What Is Keyword Research in SEO & How to Do It?
Keyword research is a critical step of SEO (search engine optimization) and vital to creating a successful SEO campaign.
Why, you may ask?
Because it reveals what people are searching for online and helps narrow the focus of your content to cater to their needs. And if you successfully produce this content, your web pages start to rank for those search terms, boosting SEO traffic.
In this post, we’ll talk in detail about what is keyword research in SEO and how to do it. Let’s begin:
What Is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is when you search, analyze, and use the phrases that individuals use to search for information on the web.
Simply put, the practice helps you know your potential visitor’s language. This, in turn, helps you optimize your content.
But why conduct keyword research?
It is a critical SEO task that helps reach more individuals with the help of your content.
Types of SEO Keywords
Here’s a list of the types of SEO keywords you need to know:
- Seed keywords: Also known as focus, head, or main keywords, these keywords typically have one or two words and have a high search volume and competition. Some instances of seed keywords include social media, diet, etc.
- Long-tail keywords: Long-tail keywords are search phrases containing three or more words. The search volume of these keywords is less as compared to seed keywords. Long-tail keywords have a more specific intent.
- Semantically related keywords: Also called LSI keywords, these keywords are terms related to your main keyword.
How to Perform Keyword Research?
All said and done, it’s now time we discuss the best practices for performing keyword research. Let’s begin:
1. Understand Your Niche
Knowing your niche helps you get all the possible details about who you have to compete with. This helps you craft a realistic keyword list.
Follow these steps to understand your niche:
A. Open Google and enter search terms related to your niche.
B. Open all the sites that come up in the search results every time you enter a search term.
C. Take note of the following when you visit these websites:
- The type of content they put out
- Their social media presence
- Their posting frequency
- Their website structure
- Check their domain authority with the help of Ubersuggest or Semrush
- Look for and subscribe to their newsletter (if they have one)
The above exercise helps you know your competition and get a list of keyword and topic ideas.
Note: If you are a new business, typically, it will be impossible to target highly competitive keywords. So, you need to carefully choose your keywords.
2. Create Topic Buckets
Open a spreadsheet and write your topic ideas from step 1. You can also add some more topics to the sheet that come to your mind when you think of your products, niche, or industry. At this time, you can imagine what all search terms a Google searcher may enter into Google.
Once your list of topic ideas is complete, add them to different buckets in a way that each bucket has a list of related topic ideas.
3. Convert Your Ideas into SEO Keywords
SEO keywords are defined as the queries individuals enter into a search engine that are important for your site.
In this step, you will convert your ideas into SEO keywords.
For this, you can use a tool called SEMRUSH. Here’s what you need to do:
A. Login into SEMRUSH.
B. Go to the KEYWORD MAGIC TOOL.
C. Take at least ten topics from your buckets and one by one enter them into the tool.
D. Whenever you enter a topic in the tool, a list of keywords will appear. Select the keywords that are most relevant to your site and click on the ADD TO KEYWORD MANAGER button.
E. In the end, visit the KEYWORD MANAGER to view all your selected keywords (these are your seed keywords).
Note: You can use a keyword research tool other than SEMRUSH as well.
4. Know the Search Intent of Each Keyword
Search intent is defined as the type of information search engine users look for when they do a search.
Take your list of seed keywords and check the search intent of each keyword.
Here’s how you can examine each keyword’s search intent:
A. Open Google and type in the keyword.
B. Analyze the first page results. What appears on the first page is very close to what users are looking for.
After you do this, refine your keyword list and eliminate keywords with a different intent than what you are offering.
5. Search for Long-Tail Keywords
Take one glance at your current keywords list, and you’ll see that you have a majority of highly competitive keywords. These keywords, when searched on Google, will show hundreds of sites competing for the first ten spots.
If you are a business that’s just starting out, you need to focus on keywords that are less competitive. These keywords are called long-tail keywords. To find long-tail keywords, you can search Google and look for ‘related searches’ or ‘People also ask’ sections.
6. Find the Keywords Your Competitors Are Ranking For
You already checked out your competitors in step 1. All you need to do now is find the keywords they are ranking for.
Follow these steps to check this information:
A. Open SEMRUSH.
B. Choose ORGANIC RESEARCH from DOMAIN ANALYTICS.
C. Enter a competitor’s URL.
D. Select VIEW ALL ORGANIC KEYWORDS to see the complete list of keywords your competitors are ranking for.
E. Go to advanced filters. Exclude keywords that are not related to your business. Also, exclude keywords that are not brand-related.
F. Use the filter to include keywords with a decent search volume.
The result you get will help you add more keywords to your existing list.
7. Narrow Down the Keywords in Your List
Take your current keywords list and narrow it down to 20–30 keywords that you can target. You can cut down your keywords based on the knowledge we have acquired so far and these parameters:
A. Keyword Difficulty
Keyword difficulty is an estimate of how difficult it would be for a particular keyword to rank well in Google organic search. It is expressed as a percentage.
The lower the value, the better for you.
You can check the keyword difficulty of a keyword in SEMRUSH reports.
B. Search Volume
Keep those keywords in your list that have a decent search volume (above 50).
8. Convert Keywords into Page Titles
Now that you have a ready list of keywords, it’s time that you convert each of them into a page title and start developing content. Each page should focus on a specific keyword, so craft your page titles accordingly.
Here’s what you need to do to come up with the best page titles:
A. Write a title that includes your target keyword.
B. Make the title in a way that it’s different from what’s already shown in the top ten results for the keyword (Google seldom shows pages with the same titles).
C. Add interest to your titles. Use powerful and appealing words such as easy, amazing, etc.
9. Search for LSI Keywords to Use in Your Content
After you create a list of titles and start producing supreme-quality, SEO-friendly content, ensure you incorporate the LSI keywords into your content. It boosts your chances of ranking for your primary keyword.
Now, how to find LSI keywords? Use a tool called LSI Graph.
Note: After you are done with your keyword research and integrating the keywords in your content, you can consider using software to see the breakdown of your keyword positions. For this, we recommend that you use DashClicks’ Analytics app. It is a best-in-class marketing agency analytics software through which you can track analytics for your marketing campaign, such as SEO analytics.
You can also view the following information regarding your tracked keywords when you decide to use the software:
- The position for the start date
- The position for the most recent date
- The net change in your rankings over time
- The location where you are attempting to rank the keyword
- The page the keyword is featured in
The Bottom Line
Keyword research is an essential SEO task. If you diligently follow the steps we discussed above, you will be able to successfully find keywords that matter to your business.
Also, as your business grows, keep on finding more keywords that you can target. Keyword research helps reach more people with your content, so your every effort will pay off in the end.
You can also use reliable marketing analytics software to track how your keyword performance is doing for your SEO campaign by the day.
