Keywords are a key component of SEO, but knowing how to find the right keywords to use with keyword research can be challenging. Keywords that are either too general or too specific can both make it difficult to get eyes on your content.
In our previous blogs, How To Use Keywords To Optimize Your Content and Strategically Using Long Tail Keywords For SEO, we go into further detail about how you can use keywords to optimize your content. Click on over there if you would like to learn more about using keywords. If you already know how to use keywords but would like help learning how to do keyword research, continue reading.
Why Is Keyword Research Important?
Keyword research helps you figure out what keywords to target and what your target audience is actually searching for so that your content can rank better.
Think of how you search for things online. You want a solution, like the closest bookstore, so you search ‘bookstores near me’ or ‘bookstores (insert city name here)’. Then, results pop up – and if you had a bookstore of your own, you’d want to be one of those first results. Keyword research would help you with this.
You want your keywords to get your content in front of audiences when they conduct searches trying to find a solution to their query. As such, crafting your content around what people are looking for rather than what you’re trying to tell people can help you gain more traffic.
Keyword research helps you do this. It also helps you avoid choosing keywords that are highly competitive and would be difficult to rank for – or ones that are so specific, they don’t get searched much. Keyword research gives you insight into current marketing trends, what keywords best fit with your content, and which will draw people to you.
Top Elements Of Keyword Research
When doing keyword research, you want to look at three main factors: relevance, authority, and volume.
Relevance is whether the content that ranks for the keywords meet the searchers’ needs. Think of how many times you’ve Googled something only to be frustrated because none of the top results address your needs. You could rank better for a keyword if you can provide more relevant content that addresses searchers’ intent.
Authority is whether the content is helpful, informative, and earns backlinks. This can help you find gaps that you can fill. For instance, if the top articles are outdated, poor quality, not detailed enough, or have other such issues, you could rank better for that keyword by providing higher-quality content. However, if the top results are from sites like the Mayo Clinic or the New York Times, you would have a much harder time ranking for that keyword, as these have very high authority.
Volume is the number of times the keyword is searched across audiences in a month. You want keywords that a good number of people are actually searching for. An extremely high-volume keyword would be difficult to rank for. Conversely, you may easily get on the first page for an extremely low-volume keyword… but then since it’s so low-volume, it doesn’t generate much/any traffic to your site.
How To Do Keyword Research
Having a good knowledge of your industry is essential to this process.
- Make a list of topics relevant to your business (for example, how to start a blog)
- Expand each topic with phrases you think customers use
- Find keywords for those topics (these can also be short phrases)
- Find related search terms
- See what keywords your competitors are ranking for
- Analyze the strength of your keywords
- Determine how you rank in your industry
- Understand how user intent affects keywords
- Use a keyword research tool, like Moz or Google Keyword Planner
- Check the monthly search volume for keywords
- Determine which keywords you have a chance of ranking for
The best keywords for you take into account the type of competition you are up again and your ability to produce content that is of a higher quality than the current top-ranking results. The ideal keywords for you have a high search volume with low competition.
Remember to re-evaluate your keywords every few months, in order to ensure that your content continues to generate results. Knowing about seasonal trends in your industry can help you rank better each season. The same is true for keywords in your region (for example, power washing ranks better than pressure washing in some areas and vice versa).
Let Us Do The Keyword Research For You
Performance Driven Marketing provides top-of-the-line SEO marketing services. We’re constantly adapting our strategies to the ever-changing realm of online marketing in order to ensure that we’re providing our clients with the best services possible.
We know that doing keyword research and trying to optimize your content can be frustrating on your own. When you work with us, you can leave that work to our expert team and simply enjoy the exceptional results of our services.
Let us help you improve your site’s SEO. Contact us today to request a free consultation and/or a free website audit.
