What is the keyword?
In terms of Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, keywords are particular words or phrases that people use to search contents on the internet. If you are looking for second-hand cars, then obviously you’d search for ‘second-hand cars’ online; these three words are the keywords, and the search results are going to pull up all the results related to these three words.
Keywords are important when it comes to your own website content. Any search queries that we put in the search bar, brings up a list of result. But this list is not just a random list of websites or blogs. These lists are ranked from most to least relevant, which is why you need to use proper keywords in your blog/website content to keep it relevant so that your website can rank higher in the SERP. A higher rank in a search engine result page means you will get more traffic, which means you’ll get more exposer and business.
What does keyword research mean?
Keyword research is a very common practice for SEO professionals. It is used to find alternative search terms that people use every day to look for specific and similar subjects. While researching for keywords, you need to find that one niche keyword that describes your product or your service, and then you need to expand on it. The point of it is to find and generate keywords and terms that are extremely relevant, but not-so-obvious to the niche keyword. Once you have a list of such keywords, you can use them in your content to make sure that your website/blog ranks higher in the SERP. In order to achieve a higher rank in search engines, you need to search for related keywords that have a high number of searches, but low competition. These are the keywords that bring more traffic to your website. However, it does not mean that you can just stuff your content with keywords and make is super relevant to make it rank higher. It is a black hat SEO technique that should be avoided.
How to do keyword research?
So, how do you research keywords? How do you use this very basic and simple technique to increase the traffic on your websites? It is very easy; all you need to do is to follow some simple steps.
1: Brainstorming keyword Topics
This step is pretty simple. All you need to do is brainstorm ideas about the kind of keywords which are relevant to your subject. These keywords need to be related to the kind of service you would be providing and the content your audience is looking for. You can follow some simple strategies to precisely choose various keywords
- Thinks of subjects that are related to your content. This can be a broad range of subjects, as you may provide content about lots of different things. Even if you are focusing on one topic, such as ‘used cars’, it still is a broad topic that covers various other subtopics. So it all begins from finding that one or two core subject which is most relevant to your website content.
- Now that you have your main broad subject, you need to think of all the subtopics in that range. You have to go deeper into these categories that you determine for your business and think up keywords that match with the theme of your core topics. For example, if the term ‘used cars’ is your core topic, then terms such as ‘used fiat cars’ or used Maruti cars’ are your sub-topics within this range.
- Now you need to prioritize what products and services you want to focus on to finish the list of core keywords. For example, if you specialize in selling used vintage cars, then you may want to prioritize ‘used vintage cars’ as one of the keywords on your list.
2: Deciding Your Goal
While doing keyword research, you will come across hundreds of search terms that are related to your service. But just because they are related does not mean they are useful. You need to decide what exactly is the goal that you are trying to achieve by doing this keyword research and then decide accordingly what keywords you should use and which you should ignore. By doing this, you would actually have a focus and your keyword research would be fruitful rather than a confused and hectic mess.
3: Categorizing Your Priority Keywords
Once you have sorted out the keywords YOU need from the hundreds and thousands of keywords you’ll find, you need to start categorizing them. Sort them out in different categories based on brands, sub-brands etc. This will give you a more structured way of dealing with the list of keywords. Sometimes the keyword list can contain only 20-30 keywords, while sometimes they may include hundreds. In such case,s it is important to categorize those numerous keywords into sub categories.
4: Deciding Landing Pages For The Keywords
Now that you have a sorted out list of keywords, it is time to actually apply them on your website. While doing this, you’ll find that one or two keywords are only applicable to specific pages. These specific pages are called landing pages for those specific keywords. By applying proper keywords on the pages they are relevant to, you can achieve high ranking.
5: Keep Refining Your List of Keywords Regularly.
It is important for you to keep on updating and refining your lists of keywords by using PPC and Google analytics data. By doing so you’ll be keeping your website relevant and traffic will always be up for your website.
What is the importance of keyword research?
So, after learning briefly about keywords, and how to do keywords research, you might ask, what is the importance of it all? Why do you need keyword research? Is there a point to it? There is only one answer to these questions; and that is, yes, keyword research is extremely important and you need it in order to beat your competitions in the online battle of getting more traffic.
The most important reason why you should do an extensive keyword research for your web content is because it makes the contents more relatable. More relatable content means better ranking and better ranking means more traffic.
It helps you to keep yourself up to date with your audience. Their use of language and how they search for topics online tells a lot about their needs, their age range and their locality. By using these data, you can improve your business and modify your services to best fit your audience’s needs. This would make your business more popular and people will keep coming back to your website for more.
Proper keyword research for your website means you have a chance to battle the competitors online who are vying for the highest rank of the SERP. There are hundreds of different website with similar services who are fighting the online SEO battle everyday to better their ranks. A proper keyword research and its implementation means that not only you’ll be a stronger fighter, but it also means that you’ll rank better than all your opponents, which is basically the main aim of SEO.
Free Keyword Research Tool
#1. Google Adwords Keyword Planner (Free)
#2. KW Finder (Daily 2 Free Search)
#3. Google Trends (Free)
#4. Google Suggest (Free)
#5. Keywordtool.io
#6. Semrush (14 Days Free Trial)
#7. Ahrefs
#8. Wordstream
#9 Ubersuggest
#10 Keyword Everywhere (Chrome and Mozilla Extension)