How to do Keyword Research for Blog Posts?

If you’re like most marketers, you may think that refining your keyword list is a sure way of generating the most results. Well, that’s true — but expanding the keyword list is an alternative way of getting similar results. And it helps boost the impact of your content marketing strategy.

When it comes to keyword research for blog posts, you need to consider doing two things. First, identify new keyword verticals that are yet to be explored, and second, also consider reviewing your existing blog posts. These avenues provide ways of pinpointing new keyword opportunities.

Various keyword categories represent different intent and interest levels. There are search terms that are primarily used by people in the early stages of research, while other search terms are usually used by people who are close to being converted by the business. Just like other business endeavors, you need to have a robust action plan, and also come up with ways of reaching your goals.

Speaking of reaching your goals, blog posts and content marketing are reliable ways of achieving your goals. But you’ve got to start by identifying the right keywords to target. Keywords are the bedrock of content marketing. Without the right keywords, you’d be like a soldier who shoots without any aim.

To get the right keywords, you need to perform comprehensive and effective research, or your blog posts won’t stand the test of time. In this guide, you’d discover all there is to know about keyword research for blog posts.

Let’s dive right into it.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research involves finding and analyzing relevant search terms your target audience uses while making search queries on search engines. Most times, such data is used for search engine optimization (SEO), or general marketing purposes.

Keyword research typically uncovers queries that are relevant to your business. Furthermore, you get to discover the popularity of these queries and other relevant information like their difficulty.

Why is Keyword Research Important?

Keyword research helps you identify the right keywords (or search phrases) your target audience is using when making search queries on Google. This way, you get to know the right keyword to target. Insights gotten from this research will help you design a much better content and marketing strategy.

By now, you probably know that people search for solutions online by using keywords. Therefore, if you can target the right keywords, you’d pretty much position your brand in front of the right people. Better brand positioning translates to more traffic.

If you’re considering using the inbound technique and methodology, then you need to be producing content around what people want — and not what you want. In other words, you need to let your audience come to you!

Why Keyword is the Backbone of Your Website?

Keywords go beyond making you appear high on SERPs. It also helps boost the visibility and user experience of your website. Keywords play a critical role for companies that desire to rank high on search engines. Aside from keywords, you need to pay close attention to the quality of your content.

Here are factors that help show the importance of keywords.

Keywords boost rankings and visibility:

One of the benefits of keywords is that it helps boost your website visibility. Your website visibility pretty much dictates the number of people who land on your web page. And when a large number of people intentionally land on your web page, then you’re more likely to generate more sales for your product or service offering. In a nutshell, strong visibility helps in achieving your business goals.

With strong visibility, you’ll most likely draw people who will buy from your business. More sales, to a large extent, translates to more profitability. Visibility plays a major role in your website ranking. A high-ranking website will most likely be highly visible to your target audience.

But why is web visibility important? Well, very few people scroll past the first page of the search engine. Therefore, if your web page is not found on the first page, then you’re pretty much dead in the world of search results.

To become visible, you need to insert the right keywords into your content — and if properly done, you’ll most likely be found during an organic search.

Keywords help increase web traffic:

Another benefit of keywords is the increase in web traffic. High visibility and rankings almost always translate to a boost in web traffic. By now, you probably know that one of the primary purposes of increasing web ranking is to attract more traffic and convert the traffic into repeat loyal customers.

Studies have shown that the first ranking page draws about 33% of the traffic, while the rest compete with about 75% of the search traffic. If you desire to generate more traffic to your website, you need to consider applying the right keyword strategies — and that’s a sure way of driving quality traffic to your website.

Keywords Build Higher Authority and Credibility:

Search engine users tend to trust the first page of search results. And as such, web pages found on the first page of search results tend to draw the most traffic. If you want your website to be on this page, then you’ve got to focus on high-ranking keywords.

With high-ranking keywords, your web pages will be found on the first page of search results, and that will, in turn, boost your credibility and authority in the industry.

Credibility and authority translate to large traffic. And people who are drawn to your website will most likely get relevant content that will solve their needs. Authority websites are almost always credible — and they usually drive the most traffic. But to build authority and credibility, you’ve got to look out for relevant keywords and come up with great content that solves the needs of your target audience.

Keywords Offer Better User Experience:

Keywords boost the user-friendliness of your website. That will, in turn, boost the usability of your website. After putting efforts into creating premium content, and improving your website quality, you get to strengthen the reliability of your website using on-page keywords. In the long run, you’d have a robust customer experience.

Keywords are more cost-effective than paid ads:

One of the benefits of keywords is that it eliminates the need for paying for ad space. In comparison to paid ads, keywords are relatively low-cost. You just have to invest heavily in your time — the time needed to create quality content for your audience. If done the right way, your website will be ranked high on SERPs. Higher web ranking translates to more traffic — and that’s somewhat cheaper than drawing some Google Ads budget.

That’s not to say that paid traffic is bad. However, the major drawback to paid ads is that your traffic ceases when you stop paying for ads.

How Do You Find The Right Keywords for Your Blog?

By creating content around the right keywords, your website will have evergreen content that is relevant to your target audience. Aside from being relevant, the content will rank high on search engines. If you’re skeptical about the ways of identifying the right keyword for your blog, here are eight free ways to do just that.

• Conduct competitor keyword research:

One of the best ways of identifying the right keywords is by performing comprehensive research on the keywords your competitors are targeting.

• Use a broad search to get more specific keyword ideas:

Finding the right keywords is quite easy if you use free keyword research tools to identify broad topics. After that, you’ve got to identify specific keywords and ideas using tools that help you pinpoint related keywords.

• Use Google keyword planner for your keyword research:

From the list of keywords generated, take a closer look to identify those you can turn into a compelling blog post. For instance, the keyword automated direct mail can be used to create a how-to guide on automated direct mailing techniques.

Marketing automation workflow can be a great keyword for creating a guide on how your audience can use your SaaS product to automate the various processes of their business. If you opt for the Google keyword planner, you need to keep in mind that the product is designed to perform Google Ads keyword research and not organic keyword research. For emphasis, the competition values for the keyword planner are not for organic listings but for Google Ads.

• Start with an idea, then find keywords to target:

Using free keyword research tools to identify keyword ideas is fine. But if you already have a blog post idea, then you can start with it and proceed to target the right keywords. And if you’re not sure of any keyword for your blog post idea, then you’ve got to opt for any free tools.

• Uncover the questions people are asking:

Google is a great tool for finding the right information. But there’s no guarantee that people will get the right answers when they make search queries. Most times, when people can’t find the right answers to their specific questions, then they opt for online communities. Online communities are where they ask relevant questions and get answers from their peers across the globe.

If you can identify the questions people are asking in these communities, then you can go on to generate keyword and blog ideas from them. After that, you get to come up with secondary keyword ideas, and other ways to expand the content and make it more digestible to the audience.

• Find trending topics using Google trends:

One of the best ways to select a keyword is by understanding the potential longevity of the target keyword. And you can do that by using the Google Trends feature. Google Trends shows you if the usage of your target keyword is static, increasing, decreasing, or high/low depending on the time of the year.

There is an option of refining your search — and that will help you uncover the usage of the keyword during a specific time of the year, the geographical region, or the categories the keywords fall into.

• Uncover Keywords You’re Already Ranking For:

There are times when your content will rank for keywords that are not on your radar. Other times, it will rank for keywords that are not relevant to your content. In such cases, use Google Search Console to come up with new keyword ideas.

To identify keywords you’re already ranking for, navigate to the Performance tab of your Google Search Console and take a close look at the list of keywords. Aside from the list of keywords, you get to identify their search volume also.

• Use Site Search Data to Discover What People Are Looking For:

If your website is built with a search feature, you can use it to discover things people are looking for on your site. To do that, you’ve got to leverage Google Analytics data. There are cases where you’ll discover topics you haven’t covered, but people are searching for them.

With Google Analytics, you get to have a list of all keywords people are searching for, including the ones that have been used in your website’s search box. Take a close look at the list, and highlight the ones that have not been thoroughly covered on your website. Create compelling content that covers such keywords and offers meaningful answers to the questions your target audience is asking.

Tool To Find Low-Hanging Fruit Keywords?

Keyword research is one of the most crucial steps that go into creating great content. However, finding the right keyword research tool seems to be an issue — and those already in the market tend to come with limited utility and results.

Whether you’re looking for organic or paid traffic, you’ve got to pay attention to keyword research — and that’s where the PPCexpo Keyword Planner free tool comes in.

The PPCexpo Keyword Planner is a good alternative to Google’s keyword planner as it provides lots of relevant keyword results in addition to other insights like estimated CPC and search volume.

Let’s say you manage an online retail business, and you want to do some keyword research for a women’s clothes blog post. All you’ve got to do is brainstorm to figure out your root keyword before beginning your keyword research process.

When it comes to the keyword research process, here are some features you’d get from the PPCexpo Keyword Planner.

• Estimated Search Volume:

The search volume is the number (or volume) of searches for a keyword within a timeframe. But why is the search volume important? Because it’s one of the ways traffic or new visitors are drawn to your website. The tools help in identifying the estimated search volume.

• High Bid and Low Bid:

Determining how much you’ll be charged every time someone clicks on your target keyword is arguably one of the most important things to pay attention to. If an ad that features your target keyword is clicked, how much will you be charged?

You should aim for the keyword(s) with low CPC. This way, you get to choose the right set of keywords without spending much when they’re clicked on by your potential customers.

• Filters:

Filters help you narrow down your keyword research to the exact keywords you desire. You can begin by searching for keywords that begin or end with specific phrases or words. Keywords that do not align with the phrases or words you’re looking for should be removed from your radar. And you can do that by using the filter feature in the PPCexpo Keyword Planner.

• Keyword Visualization:

The PPCexpo Keyword Planner comes with a visualization feature that helps you showcase your keywords using compelling visuals. To see the keyword visuals, you’ve got to click on the chart icon and choose your preferred visuals. The visuals are how the keyword data will be displayed for you to see. For instance, if you want to represent the keyword data using a Bar chart, you’ve got to choose the Bar chart option.  You can also go to visualize the data as Scatter Plot.

• Global Search:

Global search volume shows the common data across all locations in the globe. If you’re targeting global keywords, then the global search volume is the right fit for you. To get the global search volume using the PPCexpo Keyword planner, you’ve got to navigate to the location setting and choose the “All” icon. After that, the global keyword data will be showcased for you.

• Long tail keywords:

Long tail keywords are usually longer than regular keywords. They are more specific. When it comes to the volume of traffic they generate, long-tail keywords generate less traffic. But the traffic has a higher conversion value since they are more specific.

As a marketer, it’s much easier to rank for long tail keywords since few people compete for these kinds of keywords. The more specific (and longer) your search term is, the easier it is to rank for such a search term. And since the internet is an unending platform, you can pretty much find people who are making queries for long-tail keywords.

To generate massive traffic, you need to consider focusing on a group of long-tail keywords. Another advantage of using long-tail keywords is that the people who are actively searching for these keywords are more likely to buy from your product or service offering.

With the PPCexpo Keyword Planner tool, there are multiple ways of looking for keywords — you could search for long-tail keywords or short-tail keywords. By merely navigating to the keyword tab, you get to choose the keyword type you desire and generate the result.

Export:

After completing the keyword research, there is an option of downloading the list and using it for the creation of more useful blog posts. To do that, you’ve got to click on the Export button and get your keyword data.

FAQs:

How many keywords should I use in a blog post?

As a general rule of thumb, you have to focus on one or two long-tail keywords in a blog post. It’s okay to use over one keyword in a blog post, but you’ve got to narrow your focus in such a way you spend more time optimizing one or two keywords.

Is low competition good for keywords?

Low-competition keywords tend to rank high without much effort. With low-competition keywords, there is little to no need for building multiple links or having the rating of a high-authority website. You can easily rank high for these keywords and drive quality organic traffic to your website.

How much does keyword research cost?

The figures are not set in stone, and it’s largely dependent on the tools you’re using. If you opt for the PPCexpo keyword research tool, you get the option of using the free tool. But to get the most out of the tool, you need to upgrade to the paid version.

How long does it take to do keyword research?

There is no fixed time. It all depends on how fast you are and the kind of tool you’re using. Comprehensive keyword research could take between two to ten days depending on the person doing the research.

Wrap Up:

Your website is the backbone of your online presence. However, to maintain an evergreen presence, you need to be up-to-date when it comes to your keyword research and creating relevant content around the keywords.

To remain relevant in your industry, you need to perform good keyword research regularly — and you can start by using tools like PPCexpo keyword research tool.

The PPCexpo keyword research tool helps you identify keywords that are relevant to your industry. This way, you get to create relevant content around those keywords and also rank high on search engines.

The tool has a free and paid version. The free version is open to everyone. But if you want to get the most out of it, you’ve got to opt for the paid version.

Now you know all there is to know about keyword research for blog posts, how would you revamp your website to rank for the right keywords?