How do I do SEO keyword research for free? While Google constantly rolls out algorithm adjustments, one aspect of inbound marketing that aims to optimize websites for search has been fairly constant: keyword research.
How does keyword research work?
Finding and analyzing search phrases that people type into search engines with the intention of utilising that information for a specific purpose, frequently for search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing, is the practice of doing keyword research. Keyword research can reveal target queries, their popularity, the difficulty of ranking for these searches, and more.
Why is keyword research important?
The ideal keywords to target may be found with the use of keyword research, which also offers useful information about the Google searches that your target market is really making. You may use the knowledge you gain about these real search phrases to guide both your smaller-scale marketing plan and your content strategy.
When performing internet research, people utilize keywords to discover answers. Therefore, you stand to get more traffic if your content is successful in appearing in front of our audience while they do searches. As a result, you ought to concentrate on such searches.
Additionally, according to the inbound technique, we should design content around what people want to learn rather than what we want to tell them. Or to put it another way, our audience comes to us.
All of this begins with keyword research.
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The most well-known benefits of conducting keyword research are:
1. Market Research Trends
Effective keyword research may give you information about current marketing trends and assist you in focusing your content on the pertinent subjects and search terms that your audience is using.
2. Getting new clients
If your company offers the information that other business professionals need, you may satisfy their wants and direct them to a call to action that will take them through the buyer's journey from the awareness stage to the point of purchase.
You may answer the questions that the majority of people in your audience want to know the answers to by studying keywords for their popularity, search volume, and general purpose.
3. Traffic Increase
The more relevant keywords you choose for the material you post, the higher you'll rank in search engine results and the more visitors your website will receive.
Topics versus keywords
We hear more and more about how SEO has changed in the last 10 years and how little of an impact keywords have on our ability to rank high for daily searches.
This is accurate to some extent, but from the perspective of an SEO expert, it's a different strategy. Instead, it's the purpose behind the term and whether or not a piece of content fulfills that purpose (we'll cover purpose in more detail in a moment).
However, that doesn't imply that keyword research is an antiquated practice. I'll explain:
If you utilize the correct SEO tool, keyword research will also reveal the degree to which those topics are truly popular with your target audience. The essential word here is subjects; you may identify and group your content into topics you wish to write about by looking into keywords that receive a lot of monthly searches. Then, you may utilize these themes to determine the search terms and keyword phrases you want to target.
The Basics of Keyword Research
When doing keyword research, there are three crucial components to consider.
1. Relevance
Relevance affects how Google ranks material. The idea of search intent enters the picture at this point. If your material satisfies the demands of the searchers, it will rank for that term. Additionally, the query's greatest resource must be your content. Why, after all, would Google give your article a better ranking if it offers less value than other online content?
2. Authority
Sources that Google considers authoritative will be given greater weight. This means that you must use every effort to establish yourself as an authoritative source by enhancing your website with educational, helpful material and advertising it to get social signals and backlinks.
Unless your material is extraordinary, you have a decreased chance of ranking if you're not regarded as an authority in the field or if a keyword's SERPs are stacked with authoritative sites you can't compete with (like Forbes or The Mayo Clinic).
3. Volume
Even if you wind up on the top page of search results for a certain term, no one will ever visit your website as a consequence. similar to opening a business in a deserted location.
MSV (monthly search volume), which represents the total number of times the term is searched each month across all audiences, is used to quantify volume.
How to Conduct Keyword Research for Your SEO Plan
I'll outline a keyword research procedure you may use to get a list of phrases you should be aiming for. By doing this, you'll be able to create and implement a solid keyword strategy that promotes your website for the search phrases that matter to you the most.
Step 1: Based on your knowledge of your company, create a list of significant, pertinent issues.
Consider the subjects you want to rank for in terms of general buckets to get this process started. You'll create five to ten subject buckets that you believe are crucial to your business, and you'll utilize those topic buckets later on in the process to help you choose some precise keywords.
These are presumably the subjects you blog about most frequently if you are a regular blogger. Or possibly the most often discussed subjects in sales interactions. What themes would your target audience look for that you want your company to be found for? Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer personas. If your business sold marketing software, as HubSpot does (which also happens to have some amazing SEO capabilities, but I digress), you may have generic subject buckets like these:
- "inbound marketing" (21K)
- "blogging" (19K)
- "social media marketing" (71K)
- "marketing analytics" (6.2K)
- "marketing automation" (8.5K)
- "email marketing" (30K)
- "lead generation" (17K)
- "SEO" (214K)
See the numbers directly after each term, enclosed in parentheses? Their monthly search volume is that. With the use of this information, you can determine how important these subjects are to your audience and how many distinct subtopics you would need to cover in order to rank well for a certain keyword. We now go on to step 2 to learn more about these subtopics.
Step 2: Insert keywords into those subject categories.
It's time to choose some keywords that fit within the topic buckets you've chosen to concentrate on. These are keyword phrases that you believe are crucial to rank for in the SERPs (search engine results pages) as your target audience is likely searching for them.
For instance, if I choose the last subject bucket for an inbound marketing software provider, "marketing automation," I would come up with a list of possible keyword phrases that I believe users might enter in relation to that topic. These might consist of:
- tools for marketing automation
- using marketing automation software: techniques
- What is automated marketing?
- determining if I require marketing automation software
- driving nurture
- automating email marketing
- exemplary automation tools
And the list goes on. Not coming up with your final list of keyword phrases is the goal of this phase. You just want to come up with a list of words and phrases that you imagine clients could use to look for material under that certain topic bucket. So that you don't have something too cumbersome, we will subsequently refine the listings.
Finding out the terms your website is already being discovered for is a good technique to generate keyword ideas, even though Google is encrypting more and more phrases every day. Website analytics tools like Google Analytics or HubSpot's Sources report, accessible in the Traffic Analytics tool, are required for this. In order to determine the terms people are using to find your website, dig deeper into the traffic sources for your website and sort through the organic search traffic bucket.
For as many subject buckets as you have, repeat this technique. And never forget that if you're struggling to come up with pertinent search phrases, you can always go over to your customer-facing colleagues in sales or service and ask them what kinds of terms their prospects and customers use or frequent issues they have. These are frequently excellent places to begin your keyword research.
HubSpot carries out this step using the Search Insights Report. With the aid of this template, you can do the same thing: organize your keywords into topical clusters, examine MSV, and use the results to guide your editorial strategy and timetable.
Step 3: Recognize How Intent Affects Keyword Research and Conduct Appropriate Analysis.
User intent, as I said in the previous part, is now one of the most important aspects of how high you may rank on search engines like Google. Today, it's more crucial for your website to answer the issue a searcher was trying to solve than it is to merely contain the term they chose. How does this impact your keyword research, then?
It's simple to accept keywords at face value, but beyond the surface, they might imply a lot of different things. You need to be very cautious about how you interpret the keywords you target because the searcher's intent is so crucial to your chance of ranking.
Consider a scenario in which you are looking out information on how to start a blog for an article you want to write. What a searcher is looking for when they use the term "blog"—which might refer to either a blog post or the blog website—will affect how your article is written. Are you looking for information on how to start a blog post individually? Or do they want to know how to start a domain for a website specifically to blog on? You should confirm the keyword's purpose before using it if your content strategy solely targets those who are interested in the latter.
It's a good idea to type the term directly into a search engine to check what kinds of results appear to confirm the user's intent. Assure Google that the content you want to produce for the term is closely connected to it.
Step 4: Research relevant search phrases
When conducting keyword research, you could have already had the creative idea for this phase. It's a terrific method to add to those lists if not.
If you're having trouble coming up with more phrases that people could use to search on a certain subject, look at the related search terms that show up when you enter a keyword into Google. You'll get some search recommendations for your first term when you type it into Google and scroll to the bottom of the results. These keywords might provide you suggestions for additional keywords you might want to think about.
Step 5: Use tools for keyword research to your benefit
Based on the concepts you've already developed, keyword research and SEO tools can assist you in developing more keyword suggestions using exact match and phrase match keywords. The most well-liked ones consist of:
- Google Keyword Planner
- Ahrefs
- SEMrush
- Ubersuggest
- Moz
- KeywordTool.io
- KWFinder
- SECockpit
- Keywords Everywhere
Finding and selecting the right keywords for your website
It's time to filter your list of potential keywords based on those that would work best for your plan once you have a general concept of the terms you want to rank for. This is how:
Step 1: To narrow down your keyword list, use Google Keyword Planner.
You may estimate the search volume and traffic for keywords you're thinking about using Google's Keyword Planner. Then, utilize Google Trends to fill in the gaps using the knowledge you gained from Keyword Planner.
Use the Keyword Planner to highlight any phrases on your list that have an abnormally low (or excessively high) search volume and don't support you in maintaining the balanced mix we discussed before. Check their trend history and forecasts in Google Trends before you remove anything, though. You can determine, for example, if certain low-volume phrases would be something you should invest in now and profit from later.
Or perhaps you're just faced with a list of terms that is excessively long and need to somehow condense it. You may use Google Trends to identify the phrases that are rising higher and merit your concentration the most.
Use the Keyword Planner to highlight any phrases on your list that have an abnormally low (or excessively high) search volume and don't support you in maintaining the balanced mix we discussed before. Check their trend history and forecasts in Google Trends before you remove anything, though. You can determine, for example, if certain low-volume phrases would be something you should invest in now and profit from later.
Or perhaps you're just faced with a list of terms that is excessively long and need to somehow condense it. You may use Google Trends to identify the phrases that are rising higher and merit your concentration the most.
Step 2: Prioritize low-hanging fruit
Prioritizing low-hanging fruit is giving top priority to keywords for which you have a probability of ranking based on the authority of your website.
Large businesses frequently target terms with high search traffic, and since their brands are already well-known, Google frequently rewards them with authority across a wide range of topics.
You may also think about using less competitive keywords. If no one else is vying for the top place for a keyword, it can be yours by default if there aren't currently numerous articles competing for it.
Step 3: Check the monthly search volume (MSV) for the terms you've selected
Checking MSV can help you produce content that is focused on what readers want to learn.
The amount of times a search term or phrase is typed into search engines each month is known as the monthly search volume. Free resources like searchvolume.io and Google Trends can assist you in determining the most popular terms within comparable keyword clusters.
Step 4: As you select keywords, take into account SERP aspects.
If implemented properly, Google will highlight a number of SERP feature snippets. Search for the keywords of your choice and see what the top result looks like to learn more about them. However, we'll briefly describe the different kinds of SERP highlighted snippets in this article.
Paragraph Snippets
Short passages of text called featured snippets or paragraph snippets are displayed at the top of Google search results to provide rapid responses to popular search queries. Gaining the placement can be facilitated by comprehending the searcher's intention and offering brief, clear responses.
List Snippets
List snippets, also known as listicles, are excerpts created for blogs that outline the steps to do a task from beginning to end, frequently for "How To" searches. It is possible to succeed in this placement by writing blogs with straightforward layout and guidelines.
Video Snippets
In place of text highlighted snippets, Google will now show short videos at the top of search query pages. If you upload a video to both YouTube and your website and tag it with the relevant keywords, you may be able to get this placement.
Image Packs
Image packs are search results that show up naturally and are presented as a horizontal row of photos. You should create an image-heavy post if there is an image pack in order to be included in it.
Step 5: Examine each bucket to see whether there is a balance between head phrases and long-tail keywords.
Depending on who you speak to, head terms are normally just one to three words long and are shorter and more generic than other keyword phrases. On the other hand, long-tail keywords are lengthier keyword phrases that often comprise three or more words.
It's crucial to make sure your keyword strategy is well-balanced with both long-term objectives and immediate successes by making sure you have a mix of head phrases and long-tail terms. Because head phrases are often searched for more often than long-tail terms, they are frequently (not always, but regularly) considerably more competitive and challenging to rank for. Consider this: Which of the following phrases do you believe would be more difficult to rank for, even without considering search volume or difficulty?
Step 6: Examine the keyword rankings of your competition.
You don't necessarily have to do something just because your rival is. Likewise with keywords. A keyword may not be significant to you just because it is important to your rival. To assist you reevaluate your list of keywords, it's a wonderful idea to know which keywords your rivals are attempting to rank for.
It makes sense to focus on raising your ranking for specific keywords if your competition is already doing so for those on your list. Don't disregard the ones your rivals don't appear to be concerned about, though. You can have a wonderful chance to gain market share on significant terms as well.
You can maintain a similar balance to what the combination of long-tail and head phrases permits by understanding the ratio of terms that might be a bit trickier due to competition to those that might be a little more realistic. Remember, the objective is to come up with a list of keywords that not only helps you move toward more ambitious, long-term SEO objectives but also offers some fast wins.
You might be wondering how to find out the keywords your rivals are ranked for. Arel="noopener" target=" blank" hrefs gives you access to a variety of free reports that provide the top keywords for the domain you input, in addition to allowing you to manually search for keywords in an incognito browser and see what places your rivals are in. This is a simple approach to learn about the kinds of search phrases that your rivals are ranking for.
Good SEO keywords
Recognize that there are no "best" keywords—only those that your audience uses often to search. In light of this, it's up to you to develop a plan that will assist you in ranking sites and generating traffic.
Relevance, authority, and volume will all be taken into account when choosing the optimal keywords for your SEO campaign. Locate popular keywords for which you may reasonably compete depending on:
- the degree to which you are competing.
- your capacity to create material of a higher caliber than that which is already ranked.
Final thought
You now have a list of keywords that will direct your attention to the appropriate business-related issues and help you achieve both short- and long-term success.
Make sure to review these keywords every few months; once every three months is a reasonable benchmark, but other companies prefer to review them even more frequently. You'll discover that if you work to retain your present presence and then expand in other areas on top of that, you can add more and more keywords to your lists as you achieve even more authority in the SERPs.
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