How to do Keyword Research for SEO Strategy
Keyword Research for SEO Strategy
The power of search engines in today’s digital marketing era should not be over-stated. There has never been a world where you cannot use Google to search for everything you might want to buy.
As a matter of fact the number of people utilising search engines are growing steadily year after year.
Research has shown that 43% of all e-commerce website traffic comes from organic Google searches.
That is a significant amount to start taking your search engine optimisation strategy seriously.
The solution to get ahead is to optimise your web page so that search engines can easily find you.
This process is called search engine optimisation or SEO which will involve a lot of time, effort and research to be effective.
However having a web page that ranks on the first page of Google or any other search engine will help businesses grow tremendously. For this reason SEO has become a popular part of the marketing strategy.
It is easy to learn the basics of SEO online. We have even published articles that can give you a better idea of the importance of things like what is SEO and improving SEO ranking and more.
When it comes to SEO strategy it does not get any more basic than keyword research for SEO. This is the very first place you start when working on your SEO strategy.
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Why is Keyword Research Important for SEO?
Google receives over 71,000 searches per second on any given day as of January 2019.
This means that at any given time in the day someone somewhere could be searching for the good or service that your business provides.
Ranking near the top of a search engine results page (SERP) is more tailored and personalised than a billboard or a magazine ad.
That is the reason why Google advertisements are so popular and effective. Target audiences know what they want and you can show up in front of them when they want it.
By skipping the keyword research for SEO, this means that you could be wasting your time optimising your site for keyword that would not likely to rank.
It could even lead you to waste your time trying to rank for a keyword that does not actually fit your business.
Keyword research for SEO lays the foundation for the rest of your SEO practices. Without a solid foundation of well-researched keywords all of your time and effort could be futile.
Point to Note: Research has shown that 34% of consumers visit a physical store within a day of their local search on a computer or mobile devices.
By doing thorough keyword research for SEO you can grow your business online or offline.
What is a keyword?
A keyword is essentially a word or phrases that people type into a search bar on a search engine.
Different keywords for similar things can have different competition and popularity.
The amount of monthly average searches for one keyword might be much higher or lower than for another that is almost identical.
Likewise two keywords can have very different levels of competition to rank for.
Say you type best chicken soup recipe into Google – you will see a featured snippet highlighting the top result for this keyword followed by recipe after recipe for chicken soup.
However if you just type chicken soup into Google – you will see a different set of recipes like Chicken Garden Soup, Tuscan Style Chicken Soup and more.
Both of these are examples of keywords and although they seem similar they can lead to very different results.
By understanding that each keyword has a different level of competition, this will help you to understand where your website fits in and how you can compete in this over-saturated marketplace of search results.
Further Reading: How to Improve SEO Rankings
The different types of keywords
When target audience type search phrases into a search engine there are two types of searches they could be performing.
- a more generalised search either to research what they want to buy or
- because they do not need to be very specific or more specific – specialised search.
When someone is doing a more general search there is a stronger likelihood that may be doing some initial research on what they want to buy.
This is a great opportunity to show up on a top position in a SERP because you can help pull a potential lead in your direction.
Short Tail Keywords
However there is often more competition when trying to rank for these general terms which are called short-tail keywords.
They are short-tail because these keywords often have 3 words or less.
Sometimes they are also called the head keyword. Short-tail keywords have a huge amount of search volume but are also highly competitive.
Target audiences use short-tail keywords when they are at the very first step of researching for stuff.
That is why it is very difficult to pinpoint the clear search intent for short-tail keywords.
They tend to be all around the place. Short-tail keywords do not convert well because of the difficulty in matching searcher intent.
An example would be like when someone is searching for lemon. They might be searching for what vitamins are provided by a lemon or how much calories do a lemon has.
Further Reading: How to Write a Good Meta Description for SEO
Long Tail Keywords
So when someone knows exactly what they want to purchase they are more likely to type in a longer, more specific phrase into a search engine.
Long-tail keywords consist of more than 3 words. They are also usually much more specific than short-tail keywords.
They have a much lower search volume compared to a short-tail keyword. But they make it up by being much less competitive.
The most important thing you have to know with a long-tail keyword is you can easily pinpoint the search intent.
When the users are making searches with these long and detailed keywords, they are usually ready to make a purchase.
If they apply to your business these could be very valuable to optimise your website since whoever is using these long-tail keywords knows exactly what they are looking to purchase.
The average conversion rate for long-tail keywords is 36%. An example would be like – 4 x 1 litre San Pellegrino mineral water.
Further Reading: Get Traffic to Your Website Fast
You can target a specific neighbourhood, city, state or even country using geo-targeting keyword.
This is very useful especially for small local businesses where you want to attract the most relevant local customers to your storefront.
How can I get my geo-targeting keywords? This is actually the easiest keyword to acquire on the list. The area that your business serves is your geo-targeting keywords just that.
You might already have your address on display at the sidebar but inserting it into the content itself can bring a big difference.
Geo-targeting keyword is extremely important for local business that wants to establish their local SEO.
Enter voice search queries
According to a PWC report 71% of people prefer using voice assistant than the usual typing when they are searching for something on the internet.
And what is more important is the fact that spoken and typed queries show different search results.
So if your competitor’s website content is more voice search optimised then you will fall behind the competition.
The main difference of voice search keywords compared to typed keywords is that when we use voice assistant we often talk to it as if we are talking to an actual human.
It sounds more natural. Most people would say – Hey Google or Okay Siri and so on. Therefore voice search queries are often questions using natural language.
Further Reading: What is SEO Friendly URL Structure
When commencing your keyword research for SEO it is important to have a better understanding of keyword opportunities and competition.
Each of these steps has a potential to give valuable insight on the eligibility of a keyword to work for your SEO strategy.
Brainstorm Potential Keywords
Creating a list of potential keywords that apply to your business is the first step. This list will give you some insights and the process will give you a better idea of what others may be searching for in a business similar to yours.
Simply start brainstorming – this list does not need to be fully fleshed out or perfect for the moment. This is just a starting point to help you with the next step.
Compare Average Monthly Searches
This step can be a little tricky and you will need a tool to help you find the number of searches a keyword gets per month.
There are several different places you can go to find such a tool – some of them are free and some of them are paid version.
If you have a Google Ads account, utilising the keyword research tool will give you the average monthly searches as well as information useful for creating pay per click ads.
Even information on pay per click costs will help you get a better idea of which keywords are popular and which are not.
While you may want to go after the keywords with the highest average monthly search volume – you are not done with your research yet.
High search volumes are only helpful if you know the keyword is relevant and if you can compete with the rest of the pages that rank for that keyword.
This example of keyword search volume goes to show that even similar keywords can have varying levels of popularity.
Further Reading: Ways To Create Quality Backlinks
Analyse Keyword Difficulty
Another factor in understanding what keywords are best to go after is the keyword difficulty score.
This is a number from 1 to 100 that gives you an idea of the difficulty you will have in ranking for that particular keyword.
The lower the keyword difficulty the less difficult it is to rank and the higher the more difficult.
This score was developed by SEO experts to give people a quick and simple way to gauge the possibility of ranking on a SERP.
If you do not have a tool to help you find the keyword difficulty of each of your keywords then this step will be a little tricky.
Most tools for both keyword monthly searches and keyword difficulty can get quite costly so it may be best to consider a professional digital marketing expert for your keyword research for SEO.
Using an incognito browsing window to look into the competition for different keywords will ensure that any cookies from your browsing history would not interfere with the results of your research. However an incognito window will not prevent results from being localised.
Further Reading: How to Write Good Title Tags for SEO
Last but not least take a look at the other websites that rank for the same keyword you want to go for. Are they using the keyword in their page text or HTML? Are they high ranking and popular sites?
Understanding the different factors that go into a website’s search engine ranking will enable you to gauge the competition better.
Utilising a tool that will show you the domain authority and page authority of a web page is very helpful and important.
Domain authority (DA) and page authority (PA) are some of the factors that go into a website’s search engine ranking.
DA and PA are determined by number from 1 to 100 and the higher the number the more power a website has to rank in a high position.
DA and PA also help you gather the popularity and reach of a website. The more reputable sites link to a page on a website the higher their DA and PA will go.
Making sure you can compete with others on a SERP is an important step towards your keyword research for SEO.
Further Reading: How To Optimise Images for SEO
Wrapping Up
Hopefully this article is helpful and will affirm your understanding of keyword research for SEO.
Knowing the basics of SEO can be beneficial and can give you a better idea of what to look for if you decide to get a professional SEO expert to give you a hand in boosting your website rankings.
It pays to hire professionals that will save you the time and effort in learning SEO on your own but knowing the basic process they go through will give you a leg up in interpreting their SEO recommendations.
This is valuable information that you can and should take back to your marketing team in order to aid in your marketing strategy.
Contact us today at Best-Digital Marketing Services to help you make sure your site is perfectly optimised with thorough SEO keyword research.
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Further Reading: Benefits of SEO
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