In our blog, SEO: The Basics of Keyword Research, we highlighted why conducting keyword research is essential for boosting your website on the SERPs (search-engine results pages). It’s time now to cover how to conduct keyword research, and how to successfully incorporate keywords into the written content published on your website and blogs.
How to Choose the Best Keywords via Keyword Research
The “how to” of keyword research is constantly evolving, especially as new tools emerge and Google switches up its algorithm. But, let’s highlight some basics about how to choose the best keywords to offer you a better chance of ranking higher in organic search results. Remember, the ultimate goal is always to drive more organic traffic to your website and to convert those visitors into paying customers.
Create a List
The first step of keyword research is to brainstorm a list of keywords or topics relevant to your business. Don’t worry about competition or the length of terms – this is just a general list. Think about the services or products you offer, your target market, the geographical location you serve, etc. Think generally. For example, if you’re a plumber, a list of general topics would include things like: plumber, drains, toilet repair, clogged sink, leaking toilet, water heater repair.. etc.
Identify Keywords Under Each Topic
This is where you’ll get more specific about how your target audience might be searching via keywords. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes – how would you search for you? What do you think they are searching for? Ask your friends and family members or even current customers to get their opinion on phrases they would use to search for your business.
Study the Competition
Make a list of your main competitors and check out their websites to see which keywords they’re targeting. Read through the written content and the metatags. Your main competitors are likely local to you, but you can also look at businesses within the same niche but in a different location. This will help you recognize what keywords you might be missing, and can help you brainstorm more ideas to broaden your list.
Understand Search Intent
This step can be tricky – once upon a time, pleasing Google meant finding keywords that exactly matched a search query. However, now Google factors in the intention behind a search. So, search intent is the why behind a search query performed by a user – Do they want to learn something? Are they looking to buy a product? Or are they looking for an exact website? A simple way to determine search intent is to Google the keyword and see what comes up – if most of the results are service pages, that means users want to buy services. Are the results mostly informative blog posts? Users are looking for free information. For your business, you will likely want to target keywords that signal “commercial” or “transactional intent” – meaning, the user is looking to buy a product or service, but there can be a lot of value in providing useful information to users via your blog (see: Top 5 Reasons Blogging Helps SEO)
Research!
Yes, this is the research part! There are so many tools out there to help with keyword research, and they are a must! Tools will give you information such as search volume, ranking difficulty, keyword value, competition, and more. Here are some of our favorites: Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Ubersuggest. The Google Keyword Planner is a great free tool to use too if you have a Google Ads account. Remember, you are looking for a good mix of keywords (short, medium, and especially long-tail) that are relevant, have good authority, and a decent amount of search volume.
Organize your Keyword List
Create an Excel or Google Spreadsheet, and organize all of your keywords (including short, medium, and long-tail) based on search volume and competition score. If a keyword or phrase has a low search volume or is highly competitive (your tools will tell you, but this is specific to your niche and location too), then you’ll likely want to eliminate it. You should end up with a keyword list full of keywords and phrases that have decent search volume and competition level.
Activate List
It’s time to target which keywords you want to incorporate into your content, and for what purpose. If you’re a newer business with a new, smaller website, it’s best to target keywords that have a lower difficulty score, and prioritize keywords that are close to what exactly your business offers. For example, if you’re a plumber in San Antonio, target long-tail keywords like “toilet repair in San Antonio.” It’s important to note that you can’t just dump keywords into your content to trick the search engines’ crawlers; all written content has to be carefully crafted to strategically incorporate the keywords, and content should be engaging and purposeful. As you create content, whether it be pages or blog posts, track the analytics of your website to see the effect your keywords are having on clicks to your site. Adjust as necessary, and remember that moving the SEO needle takes time and consistent effort.
Proven SEO Content Marketing
At Inception Web Design, we specialize in SEO and are proud to provide our clients with ongoing content writing services that engages audiences and pleases the search engines. If you need help designing and implementing a winning SEO content strategy, we’d love to have a conversation with you. Inception Web Design is here to be your partner, schedule your free consultation to see how we can help you stand out on the web!
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