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It’s no doubt that keyword research is our ears on the ground.
Yes, you can call it digging up for the voice of customer (VOC) data.
Keywords are the search terms people input in search engines of companies, such as Google, to find answers to their queries.
The intent of the answer is judged as either informational or commercial. So when you’re conducting keyword research, you’re probing what customers are looking for in your industry. Or the words they use to describe products and services in your niche.
And this is why keyword research is incredibly important for SEO.
So aligning your marketing messages with the words your potential customers are using not only increases precision in targeting but also resonates with them.
Resonating with your target customers establishes an emotional connection, which may result in conversion and loyalty. Essentially, if you play the tune your customers like to hear with the words they love, you’ve hit the SPOT. Yes, you read that right.
Keywords are always at the center of any converting sales message.
If you get your keyword research game right, money will literally pour into your business. Yes, we didn’t stutter. Good fortunes come to people who always have ears at the right place at the right time. Why?
Tastes and preferences do change. And this means the keywords should be optimized constantly in tandem with your niche market’s sentiments.
This blog will walk you through keyword research tool PPCexpo Keyword Planner and few instructions and strategies to help you take your keyword research to the next level. We have tons of blog posts and PPC ads ranking #1 spots in Google. So our tips are tested and proven.
We’re very confident the tips and strategies we’ve rounded up for you are worth your time. Keep reading and enjoy.
Picture this. Thomas is looking for a particular spare part. Let’s say, air conditioning spare part for Chevy Camaro. So he types ‘where to buy air conditioning spare part for Chevy Camaro.’
This is the itch Thomas wants to solve.
Google will serve Thomas with ads and search engine results that are relevant to his query keyword as part of its user experience policy. So the pages and ads bearing the keywords Thomas used will be given priority over others.
Thomas will most likely click the first two results. If he doesn’t find what he’s looking for, he’ll bounce onto the next one. This act of bouncing is a signal to Google that the landing pages and ads are misaligned with the user’s needs with regard to relevancy.
So they will be down-ranked in favor of the more relevant ones.
Another critical component regarding the search terms is: Thomas has a clear intent: buying. You can also call it commercial intent, which is what online businesses monitor closely.
The ads or SEO pages aligned with Thomas’ keywords and solve his pain (air conditioning spare part for Chevy Camaro) are rewarded with sales (conversion). And probably, loyalty if retention is part of the marketing strategy.
Do you see why keyword research is necessary?
Before we jump to the benefits of keyword research, let’s refresh our minds a little bit by defining it.
Keywords are the queries used by internet users to find what they are looking for. In other words, they’re phrases that help search engines identify the topics that your content covers.
Search engines, such as Google, have sophisticated systems for analyzing the keywords people use in their queries and the terms used in content created by publishers. This helps them match the user with the content that will best answer their needs.
For instance, if you’re looking for a new pair of trainers, you might search for ‘white trainers for women’ or ‘Nike white trainers for women’.
These are keywords.
Some keywords are long, and others are short. If keywords are what users are putting into their devices, then keyword research is what you need to do.
If you don’t know what people are searching for, how will they find you (or your business)?
But, it’s not only users who are searching for keywords. Remember, Google and other search engines will be reading the content on your website to find keywords to rank your content.
This is where both PPC and SEO start.
The power of keyword research lies in better understanding your target market and how they are searching for your content, services, or products.
Keyword research provides you with specific search data that can help you answer questions, such as:
In this section, you’ll learn tactics to use to avoid keyword research foibles and build SEO-optimized content.
Remember, once you uncover how your target audience is searching for your content, you begin to uncover a whole new world of profit-driven SEO!
Let’s dive into 4 Profit-driven SEO tips to help you improve your search engine ranking
Before you begin your growth journey via SEO, you first have to understand your target customers and their goals.
This is where corners are often cut.
Too many people bypass this crucial planning step because keyword research is really time-consuming, without a doubt. Besides, why spend the time when you already know what you want to rank for?
The answer is: what you want to rank for and what your audience actually wants are often two wildly different things. Focus on your audience and then use the keyword data to hone the insights to increase the chances of scoring success.
Jane is a bicycle dealer based in Dallas, Texas. Her brick-and-mortar sales have declined primarily due to the Coronavirus pandemic. So she intends to drive sales using her blogs.
She has heard about SEO and wants help to rank her website and blogs on the first page of the organic search results. To help Jane, you need to first understand a little more about her niche.
To do so, you might ask questions such as:
Here’s the kicker, if you ask these questions, you’ll be able to gain in-depth insights into the people you’re targeting, their pain points, words they use to query, etc.
Besides, you’ll be in a strategic position to create content that engages target audiences, drives sales, and inspire loyalty.
Savvy digital marketers will tell you the best way to start keyword research is to start with the ideas you already have in mind.
These will be things like your products, services, or other topics your website addresses. Why? They’re great seed keywords for your research.
So start there!
Then, enter those keywords into a keyword research tool to discover:
Keep reading. We’ll get into search volume in greater depth in the next section.
During the discovery phase, volume can help you determine variations of the most popular keywords amongst the target users.
Once you enter your seed keywords into a keyword research tool, you’ll begin to discover other keywords, common queries, and topics for your SEO content that you might have otherwise missed.
Let’s use the example of a wedding officiate.
If you type “wedding” and “wedding officiate” into a keyword research tool, you’ll discover highly relevant, highly searched for related terms, such as:
You’ll likely notice that the search volume of the keywords varies greatly in the process of discovering intent-driven keywords for your content.
Although both high and low-competition keywords are advantageous for your website, learning more about search volume can help you prioritize keywords. Besides, you’ll be in a lovely position to pick the search terms that will give your website the biggest strategic advantage.
What do we mean by strategic advantage?
A strategic advantage in this context is a striking balance between the search volume competition and CPC (as for the pay-per-click ads). Keep reading because more about search volume is in the next section.
It’s no doubt that the higher the search volume for a given keyword phrase, the more work is typically required to achieve higher rankings.
Yes, we didn’t stutter. The competition here is an absolute nightmare.
This is often referred to as the keyword difficulty. And occasionally, it incorporates SERP features. For example, if many SERP features, such as featured snippets are clogging up a keyword’s result page, difficulty increases.
Enterprise-size brands, such as Walmart often take up the top 10 results for high-volume keywords. So if you’re just starting out on the web and going after the same keywords, the highly expensive battle for ranking can take months of effort, if not years.
The higher the search volume, the greater the competition and effort required to achieve organic ranking success.
Conversely, if you go too low, you risk not drawing any searchers to your content. As we said, it’s most advantageous to target highly specific, lower competition search terms. In SEO, we call them long-tail keywords.
Now that you’ve learned about search volume, let’s delve into how you can be strategic with it with respect to location and season.
You can get even more strategic by looking at your competitors and figuring out how searches might differ by season or location.
Knowing about seasonal trends is incredibly advantageous in setting a content strategy. For example, if you know that Black Friday starts to spike in August through November in California, you can prepare content months in advance and give it a big push around those months.
You can strategically target a specific location by narrowing down your keyword research to specific towns, counties, or states.
Region-specific keyword research can help make your content more relevant to your target audience. For example, in Texas, the preferred term for a large truck is “big rig,” while in New York, it’s “tractor-trailer.” Did you note the difference?
If yes, let’s proceed.
It’s no doubt you’ll compile a lot of keywords.
How do you know which to tackle first?
You may find that prioritizing high-volume keywords that your competitors are not currently ranking for is the viable strategy to pursue.
On the other hand, you have an opportunity to pursue keywords your competitors are already ranking for. We recommend the former because you’ll be taking advantage of your competitors’ missed opportunities. Well, this is not to say the latter is bad.
In fact, it’s an aggressive strategy that sets you up to compete for keywords your competitors are already performing well for.
Google search results depend on intent, and every query has a unique one. The search engine giant describes these intents in their Quality Rater Guidelines as:
The search engine giant puts more emphasis on intent to elevate the user experience (UX). Let’s take a closer look at the 5 significant intents, as classified by Google:
You may find clients that prefer their content strategy to align with their locations. Most of them fall in the category of brick-and-mortar businesses, such as coffee shops, restaurants, garages, etc.
So how do you pick the best local keywords and rank for them?
Let’s look at three steps for choosing local SEO keywords that help you drive more local leads.
The first, and perhaps most important, step in finding local SEO keywords is specifying your location. You need to establish which areas you want to target for local search.
You can target location keywords near your business or where you travel for service.
When you conduct local keyword research, focus on niche-related keywords.
Some companies will try to rank for keywords that aren’t relevant to their business because they have high search volume and drive traffic. However, those keywords won’t drive qualified leads to your page.
If this traffic gets to your site, it will bounce because your content is irrelevant to the search query.
Imagine you’re looking for a photographer in New York. What happens when you click on a link to an ad or a page, and you don’t find the desired answer? You’ll bounce from that page and go back to the search results to find a different listing.
Instead of trying to rank for these irrelevant terms, focus on niche-related keywords because they’ll drive the right leads looking for your products or services.
So, if you’re an event planner based in Houston, you might focus on terms like:
As you find keywords for local search, you’ll want to add keyword modifiers to some of your terms. Why?
Modifiers add more to your core keyword and help expand your reach, so you can drive more relevant traffic and leads.
There are 3 types of keyword modifiers you can use to bulldoze your way up the local SEO rankings. Let’s check them out.
Quality modifiers use phrases like “best” or “top” to describe brands. For instance, “best event planners in Los Angeles.”
Occasion modifiers focus on a specific event or point in time. These include phrases like “fall,” “birthday,” or “Christmas.” An example keyword is “Wedding planner special discounts in Houston this Christmas.”
You can use special offering modifiers as USP for your SEO client’s brand. For instance, “Wedding planner in Dallas: special offers for early birds”.
Now that you’ve learned more about the vital importance of keyword research in SEO, let’s delve into the benefits and differences.
Pay-per-click is an aggressive strategy for driving traffic to a website. Besides, it’s a paid strategy of connecting with both existing and new target audiences.
On the other hand, SEO is the organic way of attracting traffic to your website. This strategy can take months and even years because it’s based on many factors: ranking, domain authority, number of reputable backlinks, and quality of the content, among others.
To answer the above question, there’s no significant difference in keyword research for SEO and PPC.
Well, in PPC, you have to add negative keyword lists to weed out irrelevant traffic.
In both PPC and SEO, keyword research should be tailored based on where the target audiences are in the user journey. Ideally, a simple funnel is made up of:
So it makes sense to tailor content and ad messages based on the funnel touchpoints. For instance, if you’re working for an SEO client who is new in a particular niche market, you should create tons of informational content to target cold leads out there who are yet to know the brand.
This will create an emotional relationship between the brand and the target audience as it trickles down the funnel. So keyword research boils down to stages of the funnel your target audience is in.
You don’t want to create informational content for in-market audiences holding credit cards on one hand and a phone on the other.
Conversely, content about a new line of products and services is best suited for audiences in the purchase and loyalty stages. Let’s agree on this. There’s no shortcut in keyword research. You have to be meticulous and ready to test.
Yes, testing is one way of getting your keywords right. The search data at Google Search Console is the best place to start if your client has data. Some of the keywords that are driving traffic may not be available in the content.
Now that you know the differences in keyword research in PPC and SEO, let’s head to the tools section. Below are some of the tools we recommend our clients use to shore up their keyword research.
Google Trends is an analytics-measuring tool that allows users to tailor searches for keywords and monitor SEO trends across any set duration of time. Besides, this tool culls data from Google searches and allows users to compare the frequency of search terms with:
The image above is a screenshot of Google Searches for “Taylor Swift” since Dec. 29, 2019. Do you notice a surge near the end of July 2020 when she released her “Folklore” album?
Data from Google Trends can be sorted for real-time emphasis (the last seven days) or by a specific range (from 2004 up to 36 hours ago).
Google Trends has now morphed into a big data utilization tool that can offer storytelling on a much grander scale, including gauging public reactions to real-time events or other news stories within the short-term future. The tool is poised to inform how users systemize search data to their advantage continuously.
Through Google Trends, users can track trends in:
You can sort the data by category, type, region, or period. As you get more comfortable with Google Trends, use trending topics, trend predictions, and find related queries to optimize your local and video SEO.
For instance, using the platform to analyze search volume over time can help you identify the peak seasonality of topics within your industry. And knowing this can help you plan an editorial calendar that promotes content around that topic during its peak season.
Note: Combine insights from Google Trends with keyword tools to get an accurate voice of the customer (VOC) data.
This tool uses Google Autocomplete data to provide content ideas, especially topics and subtopics aligned with user intent.
This tool can save your time immensely, especially if you want to check SERP results using specific keyword phrases. So if you want to create content that adds value to your audience, try this tool out.
Remember, to have a complete set of profit-driven keywords, you need to gather insights from multiple tools, including Google Keyword planner.
Google provides this keyword tool for free. To get started, Google Keyword Planner gives you two options, namely:
Both options take you to the Keyword Plan, but what you see will vary slightly depending on your choice. These are not two separate standalone tools.
Let’s explore each starting point in more detail.
If you want to discover new keyword ideas start here.
As per Google’s instructions, just “Enter words, phrases, or a URL related to your business.” Google will then kick back some keyword suggestions.
If you already have a list of keywords that you wish to see metrics for, start here. Just paste them in, hit “Get started,” and it’ll take you to the Forecasts section.
However, this tool comes with weaknesses that can break your SEO game.
Remember, you don’t need to do away with this tool. You need to compliment the insights you get there with other tools we’ll mention in a moment.
There’s an AI-driven keyword planner that comes as a Chrome Extension to provide you with in-depth keyword insights you might have missed using Google Keyword Planner.
This tool is amazingly affordable and comes with an incredibly friendly user interface.
This tool is called PPCexpo Keyword Planner.
PPCexpo Keyword Planner provides you with tons of valuable keyword data, including keyword suggestions, CPC, and more.
These insightful features make this a great alternative to the other keyword research tools on the market. And it doesn’t matter if you need PPC keywords, content keywords, or SEO keywords. PPCexpo has got you covered!
With this tool, you can quickly check the following:
PPCexpo Keyword Planner dives into Google search data and provides solid insights into the competition, cost, and other helpful metrics you need to know.
This highly affordable and easy-to-use keyword research tool uses Google Autocomplete to generate hundreds of relevant keywords for any topic you enter. Autocomplete options appear as soon as you start to enter a query on the Google search engine.
And this feature is designed to help users complete their searches faster.
Google recommends these relevant searches based on several factors. And one of the most critical factors is how often users searched for the term in the most recent past. So the Autocomplete feature is designed to help Google attract searches for trending topics.
PPCexpo Keyword Planner builds up a list of relevant search terms quickly with the help of this feature. Then, it incorporates other data to estimate costs, relevance, and other critical factors in choosing the best PPC keywords.
You can quickly find and analyze thousands of keywords connected to your business using PPCexpo Keyword Planner.
And besides, you can generate new keywords for your ads or content to stay relevant and align with the target audiences’ intent.
You want to select keywords that lots of people are searching for. The more people searching for a term, the more you’ll direct clicks to your clients’ websites.
PPCexpo Keyword Planner displays expected monthly search volumes for each term. For example, if you want to know the monthly search volume for the keyword “Blue Jeans,” then all you need to do is search.
This tool comes as a Google Chrome extension. So, once you install it, you’ll see the following results in a sidebar next to the Google SERPS.
You get to see the average of its monthly search volumes and any relevant searches for every search you make. So you can expand your keyword list and analyze the value of each new search term simultaneously.
Related search terms expand your keyword opportunities. Besides, you can detect emerging keyword trends and piggyback on them for more clicks.
Cost-per-click is the amount that you pay for a single click, irrespective of purchase or not.
PPCexpo Keyword Planner presents the expected CPC amounts for each keyword, as shown in the screenshot below. Remember that the higher the CPC, the higher the competition for that keyword.
The bidding prices are driven up and down by the demand and supply on the end of the advertisers.
The screenshot below shows CPC amounts as displayed by the PPCexpo Keyword Planner.
PPCexpo Keyword Planner uses the Similarity Percentage (%) metric to evaluate the relevance of each keyword. And relevance is crucial in PPC marketing because it dictates the overall performance of your campaigns.
So to be successful on Google Ads, you absolutely need to target keywords relevant to your website and its contents.
The similarity % looks at the relevance of each related search to the base keywords.
For instance, if you search for [Blue Jeans], PPCexpo Keyword Planner will show you both related search terms and relevance to each search to [Blue Jeans].
You don’t have to worry about your geographical location or that of your target audience. And this is because PPCexpo Keyword Planner has accessible and easy-to-use settings you can use to filter your location or language.
Besides, this highly affordable keyword planner comes jam-packed with data in 46 different languages and 15 different locations. And you can use these settings to align your keyword research with your targeting.
To access PPCexpo Keyword Planner’s settings, click on the Settings button as shown in the image below.
So after clicking the Settings icon, filter the keyword research data based on language or location from the dropdown menu, as shown below.
PPCexpo Keyword Planner comes with a super user-friendly interface. So you don’t need to code or watch tutorial videos on YouTube. And you can export your keyword research suggestions to a spreadsheet, such as Excel or Google Sheets, very quickly.
Just click the Export button to download your keyword data into a CSV file, as shown below:
After exporting your keyword list, your resulting spreadsheet can be something like the screenshot below, depending on your spreadsheet app choice.
Setting up your PPCexpo Keyword Planner account is amazingly simple and easy. Follow the 4 simple steps below:
Click here to start using PPCexpo Keyword Planner for free.
Start by setting up your account using your email address. As soon as PPCexpo receives your request, you’ll receive an activation code in an email.
Save this email with your key code for future steps. You may want to copy the key code or even write it down somewhere to use later.
Congratulations if you already have your activation key.
Let’s jump into the next step.
Download the PPCexpo Keyword Planner extension at the Chrome store. After clicking on the above link, click the Add to Chrome button, as shown below.
Then, select Add extension when the popup box appears, as shown below.
You’ll receive a notification that PPCexpo Keyword Planner is active in your Chrome browser. And now, you can open the extension and begin discovering fresh and exciting keyword opportunities!
When you first start the PPCexpo keyword planning tool and Google extension, you’ll be asked to enter your activation key. Remember, earlier on, I told you about writing or saving the email with key code. So this is the time to pop it, copy, and paste it.
Your PPCexpo Keyword Planner is ready to help you discover new and profitable keyword opportunities.
Use your PPCexpo Keyword Planner for the following:
This was a long one.
If you’d enjoyed it, I’d appreciate it if you try PPCexpo Keyword Planner and subscribe to our mailing list for personalized SEO tips.
So why is keyword research important in SEO?
If you’ve read the blog thoroughly, you understand by now why a holistic and data-driven keyword research strategy incredibly vital if you want the coveted top SPOT on Google’s SERP.
A huge chunk of content marketers take shortcuts when researching words that their target market uses to search for products or services.
Please read the blog’s body, especially if you’ve just landed here. We’re confident the knowledge you’ll get here is nothing new but overlooked stuff that can break or make keyword research process.
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