An Easy Guide to Keyword Research for Beginners

What are keywords?

Keywords also often regarded as SEO, keywords, are key terms and phrases used for developing search engine optimisation strategy. From the perspective of the potential buyers, keywords are the words entered into the search bar to describe the products and services they are looking for or the information that seek. In the highly competitive digital landscape, understanding how people are searching for information related to your business is crucial to succeed. Whether you are an eCommerce store owner, blogger or you want to improve the online presence of your brand, keyword research can be highly valuable for your business. The keywords should be carefully chosen in your SEO content to provide a way to rank and suggest your website.

Why is keyword research important in SEO?

The keywords on your website describe about your business and its offerings. When keywords are used strategically in the content, they help search engines to determine where to display your website on a particular search engine results page (SERP).

1. Increasing the ranking

The higher you rank in the search engine results, the more reach and traffic you will receive. Keyword Research provides an insight into the minds of your targeted audience, providing vital information related to what they are looking for on search engine result pages.

2. Identifying low competition opportunities

Keyword research helps SEO professionals to discover content opportunities that have low competition. When you target keywords with low competition, it will increase the opportunity to attract more visitors and organic traffic to your website through search engines. There are many keyword researchtools that can be used to find low competition keywords and eliminate high competition keywords.

3. Understand the user’s search intent

The primary aim of the google and other search engines is to provide relevant information to the users for each search query. If you want to rank on the top spot in Google, it is crucial to create content that aligns with the search intent.

4. Assists in generating new content ideas

It is often a challenging task to get new content ideas for your content. Keyword research tools prove valuable in discovering new keywords and generating content ideas. By digging into keyword strategy used by your competitors, you can find all the keywords that are currently ranking on their site. It helps you to discover content gaps and create effective keyword clusters.

Important Concepts of Keyword research?

1. Focus keywords

A focus keywords or primary keywords is on which your SEO strategy is focused. These keywords are strategically used in the title, URL, Meta description and Text of your website. They are specific key phrases that shoppers are more likely to buy when they are further along in the buying cycle.

2. Long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are more specific as they focus on a particular niche. These keywords and loner and it are easier to rank for them as there is less competition. It is worth to use them in your keyword strategy as they might encourage targeted users to buy, subscribe, sign up, etc.

3. Keyword intent

Understanding the keyword intent plays a crucial role in developing a keyword strategy. It is the way to put yourself into the shoes of your potential customers and truly understand the purpose of the search. As you conduct SEO keyword research, you need to consider what matters to your customers when they are searching about your offerings. Are they comparing products to buy them? Are they looking for specific information for a company or website? When you use the right keywords strategically in the content, it will compel the consumer to stay on the page for longer and help you rank higher in search engine results. There are typically four kinds of of keyword intent

•  Commercial “high intent” intent

•  Informational intent

•  Transactional intent

•  Navigational intent

4. Monthly search volume (MSV)

Monthly search volume is an important metric of search volume data. It tracks the amount of times a particular keyword is searched for. When the number of people looking up the same search term increases, it leads to increase the MSV of the subject.

Keyword research tools can help you determine the monthly search volume of topic globally or even narrow it down to a specific city. When search volume is high, it implies more potential traffic to your site. However, it also means facing heavier competition in the search results.

5. Topical authority

As search engines are emphasising more on expertise, authority and natural language, it is important to establish topical authority. You need to demonstrate website’s expertise by providing well researched, relevant and high-quality content. People will usually click on your site only if you are considered a trusted source of information about a certain topic. When you establish credibility in the industry and provide authoritative content, it will help you rank high on SERPs.

Tips to create and maintain topical authority on a website

•  Creating a well-planned and robust content strategy

•  Conduct research to know what others are talking about your niche industry

•  Share your thoughts on topics you have expertise and write about them on your site

•  It is also good to research what people are asking related to topics in your chosen industry to get inspiration for content pieces.

How to conduct keyword research in 2024?

Now you understand the significance of keyword research, here are important steps to identify keywords you should be targeting to attract the right audience and create a fool proof SEO strategy

1. Create a list of broad topics related to your primary topic

Make a spreadsheet with popular search terms or primary keywords you wish to rank for. Such keywords may relate to your products and services or terms you believe your targeted audience looking for searching your offerings.

2. Identify the key phrases and expand each topic

Once you have a lot of primary keywords, the next step is to identify the terms and phrases your target customer might type into the search bar to locate information, products, or services. You can use website analytics tools like Google Analytics or ESL Ranks Pro to look through the content.

3. Find related key phrases

There are many possible ways to add to your keyword list. You can search for a keyword phrase in Google and scroll to the bottom of the pages to find more ideas from a list of related search phrases.

Answer the Public is another great website that allows up to 3 searches in a day. It provides a chart of keywords people using to make searches related to your topic.

You can also type your keyword phrase into Google’s Keyword Planner or one of the paid tools listed below and see what other relevant terms people use.

4. Analyse your keywords

The easiest way to analyse keywords is to use Keyword Planner or a paid keyword research or SEO tool. ESL Ranks Pro, Ahrefs, Semrush, Wordtracker, and Ubersuggest are some of the most popular tools. When analysing your keywords, it is recommended to make sure your keyword phrase matches the precise search term used by the people.

Keyword research FAQs

How to conduct keyword research effectively?

If you want to improve at keyword research, it is crucial to track and analyse your results. There are several free and paid keyword tools available out there. For instance, using data on Google Analytics can make it easy for you to discern which keywords and landing pages generate the most traffic and which ones are underperforming.

What are the free tools to conduct keyword research?

You don’t need to spend money to conduct quality keyword research as there are plenty of online tools. Some of the most popular tools are Google Trends, Keyword Surfer, SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, ESL Ranks Pro and Moz’s Keyword Explorer.

How to maintain keyword rankings?

It is important to use the right tools and techniques and keep yourself abreast with the algorithm changes. An SEO expert can help you to formulate an effective SEO strategy to keep up with the constantly changing landscape of the search engine results page.

What are some mistakes to avoid in keyword research?

Here are some mistakes to avoid in a keyword research:

•  When conducting keyword research, one must avoid focusing only on high volume keywords. Though, such keywords are attractive to pick, but one should consider the competition website’s authority. It is best to target long tail keywords with lower volume and higher conversion rates.

• Don’t neglect search intent when conducting keyword research. One should try to understand what people want to achieve with their search queries. Informational, transactional, and navigational intents require different keyword approaches.

•  Avoid keyword stuffing at any cost. It will lead to more harm than good. Instead, focus on prioritizing user experience and creating high quality, relevant and organic content

If you are looking for professionals to help you with comprehensive keyword research and SEO, eSearch Logix team will be delighted to help you. As a pioneer SEO company in India, we offer a wide range of SEO services to help businesses to maximise their online visibility, rankings and revenues.

Key Takeaways

Conducting keyword research is essential to discover the content gaps and d blind spots in the content. One should understand the user intent to find the optimal keywords to build your content strategy. Keyword research tools prove to be highly valuable for creating an effective keyword strategy. Some of Some of the most popular tools are Google Trends, Keyword Surfer, SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, ESL Ranks Pro and Moz’s Keyword Explorer. It is prudent to seek assistance from a professional SEO expert to reap maximum benefits out of it.