Keyword research is conducted to use the information people enter into search engines (keywords) for specific purposes, such as search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing. By conducting keyword research, you can learn which queries to optimize for, how often people use them, how difficult it is to rank for those keywords, and much more.
Table of contents
Why Is Keyword Research Essential?
When conducting keyword research, you can learn more about the search terms used by your target audience on Google, which can help you better tailor your content to them. The information gleaned from these actual search terms can be used to shape both content and broader marketing strategies.
To solve problems, people conduct research online using keywords. Therefore, you stand to gain more traffic if your content successfully gets in front of your audience as they conduct searches. That’s why you need to direct your attention toward those queries.
Furthermore, the inbound methodology from every well-known digital marketing agency emphasizes producing content based on what readers are interested in learning about rather than what we want to impart. That is to say, we no longer have to go out and seek an audience; they have found us.
Benefits of Keyword Research
There are many reasons to perform keyword research, but the most common ones are:
Information About Current Marketing Developments
Suppose you want to capitalize on current marketing trends and ensure that your content focuses on the most important issues to your target audience. In that case, you need to conduct thorough keyword research.
Increased Traffic
Finding the right keywords for your content will raise your website’s visibility in search engine results, increasing your site’s traffic. Not to mention this is the most economic method among other digital marketing services.
Acquiring New Customers
To facilitate the transition from the “awareness” stage of the buyer journey to the “decision” stage, where a purchase is made, your company should have content that interests other business professionals.
You can answer most of your audience’s questions by keyword research to learn their popularity, search volume, and general intent.
Keyword Research Elements
When exploring potential keywords, every expert or SEO agency focuses on these three factors:
1. Relevancy
To determine which content is most relevant, Google uses its ranking system. Where search intent comes in is at this point. Only if it’s useful to people looking for information related to a particular keyword will your content rise in the rankings for that keyword. Furthermore, your content should be the most helpful option for that search. After all, if your content could be more useful than other content on the web, why should Google prioritize it?
2. Authority
If Google considers a source reliable, it will give it more weight in search results. That’s why it’s important to pack your site with useful, informative content and then promote it to attract authoritative sources to link to you. When the search engine results pages (SERPs) for a given keyword feature numerous authoritative sites that you can’t hope to outrank, such as Forbes or The Mayo Clinic, your chances of ranking well drop if your content is truly remarkable.
3. Search Volume
Even if your site achieves first-page rankings for a particular keyword, that will only bring visitors if people search for that term. The MSV (monthly search volume) of a keyword is the total number of times it is looked up in a given month by anyone interested in that keyword. Search volume is effective in almost every type of marketing activity.
Keyword Research Guide
1. Make A list Of Keyword You Think Are Relevant
The first step is to identify a handful of topic areas that are crucial to your company. Then you can use those areas as a jumping-off point for developing more targeted keywords.
If you are a regular blogger, these are the topics you write about most often. Or those are the most common topics discussed during sales presentations. Think like your buyer personas: What search terms might they use to find a company like yours?
How many times do people look for them every month? Based on these metrics, you can determine which topics are most relevant to your target audience and how many niches you’ll need to cover to rank well for a given keyword. Step 2 will take us deeper into these subtopics.
2. Fill In The Topic Buckets
It is time to begin identifying specific keywords to use in your research. These phrases you’ve determined to be crucial for your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), as your ideal client has likely used them to find your business online.
You aren’t trying to determine which keywords will make it into your final list. The purpose is to create a list of phrases that you believe potential customers might use to search for content related to that topic group. Later, we’ll pare down the lists so you can handle the information.
Although Google continues to encrypt more and more keywords daily, one way to generate keyword ideas is to examine the search terms users use to find your website. You need Google Analytics or another similar piece of software to do this. Find out which keywords people use to find your website by digging into your organic search traffic bucket.
As many topic buckets as you have, you should repeat this process. And if you’re having trouble thinking of relevant search terms, remember that you can always go over to your customer-facing colleagues (those in Sales or Service) and ask what kinds of terms their prospects and customers use or common questions they have. In many cases, those are the best places to begin when searching for relevant keywords.
3. Understand How User Intent Affects Keyword Research
As I mentioned, user intent is now critical to your search engine rankings. These days, it’s not enough for your webpage to simply contain the keyword a searcher used; it must also address the problem the searcher intended to solve. Consequently, how will this change your approach to finding suitable keywords?
Unfortunately, keywords can have many meanings under the surface, and taking them at face value is easy. You must be very careful about how you interpret the keywords you target, as the intent behind a search greatly impacts your site’s ranking potential.
Entering a keyword into a search engine and observing the resulting pages is a quick and easy way to confirm the user’s intent. Verify that the Google results are relevant to the content you intend to produce for the keyword.
4. Find Appropriate Search Terms by Doing Research
This innovative move may have occurred to you during your keyword investigation. This is a great solution if you don’t have enough items for your lists.
Suppose you need some help thinking of additional search terms that people might use to find information about a particular topic. In that case, you can get some ideas by perusing the related search terms that appear after you enter a keyword into Google. Google will offer related search suggestions when you type in your phrase and view the bottom of the search results page. These may spark considerations for additional keywords.
5. Use Keyword Research Tools
Utilizing keywords and phrase match keywords, keyword research, and SEO tools can help you generate even more keyword ideas. The following are just a few examples of the most common:
- Ahrefs
- SEMrush
- Ubersuggest
- Google Keyword Planner
- SECockpit
- Keywords Everywhere
- Moz
- KeywordTool.io
- KWFinder
Final Words
Your list of keywords will direct your attention to the most profitable areas of your business, both now and in the future.
Remember to reevaluate these keywords every few months; quarterly is a good minimum, but some companies prefer to do it more frequently. To keep up with the demands of maintaining and expanding your current presence, as well as exploring opportunities to expand into new areas, you’ll be able to add more and more keywords to your lists as you gain more authority in the SERPs.
