Keyword research is one of the main parts of the discipline of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) .
While doing keyword research and optimization, you should pay attention to the words you are targeting.
Otherwise, you can waste your time with irrelevant keywords or a keyword that doesn’t have much search volume.
Therefore, if you do not conduct the right keyword research for your product descriptions and content, people cannot find you easily.
Because your page will not appear when users search for a specific keyword.
Unfortunately, this will negatively impact your potential traffic.
What is a Keyword?
Keywords are words or phrases that users search for in search engine results.
Focusing on word groups is more helpful for keyword research.
In other words, you should aim for long-tail keywords instead of short-tail keywords.
Unlike short-tail keywords, which are broader in scope, long-tail keywords generally have three to five words.
Since long-tail keywords are more specific than short-tail keywords, these keywords will be less competitive.
For example, if you are looking for a phone, you do not search for a phone in the search engine. Below, you can see a couple of phrase examples.
- Samsung Phone Case Prices
- Smartphone Suggestions for Students
- Which iPhone Model Is Best for Marketers?
Searches in the form become a more user-oriented keyword study.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is about finding the words you want to appear in search engine results by understanding and analyzing how customers and users are searching.
The Importance of Keyword Research
Thanks to keyword research, we understand what users are looking for, analyze the content listed in the queries, and develop the necessary strategies.
To summarize, you should avoid creating content on topics that people aren’t interested in.
Many websites make this mistake, and it’s probably the biggest reason why more than 70% of pages don’t get traffic.
Keyword research helps you answer the following questions:
- What is the difficulty of the keyword?
- How much traffic can the keyword bring?
- How should the content be written for the keyword?
- What is the probability that those who search for the keyword will become customers?
Answering these questions will help you create your strategies wisely.
How to Choose a Keyword for a Website?
1. Review Pages on Your Website
Before doing any keyword research, you need to look at all the pages on your website.
You should place relevant keywords on most of the critical pages on the site.
Next, you must pay attention to where you should add keywords on each page.
Most websites have a similar structure.
For example:
- Home page,
- Product/Service or Blog,
- About us,
- Contact page, etc.
If you have a large site, consider creating a spreadsheet listing all the different pages so you can keep track of what you’re developing.
If you have a blog on your website, you should optimize old posts for keywords instead of writing blog posts first.
You can use keyword research tools to get ideas about keywords.
2. Brainstorm Keywords
Brainstorming is a fundamental part of the keyword research process.
Generated keywords define your field and help you identify your competitors.
You can also search for basic keywords on keyword tools to come up with thousands of different keyword ideas.
If you already have a product or business that you want to promote online, keywords are easy to come up with.
Think about what people type into Google to find what you have to offer.
For example, if you sell accessories like cameras and lenses, essential keywords might be:
- Camera
- Camera lens
- Camera film
- Camera case
If you’re having trouble finding keywords, you can check the Search Results report in Google Search Console.
This gives you insights into the 1,000 keywords you’ve already ranked.
3. Choose Your Keywords
Now that you see the metrics, you can get an idea of whether a keyword is good to use.
Ideally, you should go for keywords that have a combination of:
- High search volume
- Low SEO difficulty or paid difficulty
- Low competition (your competitor has few backlinks and a low domain score)
However, when searching for keywords, consider your target audience.
If a particular keyword is irrelevant, you may not want to use it, even if the metrics look good.
Because the keyword you are targeting must be related to your content.
In other words, you don’t want to hook people to your site if they are not interested in your product or service.
This can result in a higher bounce rate, meaning people click and leave immediately.
A high bounce rate is bad for business and can have bad consequences for SEO as well.
4. See What Keywords Your Competitors Rank For
The best way to start keyword research is to look at which keywords are performing well for your competitors.
But first, you have to identify these competitors. This is where your brainstormed keyword list comes in handy.
Search one of the focus keywords relevant to your industry and see who ranks high.
Visit and analyze the sites on the top pages. (You should analyze underdog pages as well.)
Analyze what words they used in the content, how they prepared the clickable title structures, which problems of the users were mentioned, and which problems they did not provide a solution for, and conduct your work in this direction.
5. Use Keyword Research Tools
Competitors can be a great source for keyword ideas.
However, there are tons of keywords that your competitors are not targeting, and here’s the good part; You can find untargeted words using keyword research tools.
Keyword research tools all work on the same principle.
You add the keyword you want to analyze, and these tools generate multiple keywords.
You can do a free search using the Google Keyword Planner tool .
It’s free to use, and although it’s mainly for advertisers, you can also use it to find keywords for SEO.
These are known as phrase-match keywords. (We use these keywords to match the terms people are searching for. Such as “red shoes” or “history books.”
However, not all of them fit this model because Google is smart enough to understand which words and phrases are related and which ones are not.
Beyond Keyword Planner, there are tons of free third-party tools.
However, these tools tend to get most of their keyword ideas from Google’s to autocomplete results, the search suggestions that appear as you type your query.
While these tools are useful for exploring ideas, they rarely show more than a few hundred suggestions.
They also tend to show unreliable estimates or none at all.
Under these circumstances, it is difficult to assess the relative popularity of keywords.
6. Examine Your Business Space
You can plan a good keyword research process at this point.
However, because it would be limited, you would almost certainly miss out on some ideas.
You can solve this problem by examining your niche in more detail.
That way, it will be easier for you to find more things your potential customers are struggling with that don’t appear in keyword tools.
Here are a few different ways to get customer ideas:
- Chat with them face-to-face.
- Check previous emails.
- Customer support requests.
- Try to remember common questions that have arisen in past conversations.
Be sure to pay attention to the language they use when doing this.
Usually, it will be different from the language you can use.
For example, if you sell phones online, your customers may be looking for specific phone-related issues.
In a nutshell, we tried to enlighten you about why and how you should do keyword planning.
Do you want to continue this whole process and more with a team whose core values are commitment, compatibility, passion, and quality? Then you can contact us now.
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