How to do keyword research
In this post we’re going to talk about several keyword research strategies you can use.
Start by understanding the core keyword
The core or the seed keyword is the set of keywords you want to base your site around. This is ideally the keyword you want to rank for. So setting this up is the first order of business.
If you want to sell or buy something you want to provide people this info
Use Google trends to understand declining or rising interest in the keywords you wish to target.
Seed keywords should give a high ctr, low competition and good search volumes as well.
Get queries from Google search suggestions
The search suggestions from Google auto suggest are a treasure trove of useful data you can use.
The autocomplete engine can give you lots of ideas around something you want to start with. Just type the starting keyword and await a big list of suggestions to use.
The related search section is another way to search for keywords. It appears at the bottom.
Use answerthepublic
I have written about Answerthepublic here before and mentioned it several times. It is one of the coolest tools for keyword research. It presents data in an easy to understand visual format that’s simple to decipher. More and more queries are becoming long tail with the use of phone search. There’s context added to search queries and search engines are becomingly increasingly sophisticated to understand and solve these queries. These return relevant results in return.
Once you get hold of the most popular questions around the main keywords, its easy to create content around these questions. Get first page rankings too. Use amazing tools to do this. Answerthe public answers the need of the hour by helping you prepare for this.
Find out these questions and create content around these.
Get hold of what the competition does
Competitors are good for you to understand and get hold of potential high traffic terms.
It’s a pretty simple ask. Run competitor site by Ahrefs to get a list of backlinks they have and also keywords the site ranks for. These are direct competitors and knowing their keywords is only going to be helpful.
Do a competitor analysis with SEMrush or with tools like Ahrefs. The keyword gap tool is yet another one you can use to understand all keywords competitors rank for.
You can also use the organic research tool on SEMrush to get a list of keywords they rank for, their search volumes and serps ranking.
Use local search keywords
A lot of the keywords searched today have local intent. People tend to search for businesses online to do business with them.
Search for local keywords by running these queries on Google.
- keyword plus location
There are a number of options available. Use kwfinder by mangools or search by domain name too.
Get hold of keyword difficulty
Another most important thing to note for is the keyword difficulty. This keyword score gives you an idea regarding how easy or tough it is to rank for a particular keyword. Easily rank for keywords on engines with low difficulty scores.
If you want to rank for a certain term it may not be possible to reach the first page if you don’t have the required number of great links and also good content around the said topic.
If you want to target easier more long tail keywords you can rank with great content and fewer backlinks. That
S the magic of long tails.
Mangools gives you an idea of the keyword difficulty around a certain keyword.
Use Keyword Filters
You also need to set up filters on keywords to get a list of words that fit all requirements.
- These filters let you search for questions
- You can also search keywords by specifying word count. Add the word count you want to be included for the keywords or specify a particular range.
- Volume denotes how many people are searching for the said keyword in a month. You can set the range you want to search.
- Keyword difficulty gives a score regarding how easy or tough it is to rank for a keyword. Scored between 0 to 100. The more the kd score the more difficult is ranking.
- The cpc determines what advertisers are ready to pay for the keyword.
- The density shows how many competitors are bidding for the said keyword with higher density implying more competitors. Between0 and 1.
- The filter shows featured snippets, local packs and reviews for a particular keyword.
You can also sort through the keyword list in the keyword groups section. There are two keyword groups, as shown in the screenshot: By number and By volume. Click on the sub-group topic to explore keywords in that particular sub-group.
Use seo extensions
SEO extensions can come in handy when it comes to researching new keywords. If you have a toolbar installed you can get insights on the go on search volumes, long tail keywords and keyword difficulty scores. It’s easy to begin and end your keyword research journey right at the moment.
Install the extension to get link analysis done. Do keyword research as well.
Use wikipedia
Wikipedia can help you discover relevant keywords.
There are a table of content and sections that can help you structure and organize articles according to whatpeople are searching.
Reddit has multiple sub groups and niche specific areas that can offer up insights and details into what people are looking for. There’s so much info available around Reddit. You also get a number of keywords around what people tend to look for.
People can upvote and comment on them as well. Create articles and gain a similar level of traction.
13. Browse Niche Forums and Facebook Groups
There are also niche forums for you where you can do plenty of keyword research. These are dedicated communities around things you want more info on.
You can discover forums on any niche with a few keywords.
Go to forums and get a list of topics that people are discussing on. The posts should generate maximum possible engagement around keywords. Do research with Facebook groups as well.
Go to these groups and find out content that get highest levels of engagement.
Analyze Most-shared Content
You can also look at content that gets most shared. If people are sharing content they are finding it to be useful. That’s a key checkmark you too can use to determine what should and shouldn’t work for you. Create content around these topics and think of planning and writing out content in much a similar way.
To do this you can use Buzzsumo.
See which content is shared most, analyze the said content. Get a list of links and other details.
Use your analytics
When looking for keywords what better avenue to hunt new keywords than your own site?
With analytics you get a deeper look at keywords and articles that bringing the greatest number of people to you. Go to acquisitions followed by organic keywords to see which keywords are getting you traffic.
You may want to write more content around already successful posts.
17. Use Google Search Console
The search console is another tool to understand keywords on your site. With the search console you get the whole list of keywords that bring you traffic.
Go to dashboard and then go to performance to get a list of all keywords that appear on Google. You get ctr and position of these keywords to determine which ones to pay more attention to.
LSI keywords
Gone are the days when you can repeat a keyword numerous times in the article for the sake of optimization. Now Google considers it spam. Besides using the primary keyword in the title, introduction, subheadings, and the body, you must use synonyms and LSI keywords in the content.