Keyword phrase research is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the method of finding and implementing the best keywords for your niche and your content. Studies suggest that long-tail keywords have a higher clickthrough rate of up to 5% than generic Google searches. Using the best type of keyword search and search terms is vital to success.
Keyword research is the process of discovering & validating popular words and phrases that people are using in search engines.
Keyword research is one of the most important aspects of SEO strategy. In fact, 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, and the only way for a search engine to crawl a website is with keywords and optimization.
In this beginners guide, you will explore what keyword research is, why it works, and the best ways to implement it into your digital marketing and content strategies.
How Does Keyword Research Work?
You may just want to dive into SEO keyword research, but there are a few important questions you should ask yourself before beginning your investigation. You must understand where your potential leads are, who they are, what they want, and what you can offer them.
The keyword research process is the best way to figure out what searchers are actively looking for. Your business needs to know what content to avoid and what content to focus on. A ton of websites make this mistake and that’s why over 90% of pages get virtually no traffic. Keyword research is crucial for search engine optimization success.
Keyword research isn’t just one of the best ways to boost your organic search traffic on your website. Keywords can also increase your backlinks, your SERPs, and all of your content marketing when used correctly.
You may also be able to use Google Trends for keyword trends to help you find the search volume and how often your keyword ideas are used. This can help you decide if your niche is relevant.
Before we get into all the details of keyword data research (like we will in the next few sections), here’s a quick overview of how keyword research works:
Brainstorm keyword ideas
Keyword research begins with putting yourself in the shoes of your potential customers. This process often starts with brainstorming keyword ideas around what you think people would search when they are looking for your products and services. You can then use those concepts and ideas on keyword research tools and SEO tools to find large lists of keyword ideas.
Using the right type of keyword is vital. You can definitely use free tools to come up with the best keyword suggestions, but do you really know how many people are actively searching for that keyword? And if they are, will your content be drowned out by your competitors?
Speaking of competitors, your competition is definitely spending money and time on SEO strategies. So, that means your business should too. A Moz study suggests that most businesses are spending at least $5,000 alone on SEO.
By using high-volume keywords effectively alongside medium, and long-tailed keywords you can get the most out of your content. In fact, 69.7% of search questions have four words or more so using the best keyword ideas can greatly impact your rankings.
Looking at competitor websites is another way that people can get good keyword ideas.
Validate and expand your ideas with a keyword research tool
You can research yourself which takes much longer and won’t give you the details you need to succeed. Or, you can utilize researching tools that can give you data to understand your audience and how your website can grow.
Keyword tools aren’t just designed for websites either, you can use them for Youtube keywords, blogging, and so much more. Knowing what is actively being viewed can help you figure out a niche or business that will flourish in an ever-evolving world.
By using tools, you can manage and expand on keyword ideas, data, and gain a full understanding of your audience or potential audience.
If you’re having any keyword difficulty, you can use one of the many keyword tools (like the HOTH keyword planner or Google keyword planner) to validate and expand your lists and discover other related keywords that people are using.
Other free tools such as Google Business Profile can be used to boost local SEO by incorporating keywords in your descriptions and pages.
One of the main reasons why you should absolutely use a keyword researching tool is for the sheer amount of information you can get from them such as keyword volume (to see how many people are searching per month), CPC (to see how many people are paying when they advertise on that keyword), and competition.
Using this type of information can give you the best insight into understanding who your audience is, what they want, and what they are searching for.
Select your keywords
After creating a list of keywords and analyzing the list, you can choose keywords to target so that they can drive search engine traffic to your website.
You’ll want to consider factors like search volume, search intent, SEO competition, and keyword value. By analyzing this information, you can improve your metrics and your monthly search volume.
For example, if your blogging niche is photography you would want to use more than just “photography” because that is a competitive keyword. That means way too many websites are using that particular keyword so your content probably wouldn’t show in related searches or on the top of search engine results pages.
It would be best if you used medium keywords (1 to 3 words long) or long-tail keywords (3 words or longer). Such as “beautiful landscape photography.” or “how to make my photography great.” This keyword phrase adds detail and invites an audience searching for that phrase to your content.
Using high-volume keywords can be good for traffic if used properly, but it usually doesn’t bring in many convertible leads. In fact, an Ahrefs study suggests that 95% of all search queries in the U.S. get fewer than 10 searches per month. So, long-tail keywords are searched far fewer times than high-volume keywords but bring a higher conversion rate.
That’s why using keyword research tools can be your very best friend when trying to come up with the right keywords for your niche and your business. Research tools give you the right information and you can base your strategy on those results.
Optimize your website
The last step is to optimize your website for the keywords and boost your rank on Bing or Google search results. Authoritative and great content is one of the best ways to improve your search engine rankings. By using keywords and improving your website’s optimization, you will not only guarantee a higher rank, but deliver informative, and useful information to your potential customers.
Here are the best ways to keep your website optimized for SEO:
Metadata
Let’s start with meta tags. Meta tags are information about a website in the form of HTML. This is usually called “metadata.” Metadata isn’t something you’re going to see on your website, it’s encoded into your page by a webmaster. But, just because you or your customers can’t see it, doesn’t mean Google doesn’t recognize it, read it, and use it for SEO purposes.
Relevant keywords
Doing the best keyword research is important because it will help you discover valuable keywords that people are actually searching for.
High search volume keywords, medium-tail keywords, and long-tail keywords are vital to optimizing your website and your content. So, picking the best keywords out of your keyword ideas list is a great idea to incorporate into your digital marketing strategy along with any PPC, CPC, and Google Ads.
There are over 1.5 billion websites on the internet today, so that means narrowing down your high-volume keywords to long-tail keywords can lessen your traffic, but can improve your conversion rate which creates more qualified leads than random traffic.
Doing proper keyword research enables marketers to make sure that they get a good return on investment for their SEO efforts.
Update your content for SEO
Updating your content is so important. Say, for example, your website has a bunch of old blog posts that aren’t gaining any traffic and are just sitting on your webpage wasting space.
You can actually revamp some of your old content and redesign and create that content and update it using fresh SEO methods. This can be done by implementing new keywords from your keyword tools.
Post relevant authoritative content
Posting relevant and authoritative content is one of the number one ways to optimize your website for SEO. Being the authoritative leader in your niche isn’t easy and it takes a lot of time and effort. However, once you get established, maintaining that rank is something you will want to continue as you grow your business.
Use Alt tags
Optimizing a website may involve including keywords into your title tags, descriptions, and on your page. It also might mean you need to create an entirely new page.
Backlinks
Inputting links into your website’s content is so important for SEO. You need internal links and external links because this helps Google recognize that your business is relevant to your niche. It’s also very important to have backlinks to your website and landing pages.
Backlinks are just two websites linking to each other to let Google know they like each other and are important for one another. The more backlinks your website gets, the better off your business will be for online and even offline traffic.
Optimize for mobile devices
Optimizing your website and landing pages for mobile users is very important. Mobile traffic accounts for nearly half of Google searches per year. So, making sure that your site has effective keywords, and optimization can boost your revenue and traffic.
Keyword Research Wrap Up
Keyword research is easy to implement but hard to master. Keyword research is one of the best ways to implement SEO methods and digital strategies.
They are important and using the best keywords that are right for your business is essential to thriving in the world of SEO. Learning how to add these keywords into your content can boost your traffic, your sales, and your overall business authority.
That’s why one of our keyword experts is here if you’re feeling a little lost and want some advice. Schedule a call now!
