find opportunities where your competitors are not strong in. Target these keywords and you will have an advantage over your competitors, bringing in traffic they are missing out on.
- Content Strategy: Good Keyword research also makes a big difference into content strategy where it tells you insights on what types of topic will be best suited to get traffic from potential audience so that goes with the every other user search COOKIE. It is this alignment that increases your chances of being discovered and enjoying success in the world of content.
Also Read About Types of Keywords in SEO
Elements of Keyword Research
This is how a good competent keyword search should be conducted:
- Search Volume: This refers to how often keywords are looked for in a specific time period (usually per month). Most of the time, they generate a ton of searches but are also subject to fierce competition and are therefore expensive.
- Keyword Difficulty – This metric measures the difficult is to rank for a particular keyword If sites that have been around in your space are ranking for those top difficulty keywords, then it will be hard to displace them.
- Relevance Keywords: It Must Be a Relevance Keyword for Your Business, products or content. Non-relatable keywords, even if they have a high search volume will not do your website any good when it comes to driving traffic or sales.
- Intent: This is one of the most important factors that determine why someone searches for a keyword. Based on what a user intends to achieve, keywords can be classified into informational navigational commercial transactional When you match the content type to intent, your engagement and conversion rates will go up.
- Long-tail keyword: These are broad keywords though varied and very specific in nature. They usually receive significantly lower search volume than their broader siblings, but the inputs are often more intent-focused, and therefore they convert really well.
Also Read About Best Free Keyword Research Tools
How to Research Keywords for Your SEO Strategy
- Brainstorm Seed Keywords: Think broadly about your business or industry. Start by writing out some key head words as seeds for each list. These are your seed keywords – the building blocks for deeper keyword research.
- Leverage Keyword Research Tools: Start using the Google keyword planner, Ahrefs webmaster tool, Moz or SEMrush to boost your core list of keywords. These are the tools that give us search volume, keyword difficulty, etc.
- Competitors Analysis: Check keywords their competitors are ranking for. Ahrefs and SEMrush (for example) permit you to enter the URL of a competitor, which will deliver what keywords they are after. This will reveal some great opportunities.
- Search Intent: Group your keywords based on what the user intent they satisfy. Make sure that you are targeting a mix of informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional keywords to serve all stages in the buyer decision process.
- Assess, Prioritize: Rank potential keywords – how often a prospect searches for it, the competition level on that term(s), and relevance to your business. Focus on a high balance of these 3 factors for keywords.
- Conduct Market Trends: Ensure to look for whether the search volume of your desired keywords is constant, raising, or falling using devices like Google trends. This can help you to avoid putting money into keywords that are dying down.
Also Read About how to measure SEO ROI
How to Find the Right Keywords for Website
Now that you have a list of possible keywords, it is time to identify the ones to target. Here’s how to do it:
- Be in accordance with Business Goals: Your keyword selection should be according to your business related goals. If your goal drives sales, focus on commercial and transactional keywords.
- Content Mapping: Map your keywords to specific pages on your website. Whereas each page is focused on one primary key term and a few related secondary terms This also helps in the making content more focused as well.
- Mix of Short & Long-Tail Keywords – While you might not get a lot of search traffic for each individual long-tail keyword, overall they add up to greater than any short tail keywords. This way you can reach a wider audience and target more specific searches at the same time.
- Regularly Review and Adjust: Keyword trends change, new ones emerge. Year One Tip: Track and Monitor Keywords for Proactive Adjustments in Strategy Google Analytics and Search Console can also be very helpful resources to find out how your keywords are doing.
- Watch Your Competitors: Watch what keyword are using you competitors Keep an eye out if they are entering new keywords for ranking, sometimes theses can hold opportunity so check them to see if these fits your site too and target it.
Conclusion
Few essential task in SEO or Digital marketing is Keyword research. Through this, you get more people to click through and definitely attain your objectives by way of utilizing winning keyword research approaches. Keep in mind that keyword research is not a one-time exercise, it should be updated periodically based on changing business landscape.