When making queries on search engine platforms, people use specific words (or phrases). These words (or phrases) are keywords — and keyword research involves analyzing and identifying these words and phrases.
Keyword research helps businesses optimize their content, get a good grasp of their prospect’s intent, and boost their web search visibility.
This guide reveals the importance of keyword research, and how to perform robust keyword research for your business.
Here are some benefits of keyword research.
Keyword research helps you figure out the words (or phrases) people use when making search queries. If you incorporate these words (or phrases) into your web content, you will increase your chances of showing up on search engine result pages (SERPs).
Having a good grasp of the keywords that align with your business will help you attract high-quality traffic to your business. This will help you record a high conversion rate when running your campaigns.
Keyword research helps in developing a robust content creation strategy. By identifying keywords that are relevant to your business, it becomes easy to create quality content around these keywords. And this content will most likely resonate with your target audience.
Keyword research helps you know what your competitors are doing. It helps you identify any gaps or opportunities within your competitor’s marketing strategy. All of these help in differentiating your brand, improving your ranking, and attracting more targeted traffic.
Keyword research is a vital piece for businesses that run pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. With keyword research, you can identify keywords with low competition, and high search volume. All these help in the optimization of the ad campaigns of businesses. It also boosts the chances of a business to attract quality traffic.
Keyword research helps you understand market trends, customer interests, and customer behavior. By having a good grasp of the search patterns and language of your audience, you can easily tailor your product development, content creation, and marketing strategies to align with your customer’s needs.
Here are easy ways of defining keyword intent.
To unveil user needs, you need to understand the desires, motivations, and objectives of the people who are making search queries on search engines. A good grasp of the user intent will help you create valuable content that aligns with what your target audience is looking for.
The process involves a thorough analysis of user behavior, performing robust market research, and taking a close look at customer feedback. This way, you will get a good grasp of the pain points and needs of your target audience.
Ultimately, unveiling user needs helps in the creation of content that generates better results and satisfaction for the customers.
Technological advancement and changes in customer behavior have led to the evolution of keyword research. Nowadays, keyword research consists of voice search optimization, semantic search, and natural language processing. All these help in the development and delivery of content that are relevant to the target audience.
The future of keyword research boils down to a thorough understanding of user behavior, and offering personalized experience to the users.
Here are the types of keywords.
These are generic (or brief) keywords. They’re typically made of one or two words. Common examples are “digital marketing” or “shoes.” These keywords are highly competitive and they generate high search volume. On the flip side, they are less specific and do not generate targeted traffic.
Long-tail keywords are typically made of three or more words. Common examples are “online marketing strategies for business owners” or “red athletic shoes for men.” They typically generate low search volume. However, traffic generated by these keywords is high quality, and easily converted into loyal customers.
LSI keywords are phrases or terms that are linked to a specific keyword or topic. They help search engines figure out the relevance and context of the content. For instance, if the primary keyword is “SEO”, the LSI keyword could be “search engine optimization,” “backlink building,” or “keyword research.”
To get the most out of your content strategy, you will need a healthy mix of long-tail, short-tail, and LSI keywords.
Here are strategies to help you conduct robust keyword research.
You need to figure out what your objectives, desired results, and target audience are. All these help in tailoring a keyword research process that fits your brand.
Come up with a list of keywords that are similar to your industry, brand, or products. To come up with a good list, you should consider using tools like the PPCexpo Keyword Planner.
Perform some analysis of your competitor’s target keywords. The analysis will help you identify any gaps, or opportunities within your competitor’s keyword strategy. You can start the analysis by using tools like the PPCexpo Keyword Planner.
Focusing on long-tail keywords will help you deal with less competition. You can find long-tail keywords using tools like the PPCexpo Keyword Planner.
Take a close look at keyword metrics like competition level, keyword difficulty, or search volume. These metrics help you know the right keywords to target.
What’s the intent behind the queries prospects are making on search engines? You should also try using transactional, navigational, or informational intent keywords. Furthermore, you need to create content that aligns with your customer intent.
Look out for topics (or keywords) your competitors are ranking high for. Try filling any content gaps you’re having. This will, in turn, boost your search engine visibility.
Keep monitoring your keyword performance and make the necessary adjustments (if there are any). Keep a close eye on your organic traffic, ranking, and conversion. Refine your keyword strategy until you start generating your desired result.
Conducting keyword research involves using tools like the PPCexpo Keyword Planner. Let’s say you want to sell weight loss medicine online, the first step is to come up with a primary keyword like “weight loss medicine.” After searching for the keyword, you get a result similar to the one below.
Other insights that can be discovered with the tool are:
The tool helps you search for keywords that are similar to your business. By merely inputting the guess keyword, you will get a list of keywords that are similar to your business.
Let’s say you’re looking for keywords with a search volume between 1300-27,000, there’s a filter option available in the tool to help you do that. With the filter feature, you can easily focus on keywords with high search volume and high intent.
Bids show you how much you will pay when someone clicks on ads that feature your preferred keywords. From the list of keywords, you can generate keywords with low CPC that are right for your business.
There’s an option of using great visuals (or charts) to represent your keyword data. Let’s say you want to represent your keyword data using the scatter plot, all you need to do is navigate to the “Chart” menu and click on “Scatter Plot.”
After clicking on the scatter plot, a screen similar to the one below will be displayed for you.
To check the global search volume of your keyword, select the “All” option.
The globe icon will be displayed on your screen. You will also get a table with the global search volume as shown below.
The tool comes with the option of narrowing down your search to long-tail keywords. To do that, click on “Keyword Type,” and proceed to click on “Long-tail keywords.”
After that, you will get results similar to the one below.
After the completion of your keyword research, there’s the option of exporting your data. To do that, click on the “Export” button.
Keyword analysis helps in the identification and evaluation of relevant keywords that fit a specific industry or topic. When done right, it will help you optimize your content, boost your visibility on search engines, and attract high-quality traffic.
Keyword analysis involves evaluating and researching keywords to identify their search volume, relevance, competition, and the quality of organic traffic that will be generated for a business.
Your preferred keywords should meet these criteria:
To get the most out of your keyword strategy, you should target both short-tail and long-term keywords. A good mix of these keyword types will help you build a more robust content strategy.
Keyword research is a vital piece of a digital marketing strategy. It helps you get a good grasp of your user search behavior and optimize your web content for search engines. Aside from all these, keyword research also plays a vital role in generating high-quality traffic to your website. Other benefits of keyword research include:
When done right, keyword research will help businesses to:
However, to get the most out of your keyword research process, you will need to use tools like the PPCexpo Keyword Planner. The tool offers insight into metrics like bid values and search volume. It also has visualization tools that help in the representation of keyword data in compelling charts like scatter plots and bar charts.
Now you know what goes into keyword research analysis, what pieces will you put in place during your keyword research process?
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