The Importance of Keyword Research

When it comes to SEO keyword research is crucial to improving your rank within Google. You have the power to work towards achieving this goal. This is where keyword research comes in, you can start this at a basic level and advance it as time goes on. To give you a brief overview of how to start with keyword research we’ve written this post. However, if you want help figuring out the keywords which work for your site, here at PhilAston.co we can help with this. To find out more information feel free to get in touch.

So what is keyword research?

Keyword research is the process of finding terms which are entered into search engines then analysing them. With this research, you can find out a lot about your website. Including what people enjoy reading/buying from your site. With the ultimate goal of being able to optimize your content around your keywords.

How do I start?

Start by deciding on 10 words or phrases which people search for that are related to my business then write these down. These aren’t your keywords, but they’re a good place to start. Using each of your keywords there a variety of ways to be able to drill down on these and pull data which will help you when it comes to planning your strategy.  Some topic ideas for this site would include:

Marketing

SEO

Web Design

Pay Per Click

Enter all of these topics into tabs on google docs or a spreadsheet and then any further words you find off each, add these into the tab to later optimize.

Tools to use for keyword searching

There are so many tools currently on the market for finding out what your keywords are and where they rank in Google. Some examples of tools which we find extremely useful when it comes to keyword research are-

Search Google

Using Google search is always a good place to start. By entering those topic ideas you gathered earlier, one by one add these into google and see what autocomplete brings up. For example, if you type in web design you are presented with the following-

By using these suggestions to create content, you’ll be on your way to creating content that people will want to read. The autocomplete feature by Google is based on popular searches and it assumes you are querying the same information.

Ubersuggest

Neil Patel made Ubersuggest and the site is valuable to any digital marketers and it’s completely free. On Ubersuggest you type in your URL and there a variety of different searches you can do to find out valuable information. Including keywords for both yours and a competitors site,  content ideas, and  a site audit and what your top pages are to name a few.

Using the traffic analyzer tab on Ubersuggest, if you scroll down to SEO Keywords, you can find some really useful information such as how many searches per month a key particular keyword has as ll we as how many visits to your site you get from using that particular keyword. One of the best things about the Ubersuggest tool is it provides you with where you rank in Google for that keyword. The closer to 1 as the position the better.  You can also export the data into a CSV file to allow you to go over it in detail at a later date.

By finding the keywords that work for your site, it’s worth creating further content on these searches. If for example, you get a lot of visits per month to a post about money-saving, you know that readers find this topic interesting.

SEMrush

Although SEMrush is a paid-for tool, it’s one of the best on the market. It allows you to search your domain against your competitor’s domains and whether you want to choose your competitors or let SEMrush pick the sites it believes are most likely competition the results can be really useful. Once you’ve found out how you rank against your competitors, it’s worth heading over to their site and research what they’re doing better than you. Use this as research to make your content better.  SEMrush also has the keyword magic tool which is great for finding mass amounts of keywords which may be suitable for your site. You can use this tool with the 10 words you came up with earlier to get some keywords, then make sure you input these into your document to come back to later.

Answer the public

Lost for ideas when it comes to content creation? Answer the public is a fantastic resource. Similarly to Google autocomplete by typing in a word to the search box once on the site, you can click get questions and you’ll be provided with a number of questions asked around this topic.  When you type in “press release” you’re greeted with a large number of questions and prepositions. By taking these questions and prepostions you’ll be able to find out what is being searched so you can create your own posts. Work on optimizing those posts and you’ll receive traffic from the posts. As you know if you’re searching a question, then you find a post which answers it completely you’re more likely to click on the link to find out more information.

With Answer the Public you can search 3 times per day for free, so make the most of your searches.

Free Keyword Tool from Wordstream

If you’re still stuck on what keywords to use based on your original research use the free keyword tool from Wordstream. This tool is the easiest to use out of the tools mentioned previously, However the tool does only provide the basic information without a paid-for the plan. By searching a word, your URL or a phrase you’ll be presented with a variety of keywords and the search volume from Google. You can choose to create content around the most popular searches and work on reaching the higher up pages on Google.

Here is an example from Wordstream based on searches for ‘social media management’ in Google search volume is based on the last month.

How to implement keywords

Now you’ve learnt about the tools, it’s time to learn how to implement these changes into your own site, here are a few places you can add your keywords to site:

Within the metadata

Metadata appears under your post when search on Google, you can enter this on your site, if not Google will take a section from your content up to a certain amount of words. Not using metadata means you’re missing out on some key SEO benefits. Such as not including your keywords. Within your meta description adding your keywords it will make them more likely to rank on the Google search.

In post content

When creating a piece of content, make sure you add a keyword to your text and a link back to your own site if possible. Use the keywords within your post, but make sure you’re not overstuffing these. A keyword is used to help Google to learn what a piece of content is about. Stuffing your keyword into every sentence can have the opposite effect to what you are looking for.

Images

There are lots of different ways to make sure your keywords are translated into your images. However, one most of us are guilty of is when we save photos we give them a name which isn’t going to rank in Google. By typing your keyword and saving your photo correctly can have a bigger difference than people realise. No more using photoedit123424, think precise.

We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post and if you need any further help with SEO our specialised team would be more than happy to help.