While Google constantly updates its algorithm to stay relevant, one aspect of inbound marketing that aims to optimize websites has been fairly constant. Wondering what? Keyword Research.
Keyword research is the key to finding topic ideas, optimizing blog posts, and various other useful aspects.
This is why we have dedicated the entire article to this topic. In this blog post, we are going to walk through various important topics like:
- What is keyword research?
- Why is keyword research imperative?
- How to do keyword research for your blogs?
- How to choose the right keywords?
Are you ready? Let’s jump in!
Table of Contents
What Is A Keyword Research?
You must conduct keyword research to carefully use common search phrases that people enter into search engines like Google so that your material shows up higher on a search engine results page (SERP).
In other words, Keyword research means finding out which words and phrases your target audience is using to search for websites and answers to questions on search engines.
For those of you wondering what is a keyword? A keyword can be one or two words or even a complete phrase or a question.
In fact, keyword research is the primary technique for search engine optimization (SEO).
Why Is A Keyword Research Important?
Keyword research is important not only to understand your customers/ consumers but also to know about your competitors and hence make an informed decision.
Keyword research is useful in so many other ways, some of which are listed below in detail:
1. To Know About Your Industry Needs
A content developer can learn more about what people are looking for online by doing informed keyword research online.
Having this data is crucial as it enables content creators to promptly determine if an idea is worth pursuing before committing significant time and resources to it.
2. Identifying Low Competitive Opportunities
If you are a budding blogger then it is smarter to target topics that have lesser competition than to jump in directly into a highly competitive space.
But how do you find these? The simple solution to this is keyword research on the basis of the search volume.
The higher the search volume, the greater the difficulty level, and vice versa.
You’ll boost the likelihood of driving more visitors to your website while choosing keywords with less competition as they are comparatively easier to rank.
Conversely, keyword research will show you which keywords you should steer clear of because popular domains are already outranking you for them.
Here is a screenshot of our research on Ubersuggest about ” Some keyword Research Tools that are free”
Looking at the data above. Which one is the easiest to target? Comment down your answer.
3. Understanding The Search Tendencies
The primary objective of Google is to arrange all the information in the world and make it accessible and beneficial to everyone universally.
Have you ever wondered how Google displays search results? Google does so by matching the content with the search words entered by the user. Then displays the most relevant pages.
Therefore, one good way of understanding what Google considers important is by closely monitoring the search results. This will give you an idea about what is relevant and trending, as per Google.
4. Informed Competitive Analysis
Keyword research allows SEOs to understand the competitive landscape by giving them a clear picture of who they’re competing against.
For instance, let’s say you’ve got an idea for a piece of content that you’d like to produce. By doing a proper competitive analysis, you’ll be able to see which domains are already competing for the respective keyword(s).
This will give you a clear idea about the overlapping keywords(see picture below), their market share, strengths, weaknesses, popular content, number of backlinks, and many more.
The main idea is to analyze the competitors well so that you can draft content that can outrank them.
5. Helps You Dig Out Content Topics (You Never Run Out Of Topics)
Every content writer faces creative block and gets stuck while digging out new ideas frequently.
This is where keyword research comes into play. The majority of keyword research tools, fortunately, allow you to discover fresh keywords and content suggestions.
This means you can discover all the keywords that are currently used on your rival’s website and for which they are currently ranked by typing their domain name into your search engine.
How To Do A Keyword Research For Your Blogs?
Now that you know what and why is keyword research important for your business. It is time you know how to do one by yourself- read on!
1. Work On the ‘Seed’ Keywords
To start your keyword research process, you need a set of seed keywords which help you understand your competition and identify your niche. These words are essential for every keyword research tool as they generate a vast list of relevant keyword suggestions for you to use.
In essence, seed keywords are the foundation upon which you build your content topics.
If you have a service or business that you want to promote online, finding seed keywords is straightforward. You just need to think about the search terms that your potential customers would use to look for your products or services.
For example, if you write fashion blogs these can be:
- Fashion
- Trend
- Vogue
- Style
- Chic and many more depending on your niche
Be aware that individual seed keywords may not be worthwhile to target with certain website pages.
As disused above, these will serve as “seeds” for the subsequent stages of this process. Therefore, try not to get too fixated on your seed keywords. Finding them should only take a little while. Continue to the next phase as soon as you have a few general concepts linked to your niche.
2. Draw Some Inspiration From Your Competitors
A highly effective approach to speed up your keyword research process involves examining the search terms that are already driving traffic to your competitors’ websites. However, before you can proceed with this method, it is crucial to identify your competitors accurately. Your list of potential keywords can assist you in this process.
Simply enter one of your seed keywords into Google’s search bar to discover the top-ranking websites. If none of the top-ranked sites for your seed keywords align with your site or its intended direction, try searching for more specific terms. For example, if your website focuses on fashion blogging, using the search query “best fashion blogs” instead of “fashion” could reveal your competitors.
Here’s a list of top fashion blogs we found for you :
If you want to be more specific you can add your country as well. That is rather searching for “Top Fashion Blogs in the US” instead of just searching about ”Top Fashion Blogs”
Once you’ve identified a suitable competitor website, you should add these into a competitive intelligence tool, such as Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, to see which pages are bringing the most traffic and what search terms they are focusing on.
You’ll have a huge list of pertinent keywords after going through this process.
Later on, in our keyword research process, we’ll decide if these keyword suggestions are solely informative (e.g., blog articles) or have a commercial objective (e.g., product pages). The main idea is to gather as many viable keyword suggestions as you can.
You may not restrict yourself to just one but various competitors to take an informed decision.
3. Make Use Of The Keyword Research Tools
While competitors can be a valuable source for discovering new keywords, it’s important to note that there may be plenty of keywords that they haven’t yet targeted. Thankfully, a range of keyword research tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, etc. can help identify these untapped keywords with ease. These tools typically function by taking a seed keyword input and then generating a list of related keyword suggestions from their extensive databases.
To aid in your search for suitable keyword tools, the following is a list of some commonly used options.
Top 12 Keyword Tools Available Online
- SEMrush
- SEO PowerSuite
- KWFinder
- Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
- Google Keyword Planner
- GrowthBar
- Long Tail Pro
- Majestic
- Keyword Tool
- Serpstat
- Google Trends
- Moz
If you are new to the keyword tools then don’t worry! We will briefly explain some technical terms you should know before you start using the tools.
As different tools have different offerings, we recommend you research various tools before diving in.
4. Know Your Genre Well
The possibilities for generating keyword suggestions are virtually limitless based on the information we have covered thus far. Nevertheless, there is a drawback to this method as it tends to confine you to a certain mindset. To break out of this limited perspective, you can explore industry forums or social media where your intended audience gathers.
Aside from browsing industry forums, your present users can also provide an excellent source of keyword ideas. Therefore, it’s crucial to pay attention to their language and typical inquiries during your conversations or interactions with them, as they can serve as inspiration for generating innovative keyword suggestions for your website.
While it’s advantageous to have access to millions of potential keyword ideas, it’s difficult to determine which ones are the most suitable. It would be nearly impossible to sift through them all manually. The solution is simple: before incorporating items into your keyword list, employ SEO metrics to narrow them down and separate the valuable ones from the rest. Let’s explore four keyword metrics that can assist you in accomplishing this.
Some Important Keyword Metrics
Search Volume
The average monthly number of searches for a keyword is indicated by its search volume. For instance, 450,000 people search for “depression” per month in the United States alone.
Keyword Density
Keyword density — also called keyword frequency — is the number of times a specific keyword appears on a webpage compared to the total word count. It’s often reported as a percentage or a ratio; the higher the value, the more your selected keyword appears on your page.
Keyword Trend
This represents the graphical representation of the search volume of a particular keyword over the last 1 year or 12 months.
SEO Difficulty
“Keyword difficulty” gauges the amount of work required to have your content appear on Google’s first page for a certain keyword organically. To put it another way, if a keyword is challenging, it will take you a lot of effort and time to see results.
Higher keyword Difficulty= Difficult To Rank
Paid Difficulty
The Paid Difficulty scale is used to assess the ease or difficulty of positioning a Google ad in a prominent location, using a range from 1 to 100.
Cost Per Click
Cost per click CPC) is another metric that shows whether it makes sense to create an advertising campaign around a keyword. When a keyword is more competitive, it has a higher value and hence a higher CPC.
In other words, if Google is charging more for a keyword that means it is more valuable.
How To Choose The Right Keywords?
After following the above strategies, we are sure you must have found a pool of keywords to work on.
Now the next step is, filtering the right ones for great results.
To help you with this, here is a list of suggestions for you to consider:
Top Tips To Filter Out The Best Keywords
1. Cut Down Your List
Use Google Keyword Planner to simplify your keyword list. You may estimate the search volume and traffic for keywords you’re targeting, with the help of Google’s Keyword Planner.
After this, you can use Google Trends to fill in certain gaps using the knowledge you gained from Keyword Planner.
2. Spot Rewarding Keywords
You should give top priority to keywords that you stand a chance of ranking for on the basis of your website authority.
Because their brands are already well-known, large firms frequently target terms with high search volume, and Google typically rewards them by giving them authority over a variety of topics.
Low-competition keywords are another option to think about. If no one else is vying for the top spot for a keyword that doesn’t already have several articles, you may automatically be given that position. So, if you are a budding blogger try focusing on these as well.
3. Do Not Forget To Check The Monthly Search Volume
Checking Monthly Search Volume can help you develop content that is focused on what readers want to learn.
The amount of times a search term or phrase is typed into search engines each month is known as the monthly search volume. Free resources like searchvolume.io and Google Trends can assist you in determining the most popular phrases within comparable keyword clusters.
4. Do Not Forget To Check The Monthly Search Volume
Consider SERP features while selecting keywords. If implemented properly, Google will highlight a number of SERP feature snippets. These include image packs, paragraph snippets, and list or video snippets. Search for the keywords of your choice and see what the top result looks like to learn more about them.
5. Have A Mix Of Keywords
Depending on who you speak to, head terms are normally just one to three words long and are shorter and more generic than other keyword phrases. On the other hand, long-tail keywords are lengthier keyword phrases that typically comprise three or more words.
It’s crucial to make sure your keyword strategy is well-balanced with both long-term objectives and immediate successes by making sure you have a mix of head phrases and long-tail terms.
Because head terms are typically searched for more often than long-tail terms, they are frequently (not always, but regularly) considerably more competitive and challenging to rank for.
Remember: Long-tail keywords tend to be more precise and are typically simpler to determine what the actual intent of persons who employ them. Therefore, the searchers prove to be a better prospect for your blog.
6. Understand There’s Nothing called “Ideal”
There are no “ideal” keywords—only those that your audience uses frequently to search.
In light of this, it’s up to you to develop a plan that will assist you in ranking sites and generating traffic. Relevance, authority, and volume will all be taken into account when choosing the optimal keywords for your SEO campaign.
You want to look for extremely competitive keywords that are relatively within your reach given the level of opposition you face.
CONCLUSION
Doing keyword research before drafting your blog website or blog content is a must! You can not blindly trust your instincts and start blogging one day. There has to be a proper strategy that needs to be followed. To help you with this, we have given you an easy roadmap (above) to follow. As it is tried and tested by us, don’t worry! It will fetch you great results if followed properly.
Let us know what tip helped you the most and any suggestions for us( if any). A s we update our content pool daily, stay tuned for more! See You.
