Keyword research is a crucial part of SEO that involves finding the right keywords for search queries that best represent your website. If you get it right, you’ll drive lots of quality traffic to your site.
When searching for the right keywords to use, it’s a good idea to use a spreadsheet to keep a record of your keywords as you go along. As we go through the steps involved with the process, we’ll suggest some other helpful tools you can use.
There are many free tools to use that can help you discover the right keywords to target. This keyword research tool is a good one for starting your search.
When you put a topic, brand, or product into this tool, you’ll get a list of questions people ask in Google and Bing related to that topic. This allows you to better understand the exact information your targeted audience is looking for. Choose the questions you would like to answer so you can use the SEMRush or Ahrefs keyword research tool to get the monthly search volumes.
When you’ve used a tool to get the monthly search volume for a keyword term, you should target the keyword terms your targeted audience is using. However, because these terms can be difficult to rank for, sometimes it’s best to target terms with lower search volume because they’re easier to rank for.
Always keep in mind that the higher the search volume for a keyword or keyword phrase, the harder it is to rank for it. But if you go too low you run the risk of not attracting any searchers to your site. Therefore, it’s a good idea to target long-tail keyword phrases that are highly specific with lower competition.
Once you have a long list of keywords to target, you should refine it and zero in on the best keywords by getting rid of the less interesting ones.
When you’re done refining your list of keywords, head over to Google’s Keyword Planner to get search volume and traffic estimates for those keywords you’re considering. Then take the info you learn from that tool and use Google Trends to fill in some blanks. Trends can tell you what terms are trending upward, and thus worth more of your focus.
Keep in mind that the best keywords for your SEO strategy will take into account relevance, authority, and volume. You should pick keywords that are highly searched and reasonably easy to compete for.
When you’ve selected the list of keywords you’re going to target, don’t stick with them forever. You’ll need to re-evaluate these keywords every few months. As you start creating content around your keywords and move up in the SERPs, you’ll discover more keywords you can target to help boost your site in search.