Keyword research is considered one of the most significant and complex parts of digital marketing. Its time-consuming process makes it complicated and tedious for most of us.
Instead of the keyword research importance, it is one of the least understood digital marketing techniques. Keyword research is an art. It’s not only knowing about monthly search volume, but there is a lot more to achieve via smarter way of keywords research.
Before moving towards the main topic, let’s clear the goal of keywords research. What should be the ultimate goal of keywords research for SEO? You may answer, ‘to get our website ranked on Google 1st page.’ You’re partially correct. It should be our SEO strategy goal but not an ultimate goal. Our keywords research for SEO’s ultimate goal should be to increase the conversion rates by precise targeting instead of looking for high volume but irrelevant traffic.
How to Initiate Keyword Research?
Before initiating the keyword research for SEO, you may have to ask few questions yourself as described below,
- About us – Who are we?
- Our mission – What do we want to achieve? Traffic, sales, or something else.
- What makes us superior to our competitors in terms of services?
Answers to these questions will help you to get a crystal-clear idea of your business needs and goals. After that, imagine yourself as your potential client. And try to figure out how a client will search your business online?
Brainstorm to find the keywords most people can use to find your business. Prepare a list of such seed keywords to initiate your keywords research for SEO.
Seed Keywords
Seed keywords are the base or founding stones of your smarter keyword research for SEO strategy. You have to gather as many seed keywords as possible.
The increasing number of seed keywords will increase the chances of discovering quality keywords.
You can take the help of Google to find the seed keywords. You have to put an organic keyword in Google, and it will show the related keywords/phrases people use to search your business.
For smart keyword research, focus on long-tail keywords while gathering potential seed keywords as long-tail keywords are more focused and converting with their user’s intent targeting nature.
Keywords Searching Tools
After finalising the seed keywords list, you need to put those keywords in any keyword planner tool. Few of the popular keyword’s planner tools are enlisted below,
You can complete keyword researching to find ideal keywords without any paid keyword planner tool, but these tools let you speed up the process of keyword research.
Competitors SEO Strategy Analysis
Getting your top-notch competitors’ analysis via keywords planner tool can be helpful for smart keyword research. Note down the following metric while getting an insight into your competitors SEO strategy:
Ranked Keywords – Enlist the keywords on which your competitor’s site is ranking. Despite the fact of higher search volumes, such keywords should not be your first option because of the intense competition level. You can consider these keywords for long-term SEO plans.
Missed Keywords – Potential keywords missed by your competitors can help you to speedily rank your site to move a step ahead of your business rivals.
Getting your competitor’s keywords analysis is crucial to set a winning SEO strategy, especially to achieve success in a short period.
Keyword Difficulty
Keyword difficulty is another vital factor to note for finding potential keywords for SEO. It’s crucial to understand the keyword difficulty metrics for smarter keyword research for SEO.
Keyword difficulty – as its name renders, it shows the competition level of a keyword. A keyword with a higher keyword difficulty score has intense competition. Choose keywords with a keyword difficulty score not higher than 60 out of 100 for a short-term SEO strategy.
Keywords with 60+ keyword difficulty scores are not inadequate choices, but it will take too much time and effort to rank your site on such keywords. You can place such keywords in your long-term SEO strategy.
Monthly Search Volume
It’s a need of an hour to review the monthly search volume metric understandings as higher search volume is not the only criteria to choose a word/phrase as a potential keyword.
Keyword planner tools show the monthly search volume of a keyword in a specific region.
For intelligent keyword research choose the high search volume keywords with the following stats:
- Long-tail Keywords – these keywords are more specific to a targeted audience and help to avoid irrelevant traffic. To lure a potential audience and achieve higher conversion rates, go for long-tail keywords.
- Question Keywords – Use question keywords or phrases to offer your services as solutions to your potential audience’s problems. Such keywords may have lower search volumes as compared to other keywords. But they have guaranteed higher conversion rates.
- Related to Your Business – Most significantly, choose related keywords that represent your business. An irrelevant keyword with a higher search volume is useless for your site. So, keep looking at the relevancy factor with search volume.
- Intent Targeting Keywords – Search for keywords that can target your potential customer’s emotions or interests. Such keywords have the potential to change your business destiny by boosting conversion rates to an unbelievable level.
Short keywords may have high search volume, but such keywords will get a lot of irrelevant traffic and cause lower conversion rates.
Conclusion
Keyword research is a complicated task, but it is essential to do smart keyword research to get your business visible to your targeted potential clients. As globally known SEO expert Neil Patel said: “Your SEO strategy should be a blueprint for your online efforts. That represents your every digital decision.”
Spend as much time as you can to find keywords for SEO by following all the discussed metrics. While performing keyword research, keep remembering your digital marketing strategy depends on these keywords. And a single keyword has the potential to boost your business in days.
