Keyword research is the first and most imperative step of online marketing campaign. The main reason why this is at the core of every online marketing strategy is to get an insight of what your audience is searching and eventually rank for those keywords. I guess there’s no better way of optimizing your website rather than knowing the keywords to target. It can get very difficult for you to know the words to target. In this brief, we are likely to handle all the basics of keyword research.
How to research keywords for your SEO strategy
At this point in time, we are going to launch a step by step guide on how to research keywords for your SEO strategy.
What do you know about your business?
This is the first step that you should take in this regard. You should start by making a list of important keywords based on the knowledge you already have about your business. To do this, start by thinking about the topics that you want to rank in terms of generic buckets. In this case, ensure you come up with 5-10 buckets you think are important to your business. The above will help you to come with some specific keywords to target.
Fill those topic buckets with keywords
The first step was to find some topic buckets and now the second step is to identify some keywords that you think fall in those categories. They should be the keyword phrases that you want to rank in the Search engine result pages. The reality of the matter is that your target audience is specifically searching for these specific terms and hence you should make it easy for them to get what they need in your content.
Take for example that your audience is out there looking for the best humidifier. Some of the keywords that I think they maybe searching for are:
- How to tell if a humidifier is original
- What to consider when looking for the best humidifiers
- Top best humidifiers in the market today and many more.
With the above example, we don’t mean that you are supposed to get the final butch of the phrases to target. We just want to make it easy for you to come up with a brain bump of the phrases that you think your target audience is searching for in your niche.
Look for related search terms
The first two steps were just systematic but I have to admit that this step is the most creative of all. This is where you have to involve your creativity to come up with the real target keywords. However, today some people can go to Google and look for the words that open up after you key in a part of your keyword. You don’t have to pick the keywords as they are, you just have to get some ideas from here and continue.
In each Bucket, search for a mix of head terms and long tail keywords
Head terms are keywords that are shorter and generic. In most of the cases, head terms are three words or less. On the other hand, long tail keywords are longer keywords that may contain three or more words. What am trying to mean is that it is very imperative to make sure that you are mixing the two along the way. A good example of head term is ‘’best humidifiers’’. On the other hand, a good example of long tail keywords is ‘’how to look for the best humidifiers in the market’’.
Spy on your competitors
One way of making sure you succeed in this case is to see how your competitors are ranking for these keywords. Though, just because you noticed your competitor doing something it doesn’t mean you have to do the same. What am trying to mean in this regard is that just because a keyword is important to your competitor doesn’t mean it’s equally important to you. You just have to spy on them closely and see those keywords that they are ranking on quite well and eventually focus on those type of keywords.
Am trying to say that if your competitor is ranking quite well for a keyword that is in your list, it makes a lot of sense if you focused more on those specific keywords along the way.
Cut down your keyword list
Its quite obvious that by now you have a very long list of keywords. However, working with all this keywords means nothing good for your business. What this means is that you should narrow your choices. In this regard, you can use Google AdWords keyword planner to cut down the list. The good thing is that there’s a tool known as Keyword Planner that gets search volumes and traffic estimates of each keyword.
You can use this tool to flag out some of the keywords in your list that have so little search volumes. Some of these keywords might not help you maintain a healthy mix. However, before you delete any keyword, you need to first of all check for the keyword search history. There are some of the instances that some keywords have a good trend at certain points in time.
I bet with all the knowledge shared above, you have already come up with a list of keywords that you can focus on along the way. The ones you have now will help you scale your business and eventually give you exactly what you want for your online marketing.
Finally, keyword research is not a do and forget affair. You have to update and re-evaluate your keywords once or even twice a month. There are some businesses that like to do it more often. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that anyway.
I bet with time you will get some more authority in the SERPs which will give you a clean room to add more keywords to your list. You have to work hard to maintain the current presence and eventually grow in new areas.