Have you been wondering how keyword research is done?
Keyword Research is an important part of creating content to post online. It allows you to find out what terms people are typing into search engines and how popular those terms are. By understanding this data, you can better optimize your content to reach your target audience.
In this article, we will explain more about keyword research and how you can do it on your website or blog.
Understanding Keyword Research
Like anything we do, we always have to start with a basic understanding of things before we can get into the nitty-gritty.
So, let’s start with the basics of keyword research.
What is Keyword Research?
It is the process of finding and analyzing the keywords people are typing into search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. This data can be used to create better content that is more likely to be found by your target audience.
Keyword Research is a way of knowing more about your target audience and understanding what they are looking for. It’s also a way to discover the most popular words and phrases in search engines.
You may use this information to improve your website or blog by making sure that your content uses the right keywords.
Why is Keyword Research Important?
Keyword research is important because it allows you to understand what people are actually searching for online.
By understanding what keywords are being used, you can also better optimize your website or blog for those terms and better understand what the searcher wants.
Understanding and answering the searcher’s questions will help you rank higher in the search engines and get more traffic to your site.
How to Find Keyword Ideas
Now we understand what keyword research is and how important it is to your site. Let’s take a look at how you can find keyword ideas.
There are different ways that you can go about finding keywords for your site for free:
Brainstorming
This is a great way to get started with keyword research. Just sit down and think about what terms people might use to find your site.
Start by listing our target audience persona, their needs, and what questions they might have.
You can use this as a guide,
- Audience Persona :
- Name:
- Their needs:
- Questions they might have:
Once you have your persona and their needs, start brainstorming a list of potential keywords. This can be done with a mind map or just a simple list.
Don’t worry about getting specific at this stage, just come up with as many ideas as possible by putting yourself in their shoes.
You can ask your team members for help with this; ask them all ideas and questions that your target persona might have.
Analyze the Competition & Use Keyword Research Tools
Another way to find keywords is to look at your competition. Check out their website and see what terms they are targeting.
Review their blog post or check out their sitemap for content ideas.
Example:
If we were looking for ideas for our home décor site, we might check out a competitor’s website like West Elm or Crate & Barrel.
We would then look at their blog posts and see what topics they are writing about. We can also check out their sitemap to get an idea of all the different types of content they have on their site.
Looking at your competitor’s website can give you some great ideas for topics to write about on your own site.
If you have a budget for tools, you can try SEMrush, Ahrefs or other keyword research tools. Through these tools you will be able to see certain keyword phrases and all other keywords related to the keywords you are trying to rank.
Check Google Suggest
As you start typing a query into Google, you will notice that it begins to suggest other possible searches related to your initial query. These suggested queries can give you some great ideas for targeting additional keywords.
To find these suggestions, simply start typing your initial query into the Google search bar and then scroll down to the bottom of the page. You will see a list of suggested queries that you can target.
Example:
If we were looking for ideas for our home décor site, we might start by typing “home decor” into the Google search bar.
Google would then suggest other related queries such as “home decor ideas”, “home decorating tips”, and “home decor stores”.
Review “People Also Ask”
When you do a search using Google, you will notice a section called “People also ask.” This can give you some great ideas for questions to answer in your content.
To do this, simply search on Google and scroll down to the “People also ask” section. You will see a list of questions that people have asked about your topic. You can click on any of these questions to expand them and see more related questions.
If you are looking for ideas for our home décor site, you might start by searching for “home decor”.
Google would then show you a list of questions in the “People also ask” section, such as “How do you decorate a house?”, “What is the best home decor site?” and “What does home decor include?”.
There’s also a tool called AlsoAsked that allows you to enter a keyword and see what questions people are asking about that topic.
You can also try AnswerThePublic, a great tool for finding questions that people are asking about a particular topic.
Just enter a keyword and it will generate a list of questions related to that term.
Check Related Search
When you do a search on Google, you might notice a section at the bottom of the results called “Searches related to.” This can give you some great ideas for additional topics to write about.
To find these related topics, simply search on Google and scroll down to the bottom of the page. You will see a list of related searches that you can target.
Example:
If we were looking for ideas for our home décor site, we might start by searching for “home decor”.
Google would then show us a list of related searches such as “home decor ideas”, “home decor items”, “cheap home decor”, and “home decor stores”.
You can utilize all these tools to get more keyword ideas for your business.
How to Analyze Keywords
Now that you have all these keywords and questions on your list, how do you figure out which ones to target? This is where you need to do some keyword analysis.
Here are a few things to consider when analyzing keywords:
Search Volume
The first thing you want to look at is the Search Volume for each keyword. This will give you an idea of how many people are actually searching for that term.
You can get an idea of the search volume for a keyword using Google Keyword Planner. Just enter a keyword and it will give you an estimated range of monthly searches for that term.
You can also try Google Trends to see how the popularity of a particular keyword has changed over time.
This is helpful to see if there is potential for growth in the search volume for a particular keyword.
Keyword Difficulty
Another thing you can look at is the Keyword Difficulty. This measures how difficult it would be to rank for a particular keyword.
The keyword difficulty ranges from 1 to 100, with 1 being the easiest to rank for and 100 being the most difficult.
You have to target keywords that have a reasonable search volume and are not too difficult to rank for.
A good rule of thumb is to target keywords with a keyword difficulty of less than 50.
You can check the keyword difficulty using a number of different tools, but most of these tools are not free.
Some of the popular keyword difficulty tools are Moz, Ahrefs and SEMrush.
Short-Tail Keywords
You can group your keywords starting with short-tail keywords. These are single words or short keyword phrases with high search volume.
An example of a short-tail keyword is “keyword research.”
These keywords are generally more difficult to rank for because there is so much competition. However, they can still be worth targeting if you have a strong SEO strategy.
Mid-Tail Keywords
Mid-tail keywords are longer than short-tail keywords but shorter than long-tail keywords.
An example of a mid-tail keyword is “keyword research tools.”
Mid-tail keywords generally have less competition than short-tail keywords and more searches than long-tail keywords.
These keywords can be a good option to target if you are just starting out with SEO.
Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are longer keyword phrases that have a lower search volume.
An example of a long-tail keyword is “how to do keyword research for a blog.”
Long-tail keywords are generally easier to rank for because there is less competition.
This can be a great way because you can start ranking for these keywords relatively quickly.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
The click-through rate (CTR) is the number of people who click on your listing in the search results divided by the total number of people who see your listing.
For example, if your listing is shown 100 times and you get five clicks, your CTR would be 5%.
This metric is important because it can give you an idea of how relevant your listing is for a particular keyword.
The higher your CTR, the more likely you are to rank for the right keyword.
You can review your CTR in Google Search Console, go to Search Traffic > Search Analytics and then filter by clicks and impressions.
This will show you the CTR for each of your listings in the search results.
Traffic Potential
The traffic potential is the number of people who could potentially click on your listing in the search results.
This is different from the CTR because it includes people who see your listing but don’t click on it.
For example, if your listing is shown 100 times and you get five clicks, your traffic potential would be 100.
If your traffic potential is high, but you have a low CTR, it could indicate that your listing is not relevant for the keyword you are targeting.
You can check your traffic potential in Google Search Console. Just go to Search Traffic > Search Analytics and then filter by impressions.
This will show you the traffic potential for each of your listings in the search results.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
The cost per click (CPC) is the amount of money you would pay for each person who clicks on your listing in the search results.
For example, if you are paying $1 per click and get five clicks, your CPC would be $5.
This metric is important because it can give you an idea of how much it would cost you to get traffic from a particular keyword.
You can check your CPC in Google AdWords. Just go to Keywords > Ad group ideas and then filter by average CPC.
This will show you the CPC for each of your keywords.
If you use tools like Ahrefs, you can see all these metrics in one place.
Just go to Keywords > Overview and then filter by Difficulty, CPC, Volume and Traffic.
This will show you a list of all the keywords you are targeting, along with their difficulty, CPC, volume and traffic potential.
How to Choose the Right Keywords
After analyzing your keywords based on the abovementioned things, you need to choose the right keywords to target.
There are a few things you need to keep in mind when doing this:
Relevancy
The first thing you need to consider is relevancy. You have to make sure that the keywords you are targeting are relevant to your business and will actually attract the right kind of visitors.
The visitors you attract need to be interested in what you have to offer.
Otherwise, they are not going to convert into customers or clients.
For example, if you are a blog about dogs, you wouldn’t want to target keywords like “cat food” or “pet supplies.”
You want to make sure that the keywords you are targeting are relevant to your business
Search Intent
The second thing you need to consider is the search intent. Make sure that the keywords you are targeting have the right intent. Search intent is the motivation behind a particular search. This is the reason why someone is searching for something.
There are four types of search intent:
– Informational: The user is looking for information about a topic.
– Navigational: The user is looking for a specific website.
– Transactional: The user is looking to buy something.
– Commercial: The user is looking to compare prices or find a coupon before making a purchase
For example, if someone is searching for “SEO services,” they are probably looking to hire an SEO company.
If someone is searching for “SEO tips,” they might just be looking for information and not necessarily looking to hire an SEO company.
Therefore, you would want to target keywords with commercial intent like “SEO services” over keywords with informational intent like “SEO tips.”
You can check the intent of a keyword by looking at the search results.
To do this, you can go to Google and search for your keyword. “SEO Services,” for example, type this in the Google search bar.
Then look at the search results and see what websites rank for that keyword.
If you see many websites that are selling products or services, then it’s likely that the keyword has commercial intent.
If you see a lot of blog posts and articles, then it’s likely that the keyword has informational intent.
Advance Tips and Strategy
Here are some tips and strategies we do in Aemorph as we do our keyword research.
Keyword Gap Analysis
A keyword gap analysis is a process of finding the keywords that your competitors are ranking for .
This is a great way to find new keywords to target.
We use Google Sheets to do a Keyword Gap Analysis for our clients, and we can input up to 15 competitors at a time to analyse and find out what keywords our client does not rank for yet.
Ahrefs also does a Keyword Gap Analysis. Just go to Site Explorer > Enter your URL > Content Gap. You can enter up to 10 competitors to analyze.
This will show you all the keywords your competitor is ranking for.
Keyword Cannibalisation
Keyword cannibalisation is when you are ranking for the same keyword multiple times.
This can be bad for your SEO because it splits your link equity and authority, which can hurt your rankings.
Keyword Research Tools
Different tools have already been mentioned above, but let’s go through each free and paid tool we can use for our keyword research:
Google Trends
Google Trends is a free keyword tool that shows you the relative search volume of keywords over time. This is useful to see if a keyword is growing or declining in popularity. You can also use this to compare multiple keywords and see which one is more popular.
Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is Google’s free keyword research tool that shows you the average monthly search volume for keywords. You can also use this keyword research tool to get ideas for new keywords to target. To use Google Keyword Planner, you need to have a Google Ads account.
Answer the Public
Answer the Public is another free keyword research website that shows you the questions people are asking about a certain keyword. This is useful to find new content ideas or to find new keywords to target.
Moz Keyword Explorer
Moz Keyword Explorer is a paid keyword research tool that shows you the monthly search volume, difficulty, and opportunity for keywords. Moz also has a free keyword research tool called MozBar.
Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
This is one of our favourite tools. The Ahrefs Keywords Explorer is a paid keyword research tool that shows you the monthly search volume, difficulty, and opportunity for keywords.
To use Ahrefs Keywords Explorer:
1. Log in to Ahrefs and go to keyword explorer.
2. Type in the keyword or the keywords you want to check.
3. Choose the target country and hit search. This will bring out all the data you want to know about that particular keyword, such as search volume, KD or Keyword Difficulty etc.
SEMrush
SEMRush is a paid keyword research tool that shows you the monthly search volume, difficulty, and opportunity for keywords.
To use SEMRush,
-
Log in to your SEMRush account and go to Keyword Analytics > Overview.
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Type in the keyword you want to check and hit search.
There are a lot of other keyword research tools out there, and the ones we’ve listed above are the free ones and some of our favourite keyword research tools.
Conclusion
Keyword research is a vital part of SEO. This allows you to find the right keywords to target that will bring you traffic and help you rank higher in the search results page.
For keyword research tools, you can utilize free tools like Google Keyword Planner.
If you have the budget, we recommend using paid tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush.
Doing a keyword gap analysis and keyword cannibalization check can also be very helpful in your keyword research process.
The keyword research process is an ongoing process and you should continuously be doing it to make sure you are targeting the right keywords and you can maintain your rankings in the SERP.
We hope this guide has been helpful and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.
