Keyword research serves as the cornerstone of search engine optimization, and without it, achieving long-lasting and consistent visibility is nearly impossible. Nowadays, SEO has evolved into a multifaceted field compared to its early stages, branching out into various specialized areas.
However, the essence of SEO remains centered around identifying online opportunities and attracting pertinent website traffic by enhancing search engine visibility. The fundamental component of this SEO approach lies in conducting thorough keyword research.
What Is Keyword Research?
Keyword research involves identifying and examining the search terms that are used by your target audience on search engines like Google. This enables you to develop content that has a better chance of appearing at the top of search results.
It is an essential component of any search engine optimization (SEO) plan and is a beneficial practice to undertake when preparing to create new content.
Additionally, keyword research includes organizing search queries based on the various stages of a user’s journey and different types of searches, including transactional, navigational, and informational.
Good keyword research enables users to find what they need:
- Shoppers who want to buy something can find the right product page.
- A user who wants to know ‘how to’ can find a page that explains a process in-depth.
- Users who want to research a person or brand can find out about that entity.
Why Keyword Research Is Important For SEO
A search engine functions as an information retrieval system designed to cater to the queries entered by users in order to locate relevant information or answers.
Google, in particular, places great emphasis on connecting users with the most suitable answer to their query and the most relevant webpage, ensuring user satisfaction. This highlights the significance of SEO.
Effective keyword research serves as the fundamental basis for businesses to establish connections with their potential customers and target audience. Recognizing this fact aids in comprehending the essence of a successful SEO strategy.
A business strategy starts with understanding its audience and their needs.
- What do they want?
- What do they need?
- What keeps them awake at night?
- What could solve their problem?
Keyword research is an extension of understanding your audience by first considering their needs and then the phrases, keywords, or queries they use to find solutions.
Keyword research is also important for SEO because it can show you where the opportunities are by knowing what your audience is searching for.
Keyword Research Basics
Monthly Search Volume
The Monthly Search Volume (MSV) serves as a primary indicator of keyword significance. It proves to be a valuable metric for initial consideration of keyword search activity. However, it should not be solely relied upon or considered as the sole determinant of keyword value.
Merely having a high MSV does not guarantee that a keyword is suitable for ranking purposes. Keywords with high search volumes typically attract users who are in the early stages of the buying process, resulting in browsing traffic. While they contribute to brand awareness, they may not directly lead to conversions. On the other hand, low-volume keywords can hold greater value as they have the potential to attract users who are ready to make a purchase. These keywords can be more effective in driving direct conversions.
User Intent
User intent refers to the specific outcome that users desire when they conduct a search query. It is essentially the purpose behind their search. The concept of user intent is frequently discussed in keyword research because it plays a crucial role in the overall process.
Understanding user intent is important for two main reasons. Firstly, when creating content and designing web pages, your primary objective should be to provide users with the information they are seeking. It is not sufficient to focus solely on your own interests or preferences. Users are primarily concerned with finding solutions to their problems or fulfilling their needs. For instance, if a user searches for [cupcake], they are likely looking for a cupcake recipe rather than information about the history of cupcakes. Therefore, if your page does not align with their intent, they are unlikely to click on your link.
Secondly, Google takes into account the relevance of web pages when displaying search results. The search engine aims to deliver the most suitable and helpful results for each query. Consequently, if your page closely matches user intent, it has a higher likelihood of ranking well in search results.
Relevancy
When determining which pages to display in search results, Google’s algorithm takes into account the pages that users are clicking on for a particular query. For example, if someone searches for “cupcake,” Google needs to determine whether the user wants information about what a cupcake is, how to make a cupcake, or where to buy a cupcake.
By examining the search results page, you can gain insight into the user’s intent based on the other results displayed.
Analyzing the search results page should be a part of your research process for every keyword you wish to consider. Understanding the relevance of keywords and user intent go hand in hand. It involves understanding what the user truly intends when they perform a search. This can be more ambiguous for broad keywords and clearer for specific, long-tail queries.
Long-Tail keywords
Long-tail keywords derive their name from their position on the search demand curve, which resembles a long tail stretching toward the right. This curve represents the distribution of keywords, with high-volume terms on the left and lower search volumes on the right. The significance of long-tail keywords lies in their ability to capture highly targeted user intent, as they typically represent specific and focused search queries that have a higher likelihood of conversion.
For example, [iPhone 13] is a head term with high volume (2.7 million Monthly Search Volume), and [Best affordable iPhone 13 cases] (210 Monthly Search Volume) is a long-tail keyword with far fewer searches but would have a high conversion rate.
Long-tail keywords are useful to include in a keyword strategy because they are usually much easier to rank for and achievable for a new website, and the cumulative volume of many long-tail keywords adds up to considerable targeted traffic.
Types Of Search Query
There are four types of keywords that are useful to understand as they categorize the different user intents and can help when planning a keyword strategy.
- Informational – users looking for information or an answer to a question (top of the funnel).
- Navigational – users wanting to find a specific brand, site, or page (brand searches).
- Commercial – users researching brands, products, or services (middle of the funnel).
- Transactional – users ready to complete a purchase or action (bottom of the funnel).
How To Do Keyword Research
Now that you have a better understanding of the basics of keyword research, we can look at where you would start with your research and keyword strategy.
1. How To Find Keyword Ideas
The initial step in conducting keyword research involves brainstorming seed keyword ideas, and there are numerous methods to accomplish this task.
Your Target Audience
It all begins with your audience and their desires. Consider their needs, wants, and particularly their challenges and issues. Begin by creating a comprehensive collection of words, concepts, and subjects that revolve around your specific niche or business.
Think About Questions
1. Using question-based keywords is important because they can assist in obtaining featured snippets and boosting your ranking for competitive keywords. Consult your sales team and analyze CRM data to identify the questions your target audience is posing.
Also, think of question modifiers that will start to build out your list:
- What [is a road bike].
- How to [ride a road bike].
- When is [the best time to service a road bike].
- What is [the best road bike].
- Where is [road bike shop].
Current Site Queries
If your website has been around for a while, Google Search Console can provide valuable insights on how Google perceives your site’s relevance. This information can help you ensure that your website is effectively communicating your message and identifying potential opportunities.
If Google is displaying irrelevant queries related to your product or brand, it’s important to enhance the keyword focus on your web pages. Look for queries ranking at position 10 or higher, with decent impressions, that align with your business goals.
These are potential quick-win opportunities that you can capture by making improvements and optimizing pages for the query.
Competitors’ Keywords
Keep an eye on your competitors as they could provide valuable insights from their research. It’s important for a business to always stay updated on what content they are creating and the keywords they are focusing on. Conducting a keyword gap analysis can uncover new opportunities that your competitors are capitalizing on.
Seed Keywords
Start with high-level ‘seed’ keywords that you can use as a starting point to then open up variants and related queries.
Seed keywords are ‘big’ head terms such as [iPhone], [trainers], [road bike], or [cupcake].
For each seed keyword, start to think of topics that are related:
2. How To Analyze Keywords
Once you have your raw list, it’s time to start to analyze and sort by value and opportunity.
Search Volume
Search volume will tell you if anyone is actively searching for this term.
To start off, it’s a good idea to target keywords that have a moderate to high search volume but are not overly competitive. These types of keywords can give you quick wins and help you build momentum.
On the other hand, it’s not advisable to solely focus on highly popular keywords like ‘iPhone’ because they tend to be too broad and lack specific intent. Additionally, ranking for such keywords can be quite challenging unless you already have a well-established and authoritative website.
Search Intent
Once you’ve organized your raw lists based on search volumes, it’s important to analyze the intent behind each keyword you want to focus on. Checking out the SERP will give you all the information you need, so make sure to always look at SERPs to get hints on creating content and improving your ranking.
Look at the other listing that rank highly:
- Are they ‘how-to’ guides that indicate it’s informational?
- Do the titles say ‘buy,’ ‘best,’ or include product names?
- Is there a shopping carousel that indicates a buying keyword?
- Is there a location map that indicates it’s a local search?
3. How To Choose Organic Keywords
After sorting the volumes, intent, and topics, you will need to decide if you have a chance of ranking on a term by looking at how much competition there is for each keyword.
Keyword Difficulty
Keyword difficulty plays a crucial role in your research. If a keyword is highly competitive and requires a significant investment to rank, it’s time to strategize. To determine keyword difficulty, you can rely on a research tool that assigns a score to each keyword
. Alternatively, you can utilize the Google Keyword Planner Tool and analyze the CPC and difficulty level. The higher the CPC bid, the tougher the competition. If you’re just starting out, it’s wise to begin with less competitive keywords that are attainable and gradually progress towards more challenging terms.
Connecting To Your Objectives And Goals
Unless a keyword can actually deliver a result for you – do you want to target it?
As mentioned earlier, focusing on head terms is not the most effective approach as it will only bring in casual visitors or those who stumble upon your website. Unless you are a well-known brand with a substantial budget and aiming for brand recognition, this is not the most efficient use of your resources and budget. When determining your keyword priority, it is important to consider what can provide you with the greatest return in the shortest amount of time.
Effective keyword research goes beyond simply targeting popular keywords with high search volumes. A successful keyword strategy involves identifying the right keywords that align with your specific needs and desired outcomes. Always keep this in mind as your top priority.
Using Keyword Research Tools
Doing your research without a tool is limited; for the most in-depth keyword research, you need help to find keyword opportunities you had not thought of.
The following keyword research tools are all free versions that you can start out with.
Google Keyword Planner
Over the years, the original keyword tool has undergone changes, yet it remains one of the top-notch free keyword tools and a great starting point for discovering seed keywords and keyword ideas.
The Google tool is designed to align with Google Ads, which means the data may be biased towards paid ads. However, it still holds value for research purposes. To access the tool, you’ll need a Google Ads account. Google may try to push you into setting up an active campaign, but you can bypass this by creating an account without a campaign.
When using the tool without an active campaign, you’ll only see search volumes displayed within certain ranges. Nevertheless, it’s still beneficial for generating keyword suggestions. If you do have an active campaign, Google will provide you with the monthly search volume.
You can add up to 10 seed keywords and get a list of suggested keywords, and run competitor URLs in the tool to find keywords they are targeting. Doing this is a great place to start building out raw lists of keywords to work from.
Google Trends
Google Trends offers data based on actual search query data. It doesn’t provide search volumes, but the data in Google Trends can be compared with actual search volumes from other tools so you can get a comparative feel of what the actual volumes are.
Where Trends excels is to identify trending topics and subtopics in a niche and to find geographic search trends in a local area. Trends will recommend related keywords that are currently growing in popularity.
As part of a keyword strategy, this can show you where to focus resources and when to stop investing in terms.
Google Autocomplete
Previously known as Suggest, Autocomplete is integrated into the Google search box to help users complete their search with what Google calls ‘predictions.’
Google takes its predictions from common searches and trending searches.
As the suggestions are all variations around the topic you are typing, the results shown give you an insight into other related terms that users could be looking for.
Checking the predictions that Google provides in Autocomplete can help you find more variations and keywords to consider.
Answer The Public
Answer The Public is a powerful tool that scrapes data from Google Autocomplete and connects a seed keyword with a variety of modifiers to produce a list of variants.
Answer The Public will quickly provide a list of suggestions, especially based on questions that you can use as a raw list to then review.
Paid Keyword Research Tools
Free keyword tools are great to get you started and to create raw lists of keywords that you can then drill into.
However, for the best results, you might want to invest in a paid competitive analysis tool that can help you get monthly search volume and keyword difficulty data.
Some tools will also help with assigning topics and clustering for more advanced keyword strategies.
Anyone who does keyword research in-depth or to an advanced level will have their own process. They will also use a variety of tools and a combination of paid and free resources to get the best results.
Advanced Keyword Strategies
Now that you have an understanding of how to get started with keyword research, experiment with a few different websites and niches. Doing the work yourself is the best way to learn.
Once you have a better understanding in practice, move into more advanced methods and strategies to take your keyword research to the next level.
