While Google’s constant algorithm updates keep SEO analysts on their toes, one thing has been relatively uniform for them aiming to optimize their websites for search: keyword research.
Keyword research allows you to analyze or gives you an insight into what your potential audience is looking for right now on search engines like Google, Baidu, or Bing and using that data for search engine optimization or general marketing.
Keyword research is the essential component of any digital marketing plan and should be one of every organization’s first steps in its digital marketing implementation.
For example, what flour is to cake, keyword research is to digital marketing-without it, your digital marketing strategy will probably fall flat.
Using keyword research tools helps determine which terms engage your audience most and analyze their efficacy.
The objective is to better understand the searcher’s intent to create SEO-friendly content that addresses the searcher’s questions and helps you score for that term.
Now let’s take a dip into 6 tips you might consider for a quick and efficient keyword research strategy:
1. Make Use of Google Trends
Google trends is a pretty straightforward but very effective keyword research tool. You enter a search query, hit enter, and voila! You’ll see a graph that shows you the popularity or trend of the search term or topic over time. But you need to understand that numbers on the graph don’t represent search volume, but each data point (0-100) only represents the relative popularity of the search query.
Why is Google Trends important?
Well, let’s assume you’ve to choose between two keywords.
“Backlinks” and “External Links”
As you can see, the interest in backlinks is trending and growing fast compared to the external links over time.
Well, it doesn’t mean that “external links” is a subpar keyword, but the fact that the popularity of this keyword is going down over time is the only factor to keep in mind before choosing your next keyword.
One of the best features of this tool is that you can also check the popularity of a particular search query on YouTube.
It lets you check where and when keywords are trending and popular and helps you capitalize on them.
2. Understanding Long-tail Keywords
Keywords that contain three or more words and have considerably low competition but high relevance to a given topic are called long-tail keywords. People usually use them when they want to find specific content on the web, but not something too broad. These keywords are just variations of the primary keywords but are more precise, have less volume than the primary ones, and are easier to address.
For example, “best weight loss program for women over 50” would be a long-tail keyword because it narrows the search results.
These numbers will surprise most marketers: over 3.8 billion keywords have fewer than 10 monthly searches each and only about 31,000 high volume keywords (100k+ searches per month). Every day, about 15% of Google’s queries are unique and have never been searched before.
3. Leverage Google Search
Google search is an excellent tool for keyword research. It can help you find out what people are looking for and what keywords are popular in your niche.
Go to Google and type in some generic keyword related to your business, and Google will instantly bring you a dropdown of autocomplete recommendations.
For example, if you enter ‘cake’ in the Google search, it will instantly propose some ideas related to the entered query.
These ideas are more specialized than your initial search query.
Head down a little, and you’ll come across a Google rich snippet feature “People also ask.” This section provides you with additional information about the initial query in the form of questions.
Now scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you’ll find another section, “Related searches.” These are the eight relatively more specific search results generated by google’s algorithm related to your niche.
4. Avoid Head Keywords
Head or Short-Tail Keywords are the keywords with a single word (or less than three words) or acronym like a book, and in most cases, these are the worst type of keywords to target for many reasons.
- The intent isn’t clear.
- Low traffic quality, high search volume, and poor conversions (because of the intent)
- Competition makes these keywords a death trap because you’ll need a massive amount of resources to rank, and even if you do rank, you’ll most probably suffer from next pont
- Extreme SERP volatility because Google has a hard time knowing what searcher is actually looking for, and therefore it is constantly shuffling the results to find what produces the highest organic CTR.
So overall, there is rarely a good reason to target head keywords.
5. Intent is the Key!
Keyword intent or search intent defines a user’s online search objective. In other words, keyword intent is “why the person did this search”? “Do they wish to gain information”? “Are they planning to purchase something”? Is it possible that they’re seeking a certain website”?
Search Intent is useful for SEO campaigns to bring traffic and increase impressions as Google is obsessed with this, as mentioned in Google’s Evaluator Guidelines.
Google has invested hard over the years to refine its algorithm to assess people’s search intent. Google wants to rank pages that best fit the search queries people are using and the intent behind their search. As a result, you must ensure that your content fits your audience’s search intent.
Types of Intent
There are just four types of Intent:
- Informational Intent: The informational intent means that the person searching for the keywords wants to know more about the topic or a product they have found. In simple words, it means the user is seeking information on a topic or a solution to a problem.
Examples: Who is Edward Snowden, types of pollution, history of Egypt, etc.
- Navigational Intent: This search intent means that the user is looking for a particular website or has an end destination in mind, such as a physical location or even a particular page on a website they are already familiar with.
Examples: Facebook, McDonald’s, compare internet speed, etc.
- Transactional Intent: This search intent indicates that the user wants to complete a purchase or make a transaction. More than any other sort of search intent, the user usually already has a precise notion in mind (brands, goods, pricing, etc.) and is ready to convert or make a transaction.
Examples: Nike air shoes, Samsung a32, McDonald’s Big Mac, etc.
- Commercial or Investigational Intent: Some people plan to buy or visit in the (near) future and conduct their research on the internet. These individuals have a purchasing intent, but they require more effort and persuasion. Qualifiers or seedings like “discount,” “deals,” “best,” or date are commonly found in such commercial search intent keywords.
Examples: best restaurant in Dubai, deals on phones, discount on Nike sportswear, etc.
6. Utilize Keyword Research tools.
Keyword research tools can help you develop more keyword ideas based on an exact match for your website or blog. Competitor research and keyword tools can also provide insights into what’s working for other sites in your niche. Some of the popular research tools are:
- Ahref: This tool lets you generate keyword ideas based on your entered query and an analysis of their ranking difficulties and traffic potential.
- SEMrush: With 20.8 billion keywords in their database, you’ll never run out of keywords ideas and detailed analysis of each keyword like search volume, keyword difficulty, and much more.
- Soovle: This tool provides keyword suggestions from multiple sources like Google, YouTube, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, and more, all in one place.
- Moz: This tool lets you identify keywords that generate the most traffic. One of the leading research tools that provide in-depth keywords and SERP analysis (search volume, keyword difficulty, etc.).
- Google Keyword Planner: It is the most reliable research tool, as data comes straight from Google. So dive into Google’s humongous database to discover, analyze and research the keywords that suit your niche.
- Jaaxy: This tool provides you with 100s of unique and untouched keywords that will take your SEO campaigns to new heights. It offers access to the competition, traffic, backlinks, ad placements, and domain insights of billions of keywords.
- Keywords Everywhere: It is a paid research tool that displays keyword details on top of your favorite websites, like Amazon, Google, eBay, Youtube, bing, and many more. It provides keyword metrics ( volume, keyword difficulty, competition, etc.)for any keyword list and allows you to export the list in Excel, CSV, or PDF format.
Don’t give up if your keyword research doesn’t yield results right away. It might sometimes feel like a lost cause, but it’s definitely worth the time to understand how to do it properly so that your business can progress and thrive.
Following these keyword research tips can help you better understand how to find suitable keywords that perform well and keep your content marketing strategy up to date.
In the words of Zora Neale Hurston: “Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.”