Let’s begin this blog with a question! From your perspective, what’s the most crucial aspect of SEO? If your answer is keyword research, congratulations! You are on the right track. Keyword research and proper keyword usage must be the cornerstone of everyone’s SEO efforts. Keywords are the foundation on which the whole progress of an SEO project depends. Irrespective of how worthy or extraordinary the quality of content you feature on your website, if it’s lacking targeted keywords, you won’t even be noticed by Google.
This is why long-established SEO masters outline keyword research as the first and foremost step for any SEO expedition. But that’s not all you need to know about keyword research, as it carries much more value than just being an aspect of the whole SEO process. Read ahead, as we’re going to delve deeper to know the role of keyword research in SEO and will cover useful strategies and techniques that you can use to maximize your chances of success.
Importance Of Keyword Research In SEO
Proceeding with SEO without even considering keyword research would guarantee you one thing, i.e., unfavorable results, which is something that you don’t want at all. It’s one of the most crucial aspects of a holistic SEO approach that makes it possible for you to understand what people are looking for on the internet. Based on your collected data, you create content that revolves around the user’s intent. Here’s a quick breakdown of the role of keyword research in SEO.
1. Helps Understand The Audience
Just imagine how easy the whole online marketing process would get for you if you got insights about the particular phrases and words your target audience is putting on the search engine for their queries. Sounds promising, right? The same scenario is the actuality of the online sphere, where keyword research tools allow you to delve deeper into the keywords and phrases that online users are typing into the search engine to get a response to their query. You get to know what their needs, interests, and pain points are, making it feasible for you to tailor your content strategies.
2. Basis For Content Strategy
What’s the purpose of crafting so many content pieces to fill out your website? To address the online audience that’s up on the internet, searching for solutions to their queries, right? What if you miss out on mentioning those phrases and words in your website content that people are searching for? You guessed it right! Search engine crawlers won’t find anything relevant in your website and no visitors would be there on your website. By getting information about all the different terms that users are putting up on the internet, you begin refining your content strategy, aligning it more towards what’s required from your end to secure better rankings. Not just for your website content, but the gathered keyword data proves useful for other mediums like social media and email marketing, too.
3. Links Users And Websites
Mainly three parties are involved on the World Wide Web, i.e., the search engine, the searcher, and the websites. Every search engine’s primary job is to satisfy a user’s search intent by providing relevant information in terms of several results. It acts as a bridge between the searcher and the plethora of websites brawling with each other to rank higher. The search engine stores every website’s information in its database and puts it up on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) whenever it finds a conjunction between the searched query and the prevalence of that query in the content of the stored website.
4. Affects Your SERP Rankings
Among all keyword-related metrics, keyword volume is the foremost measure that needs to be considered while executing SEO efforts. Incorporate the practice of targeting keywords with a high search volume to increase your probability of securing higher rankings across search engines. Find keywords that people are actively searching for and create high-quality, relevant content around them to increase the likelihood of your website appearing higher in SERP whenever someone searches for those keywords.
Popular Keywords Research Tools You Can Use
There are innumerable keyword research tools available in the marketplace. Some of them are exclusive of any price, while for others you might need to pay a certain amount. While you may be of the view that paid tools would yield you more prosperous results, it’s not true in every case.
Here’s a rounded list of the most sought-after keyword research tools that you can choose from.
1. Google Keyword Planner
It’s a completely free keyword research tool by Google that lets you search for relevant keywords for your business/niche. While it’s primarily used for targeting PPC campaigns, if used properly, it can provide you with beneficial results for SEO too. With it, you get to see search volume, trend data, and expected click-through rates for keywords. Using it, you can even organize keywords into brand-related categories as well and get recommendations for new keyword ideas related to your business. As a freely available tool, it falls a bit short on duly briefing about organic ranking difficulty and search intent for a keyword for which you might go for a paid keyword research alternative.
2. Ahrefs
Using Ahrefs’ free keyword generator, you can get insights about thousands of keywords in a matter of seconds. Their tool features effective keyword research capabilities and analysis features as well. With it, you get what’s missing in Google Keyword Planner, i.e., keyword difficulty score and organic search traffic analysis. It allows you to target high-performing keywords with realistic ranking opportunities, based on which you can prepare and schedule a content strategy. Many renowned SEO agencies that provide organic SEO services even use this tool in their keyword research process.
3. Semrush
Semrush offers 6 different keyword research tools that you can use to acquire more organic traffic for your website. They have their Keyword Overview feature that shows metrics for up to 100 keywords at once, Organic Research that shows the keywords that a domain is ranking for, Keyword Magic Tool to generate thousands of keywords from a single seed keyword, Keyword Gap for comparing your keyword’s performance against your competitors, Keyword Strategy Builder to plan topic clusters, and Organic Traffic Insights to analyze and understand the source of a website’s organic search traffic.
4. Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest’s Keyword Research Tool features a quite user-friendly interface using which you can generate a large number of keyword ideas, analyze search volume, evaluate keyword difficulty, and get insights into competitors’ keyword status as well. Their platform’s straightforward UI allows even beginners to begin their SEO journey as well. Plus, it even gives you long-tail keyword variations and estimated search volume for each keyword, helping you prioritize high-traffic terms.
5. Moz Keyword Explorer
This free keyword research tool is powered by AI and is widely known for its accuracy and features. For every term searched, you get details for metrics like volume, organic CTR, difficulty, and keyword suggestions as well. For the suggestions, it gives both related terms and long-tail keywords. They even have a competitive analysis feature that allows you to see for which keywords your competitors are ranking.
Effective Keyword Research Techniques For Assured Results
Till now, you must’ve understood the cruciality of conducting the keyword research process properly. It’s more of a pre-requisite for creating content that aligns with a user’s search intent and has the potential to perform well on search engines. But what are those special, more unorthodox types of keyword research techniques that carry the possibility of providing you with assured, tangible results? The secret lies in furthering the traditional keyword research process and adopting multiple approaches at the same time.
Here’s how you can do it:
1. Doing Competitor Analysis
This technique is more advantageous for those who are familiar with keyword research. Utilizing this approach would help them scale up their endeavors efficiently. For it, you would be keeping an eye on your competitors to get information about the keywords that they are targeting and ranking for. This act of spying would make it easier for you to know about the possible gaps in their content strategy that you can capitalize on. You can utilize the uncovered keywords by targeting them in a much better way to gain an edge over your competitors.
2. Using Google Trends
Google Trends is one of the most popular free keyword research tools available. It’s best used when you want to know about the relative popularity of different search terms over time across various regions. With it, you get insights about the terms related to your search query and can make predictions about upcoming trends to beat your competitors by forging content around it.
3. Semantic Keyword Research
This is more of a comprehensive keyword research technique that allows you to better understand the context and meaning behind a searched query. You no longer rely on evaluating normal keyword phrases and instead focus on comprehending the broader picture by knowing the synonyms and related key phrases for the original term. This increased understanding of yours would allow you to craft more meaningful and contextually related content pieces that serve both the users and search engines in a much better way. Eventually, it will lead to better chances of ranking higher across search engines. To get semantic keywords, you can hover over Google suggest phrases (autocomplete), the People Also Ask section or the related searches section.
4. Considering Long-Tail Keywords
While conducting your keyword research process, don’t miss out on considering long-tail keywords. These are specific keyword phrases characterized by lower search volume but higher conversion rates, signaling more focus on user intent. This technique is more beneficial for small businesses looking to compete big in their niche. To proceed, begin with assessing broad general keywords and then use keyword research tools to find relevant long-tail keywords.
5. Differentiating Keywords
To avoid overcomplicating the keyword research process, you need to differentiate keywords based on metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, click-through rate (CTR), and search intent. Doing so would allow you to prioritize keywords featuring a good balance of search volume, manageable competition, and aligned user intent while avoiding the ones that don’t corroborate with your target audience.
6. Related Searches And Keywords
Almost every keyword research tool provides you with insights and suggestions about related queries that users might be interested in. This bags you more keywords that you can utilize in your content strategy to improve the content’s relevance. This way, you would be fortifying your website’s authority in the niche you’re operating in. Ultimately, it will boost your chances of ranking higher in search engine rankings.
7. Google Search Console
It’s another pivotal tool owned by Google that can be used for keyword research. It provides you with insider insights about your website and data for up to 1000 keywords that your site is ranking for. You need not use it as a standalone keyword research tool and instead utilize it as a supplement to your primary keyword research tool. It’s great in scenarios where you want to enhance your existing content/pages to better their performance.
Common Keyword Research Mistakes To Avoid At All Cost
Alongside following the best keyword research practices, you also need to keep in mind certain common mistakes that people generally make. Comprehending them will help you avoid them and will give you maximum ROI on your keyword research efforts.
Here are the common pitfalls that you need to avoid:
- Not considering the actual terms people are using in their searches.
- Not addressing the user’s search intent.
- Just using high-volume keywords.
- Not considering competitor keywords.
- Not including long-tail keywords in your content strategy.
- Not avoiding keyword cannibalization.
- Neglecting important seed keywords.
- Overlooking search trends for keywords.
- Choosing keywords with almost zero traffic
Final Thoughts
Quoting keywords as the building blocks of a successful SEO campaign won’t be wrong at all. Keyword research gives you relevant insights and information about your industry and the competitors you will be competing with. Moreover, it allows you to better comprehend online user’s search behavior based on which you can serve them content that better fulfills their intent. If undertaken in a well-planned manner, this instrumental step becomes a stepping stone in uplifting your website’s organic traffic and rankings. So, never consider this tedious-looking process as an unnecessary one.
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