There are over 200 factors involved in ranking websites used by Google’s search algorithm. It is important to conduct high-quality, thorough keyword research to make your website the best among your competitors.
Locating the right keywords that attract your target audience allows you to develop and execute keyword strategy by generating organic traffic and ranking your pages higher on the search engines.
In our post, we will discuss the importance of keyword research for SEO and guide you through finding the best keywords you can use to create content and ways to make sure that they align with the user intent.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research involves locating the queries and keyword phrases and works based on the users’ search intent, implying a keyword with higher search volumes. A lot of work is involved in linking the keywords based on relevancy to the site and its different pages, allowing users to locate the best answer to their search query or intent.
Categorizing the search queries involves SEO keywording into various stages of a user’s journey with varying search categories, including navigational, informational, and transactional.
There are several benefits of SEO for keyword research that allows users to find whatever they require:
- Shoppers who wish to purchase something they need help locating on the product page.
- The user wishes to know the best way to locate the page explaining the complete process.
- Users aim to research the brand or person to know about the entity.
Keyword research helps you get keyword ideas that you should consider whether ranking on the keyword is well-worth of an effort where it would take higher rankings and gain more visitors since not every traffic source is equal.
Why is Keyword Research Important for SEO?
The search engine is the portal to get the right information built around queries made by the user inputs into finding the answer or any relevant information to the search query. The focus of Google is mainly to connect users with better answers to their queries, and the ideal website page allows the user to become satisfied. In this way, they can understand the SEO underlines.
Proper Google keyword research lays the foundation of how a business starts connecting with potential customers or audiences. Knowing this will help you better understand a proper SEO strategy.
You can easily find keywords that are optimal and in greater demand; however still under the niche that guesses whatever the consumer need by offering it to them before they start understanding it with the help of keyword research.
Including high-quality keywords in the articles, blog posts, and product descriptions can help push the site’s ranking higher by allowing you to attract a massive audience while beating out the competition.
This organic search traffic generated from the SERP can outperform paid traffic or ads, producing leads after publishing for years to come.
How to Conduct Keyword Research in a Few Simple Steps
Now that you better understand SEO keyword research, how would you start with the process? Continue to read as we have outlined a few easy steps that will help you walk through how to research SEO keywords:
1. Determining Your Mission and Setting SEO Goals
Before starting with anything, consider the mission. Try reflecting on questions such as: What are your company’s or business’s primary goals? What determines their uniqueness? To whom are you planning to reach out? Which promises are you making on your site?
Always take your time while writing down your mission. Once you are done answering these questions, you should take the initial and most vital step to develop the right keyword strategy.
Your market or niche will determine whether you can rank higher with the keywords you have selected or not. There are a couple of highly competitive markets with massive companies that dominate the search results, and these companies have massive budgets only for marketing and specifically SEO.
2. Create a Keyword List Based on User Search Intent
The other step in creating your list of keywords is ideally through a Google spreadsheet or an excel file. You need to have a goal and try to understand the type of searches your target audience would make.
Check what these users are searching for. Which is the type of search terms you can use while searching for the products or services? Are you able to resolve the product queries? So, note down the different answers as keynotes you can use later on.
If you have a clear goal, then you will have a better image of your domain and the ideal selling points, which are the things that will set your business apart. These are the terms used in searches that you should use to get discovered.
3. Researching the Keyword You are Getting
Since you have initially created the list, it is the best time involved in diving deeper into keyword research. Fortunately, their tool for a keyword helps you perform keyword research easily. Google is the initial one. Check for keywords on Google and the suggested searches while you type.
These depict the questions that people are searching on Google. You can even inspect the “related searches” on the search engine results pages.
4. Research More to Find the Different Variants for Long-tail Keywords
Whenever you start with keyword research, it mainly aims at the in-demand “head” terms. Sadly, these head keywords are primarily used by large businesses. These long-tail keywords get less search traffic; however, less competition is involved here. Therefore, it is a lot easier for you to rank on these keywords.
Furthermore, long-tail keywords have greater conversion values as they aim more at a distinctive topic or product.
5. Competitor Analysis for the Selected Keywords
If you are planning to choose long-tail keywords, then they mainly rely on your keyword competition analysis. You will have a tough time ranking on these competitive head terms if the niche of your competition is higher. You can rank for more if you have less competition based on the head terms. Therefore you need to perform certain SEO benchmarking.
Check the keywords you choose on Google and initiate with the “head” term. Check the results on the SERPs. Once you have optimized your content for this type of keyword, the sites you find are your competitors.
6. Check the Search Intent of Every Keyword
The SEO strategies today should mostly revolve around clearing queries of individuals and offering the ideal solution to their issues. Whenever a person enters their search query into search engines, they search for something. Each kind of question needs to get answered specifically.
7. Create Your Keyword Strategy and the Keywords You Will Target
You can now determine your keyword strategy in light of the data gathered. You are now prepared with a spreadsheet with a good amount of keywords, details of your competitors, and your target audience’s search intent. It would help you determine the best keyword strategy and target the right keywords.
8. Optimize the Landing Pages Based on Your Keywords
It is important to create attractive landing pages if you aim to get website traffic. Therefore, you need to start building optimized landing pages based on the search terms used. You should take your time creating pages as it involves a long-term effort. The keyword strategy will help you prioritize the same.
9. Evaluating Whether the Keyword Strategy is Improved and can Get Implemented
After completing the analysis of keyword difficulty and your chances to rank across every specific term and publish and optimize some great blog posts, try waiting for a while. Check the rankings of your site and check whether your article comes up or not. Did you find it on the first page of the SERP of Google? Or is it on pages 3 or 4? Ensure evaluating the results on SERPs.
Here are a Few Free Keyword Research Tools that You May Find Useful
You will come across some powerful tools to generate keywords for Google and other major search engines. On the contrary, others would offer you the targeted data for e-commerce websites like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. The highly comprehensive tools included are important SEO data like the intensity of the competition and the monthly search volume for the search term you have used.
Let us now check out our 11 find for the best Google keyword research tool.
1. Moz Keyword Explorer is well-suited for the best all-rounder free keyword research tool for SEO
2. Google Keyword Planner is the tool to search for paid keywords
3. Semrush tool is ideal for advanced SEO experts
4. QuestionDB is the best to locate keywords based on questions
5. Jaaxy is the tool aimed at the affiliate marketers
6. Keyword Surfer tool is a free keyword research browser extension for SEO
7. SE Ranking Keyword Suggestion Tool offers the best data on the seed keywords and other alternatives
8. Rank Tracker includes 23 high-ranking tools offering access to more
9. Google Trends platform displays the charge of the popularity of the specific keyword
10. Ahrefs Keyword Generator considers several global search engines, not just Bing, Google, or Yahoo.
11. Bulk Keyword Generator is the ideal free tool you can use for better keyword research
Read Also: 20 Best SEO Tools & SEO Reporting Software in 2023
Key Takeaways
The tips we shared today detailing keyword research will help you go beyond the fundamentals of keyword research to discover better opportunities for getting the best keywords. However, remember that keyword research is not a single component you should consider for SEO.
Various factors, including how you use these keywords under the content and how you structure your website’s design, affect SEO. It is the reason why there are businesses that choose to outsource their SEO.
These services offer businesses better guidance for boosting their visibility online and generating better-qualified leads. You can hire SEO experts to help your business enhance every area of the SEO to rank higher on Google.
