Keyword research is a crucial part of SEO, as it helps you to understand what your target audience is searching for, and how you can optimize your content to rank higher in search engines. Here are some tips to help you perform efficient keyword research:
- Identify your target audience: Determine the demographics of your target audience, such as age, gender, location, and interests. This will help you understand what type of language and terminology they are likely to use when searching for information online.
- Use keyword research tools: There are several free and paid keyword research tools available, such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs. These tools will help you identify keywords that are relevant to your business, along with their search volume, competition, and cost per click (CPC).
- Analyze your competitors: Check what keywords your competitors are ranking for, and what kind of content they have created to target those keywords. This will give you an idea of what you need to do in order to outrank them.
- Look for long-tail keywords: Long-tail keywords are more specific, and often have less competition than more general keywords. These are often easier to rank for and can drive highly targeted traffic to your website.
- Analyze your existing content: If you have content live already and want to expand topics look at the existing content on your website, and see how you can optimize it for your target keywords. Make sure that you use your keywords in the right places, such as in your title tags, meta descriptions, and in the body of your content.
Which tools can be used for SEO keyword research?
There are several tools that can be used for SEO keyword research, some of the most popular ones are:
- Google Keyword Planner: a free tool offered by Google Ads that allows you to see the average monthly search volume, competition, and estimated cost per click for keywords.
- Sistrix: a specialized SEO tool that can be used for keyword research by analyzing search volume, competition, and ranking for relevant keywords, based on millions of keyword data sets taken from websites that are ranking organically.
- Ahrefs Keyword Explorer: a comprehensive keyword research tool that provides data on keyword search volume, keyword difficulty, related keywords, and more.
- SEMrush: a powerful all-in-one marketing toolkit that provides keyword research and analysis capabilities, as well as competitor research and backlink analysis.
- Moz Keyword Explorer: a keyword research tool that provides data on keyword volume, difficulty, and opportunities for ranking.
- Ubersuggest: a free keyword research tool that provides data on keyword volume, CPC, and competition, as well as suggested keywords and phrases based on your target keyword.
How to use my keyword research to put it into action?
- Define your content strategy: Find out what’s the best strategy to start creating content.
- If resources are not an issue and you want to attack a specific money keyword, then start building your hub page around that followed by surrounding topics.
- If you need fast results start picking up low-hanging fruits and create content around small and medium search volume but low to medium competition.
- Create your keyword focus list: Compile a list of keywords that are relevant to your business, and that you would like to rank for. This will help you prioritize your efforts, and make sure that you are focusing on the right keywords.
- Create a content plan: If you agreed upon a strategy and you know your focus keywords, prioritize the content you want to create using a simple project management tool or software such as Asana, ClickUp, Trello, Monday, or even a simple Google spreadsheet. Name a responsible manager and set clear ETAs for every content.
- Create an internal or agency briefing: A content briefing with clear instructions on what you expect to be reflected in the content. This can be the format of the content but also important Dos & Donts based on your corporate identity.
- Content production: Start writing your content based on the briefings and frameworks set.
- Content QA: Proofread & ensure guidelines and instructions have been followed and the user intent has been met.
- Monitor your progress: Regularly monitor your rankings for the keywords you are targeting, and make changes to your content and strategy as needed. This will help you stay ahead of the competition, and ensure that you are making the most of your keyword research efforts.
Important: Just because you uploaded content to your side it doesn’t mean it will automatically rank well. Strong influencing factors of how well Google interprets and ranks your content is your internal information architecture or internal linking. But also technical factors such as crawl ability, page speed, Core Web Vitals and external factors such as backlinks, brand mentions & competition are influencing this.