Keywords are the primary foundation of SEO. If you are writing about a subject that nobody’s searching then your efforts aren’t of any use. Therefore, it’s important to get your hands on the keyword research process if you really are into learning the right tactics of search engine optimization. And to help you with that, we have put together this amazing guide highlighting all the right tactics for the keyword research process.
Before we rightfully dive into the keyword research process, let’s talk a little about their basics and built the hype. Keyword research is basically referred to the process of deciphering the pain points of your targeted audience. in simpler words, we may call it the process of finding words and phrases that a potential audience would use when searching for the products and services you sell. Keyword research is important because only it can help you decipher the ways your audience searches through and so, you can target them using the right tactics. This prevents you from curating content that’s of no use and create the one which can directly hit your targeted audience.
However, a lot of businesses fail to understand the significance of this entire keyword research process which is why 90.63% of the total pages are likely to get zero traffic from Google, as per research. Apart from helping you earn the traffic from Google, keyword research can also help you decide what keywords are better to rank for, decipher the estimated traffic you might gain, as well as the type of content that shall be curated using the opted keywords.
Now that you know what is keyword research and why is it a lot significant, let’s dive into the keyword research process.
A Legit Keyword Research Process
Though it’s complex and keeps evolving with time, I’ve put together a lot of simplified keyword research processes in this blog post to help you gain insight.
Step No 1. Brainstorm Your Business.
Well, the step might seem to you confusing but it can prove to be the best start of your keyword research process. Brainstorming your business here is referring to enlist all the significant areas your business covers, you may call it your product line in easy words. Probably, you will come up with a list of 8 to 10 such subjects that are important to your business existence. And now that you have the subjects, it’s easier to come up with a few keywords under each enlisted topic or subject.
In case you are a regular blogger, these keywords shall match with the intent of most blogs you have posted. Now is your time to view these keywords as the audience and use your buyer personas perspective to decipher what your potential clients would like to search about these topics and keywords. Here you go with the first step of the keyword research process resulting in the list of some fine and generic keywords for your business. A great deed you can do here is to run these keyword ideas into the search tool and determine their search volume, ranking difficulty, and other significant information. This information can help you determine which keyword is more important for the audience and how much difficulty you might have to face for ranking it, etc.
Step No. 2. Fill Each Idea Bucket with Potential Keywords.
Now that you have the idea buckets, it’s time to fill them up with all the potential keywords. How to come with these potential keywords, huh? That’s simpler. Just think of some probable phrases that your target audience might search about when looking for products and services you sell. For instance, one of my idea buckets says logo design, I can come up with the following potential keywords;
- What is a logo design?
- How to design a logo?
- Tips to create a custom logo design.
- Top logo design ideas of 2020.
- Top design software to create a logo design.
Apart from the above-mentioned step, there is another great way to come up with potential keywords. And that is to find out the keywords your website is already being found out for. For this, you have to take help from a traffic analytics tool such as Google Analytics which can help you go through your website traffic and determine the keywords people seem to use when they land at your website. Sounds great? The practical would prove much interesting.
As you reach the end of this step, it might feel like the keyword research process is over but nope. That’s just the beginning and there is a lot more to get away with the process. Let’s move on to the next step!
Step No. 3. Analyze the Intent Behind Potential Keywords.
Analyzing user intent is an integral part of the keyword research process. User intent, when rightly understood, can be pivotal in getting your website ranked on top. As per the recent Google updates, it has become a lot more important for your content to be in exact alignment with the user’s intent than the existence of keywords in that content.
Wondering where does this user intent help you in the keyword research process? Well, it easier to pick those keywords with better face value but they can have so many different meanings at the same time. And so, it’s important to know the user’s intent behind every keyword before trying to rank for it.
For instance, when a user searches with the phrase ‘how to start a blog?’, there are equal chances of him searching about writing a blog post or starting an entire blog. Now that’s where the intent is important.
An easier way to confirm the user intent is to write the keyword into your search bar and see through the results it shows. Cheers!
Step No. 4. Take a Glance at Related Search Terms.
That’s a simple yet amazing way towards searching potential keywords and can be called a formal part of the entire keyword research process. All you have to do here is just put your already found keywords into the google search bar and boom. A list of related search terms would appear at the end of the result page. Sounds cool, huh? It surely is.
Step No. 5. Use A High-End Professional Keyword Research Tool.
Now that you have so much at your side through organic efforts, why not make it professional by using some high-end keyword research tools. Though you organically found keywords can also help rank the site higher but using a tool can give your efforts the final push. All you have to do is sign up at your reliable keyword research tool, be it Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, SEMrush, or whatever suits you best, and put each of your idea bucket category. Tons of keyword ideas along with their search volume, search difficulty, cost of ads, etc. would appear. Boom!
Though the above-mentioned steps can massively help you in ranking your website higher on the search engines, you can always go for hiring some professional SEO marketing services if your goal is to attain big. They not only help you find the right keywords but also provide you with an SEO driven content strategy to give your website an incredible push.
