Small businesses often find it difficult to rank their content or product pages in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Sometimes, the website ranks for a particular keyword but struggles to drive traffic. Ever thought, why does it happen?
The answer is due to a lack of proper keyword research. Due to little know-how about finding and selecting relevant keywords, businesses end up choosing irrelevant ones and get absolutely no results.
Keep reading to know the various techniques of keyword research to help your website rank.
Table of Contents
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is a method of finding and analyzing search terms or keywords that users enter into a search engine to search for specific content, service, or product you offer. The purpose of performing keyword research is to target audiences with search engine optimization (SEO) to increase your conversion rate.
How to do Keyword Research for SEO?
Time needed: 2 minutes.
Keyword research begins with the very idea of writing a blog and targeting a set of audiences with your content. Here is a step-by-step guide on keyword research to rank your content in the SERP.
- Identify Seed Keywords
According to UppercutSEO, a leading SEO company. Seed keywords are short-tail keywords that define your niche and have a high search volume. Basically, seed keywords are the one or two words that users type on a search engine to search for particular content or product.
Suppose you are an e-commerce seller of smartphones. Now think of keywords your potential customers would type on “Google” or other search engines to search for products you sell and list them down. For instance, there are higher chances that they will search for smartphones using the following keywords.
-Smartphone
-Mobile phones
-Mobile
-Phones
Now you need to understand that even though seed keywords have a high search volume, it is challenging to rank your content using such keywords because websites with high domain authority like Amazon and Flipkart are already ranking for the particular keyword. So, instead of using seed keywords to rank your content, you would use them to find other related keywords for your niche. - Research on Related Keywords
“Smartphone” is a broader term that can be used to search for smartphones of any brand or even to search for the latest news on smartphones. And, therefore you need to include more specific keywords in your content to filter out the users who are not your potential customers.
You can mention the price range and the brand names of the smartphones you offer, such as ‘smartphones under 10,000‘ or ‘Samsung smartphones under 15,000‘, to attract customers searching for phones in that price range or of that particular brand.
Or you can use any USP of the products as a keyword like the ‘best smartphone camera sensor‘ to attract customers who are willing to purchase a smartphone with the best camera and is flexible to buy smartphones of any brand and in any price range.
If you cannot brainstorm the related keywords, you can use Google to do it for you. Type one of your seed keywords on Google and see the ‘auto suggest’ queries. You can include space in front and after the seed keyword to find the relevant keywords. Try placing different characters after and before the seed keywords for more keyword ideas. Pick up the relevant ones for your content from the list and ignore the others.
Another way to search for relevant keywords is to check in the related search section of Google. This section tells you about the related keywords people mostly search for and helps you find the appropriate keywords for your content. To find the related search, scroll down to the bottom of the SERPs. - Do Competitor Analysis
Analysing the keywords your competitors are ranking for is not only the best way to find relevant keywords but also to outrank your competitors. To perform a competitor analysis, you need to know who your competitors are.
If you have no idea about the competitors in your niche, search for your seed keywords in Google and find out which e-commerce websites are ranking. Again, you would find big competitors like Amazon, Flipkart, Tatacliq, and others ranking in the top results, which are difficult to compete with. Therefore, we would choose those similar to your brand based on authority.
Once you are aware of your competitors, all you need to do is track the website using any keyword research tools. If we take the same example, let’s consider 91mobiles.com a competitor and see what keywords they are ranking for. Some of the keywords from 91mobiles.com to consider are,
-New launched mobiles
-Best camera phones under 15000
-Latest mobiles
Similarly, check for other keywords for other competitors and keep adding the keywords to the list. - Use Keyword Research Tool
All the methods mentioned above are great to find several relevant keywords. Still, there can be thousands of other keywords that might not appear in the related search section of Google or those your competitors aren’t using, which can be curated using keyword research tools. Some of the keyword research tools are,
-Ahref
-SEMRush
-Google Keyword Planner
-Moz
-Ubersuggest
-KWFinder
-KeywordTool.io
You need to follow the same process of using the seed keyword while using any keyword research tools. After you search with the seed keywords, the tool extracts relevant keyword ideas from the database and displays them. Now, list down the keywords you want to use in your content.
Tips for Selecting the Right Keyword for Your Business
While researching, you would come across many keywords, but how would you decide which keywords to choose? Below are a few points for selecting the right keyword.
- Select keywords with a good monthly search volume to ensure a consistent traffic flow to your website.
- Prioritize keywords that your competitors have missed out on to rank at the top of the SERP.
- Filter out keywords having high search volumes as they are highly competitive, and it would be difficult for a new business to outrank big competitors.
- Filter out keywords having less search volume because users generally do not search using those keywords. Hence, it won’t help you drive traffic.
- While doing keyword research, always select the country you want to sell your products in. It would help you find out the keywords your target audiences are searching for.
- Use a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords in your content.
Hope the blog helps you find the perfect keyword for your niche. However, make sure you perform keyword research for your website or business to track down some new keywords. Remember you can target some high-volume keywords once the domain authority increases.
Why is Keyword Research Important?
As we have seen above, with keyword research, we can cater to a specific audience. But that’s not it. Besides helping our audience find us, keyword research is essential for other aspects also. Here’s a list of some.
1. Generating Ideas for Your Content Marketing
You will understand what your audience might be looking for when you do keyword research. Thus, you can systematically strategize your content when you know what your audience wants.
2. Finding New Keywords
When you do keyword research for your content, you will know the keyword you may use and get an idea of other keywords that might relate to your topic and business. Also, adding additional keywords around your business vertical will help you optimize your content and rank it.
3. Understanding Market Trends
When you create content, you figure out the topic and keywords and what kind of things your audience responds to. Like even with range, some brands focus on memes, others on creating informative content. Likewise, keyword research will help you understand the type of content your potential audience is inclined towards. It also helps to know why the public searches for a specific keyword, so you may realize its demand supply.
4. Ranking Assessment
To rank our blogs/on Google Search, we use Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Our content ranks on the Google Search Engine indicate good performance. Likewise, when our blogs have difficulty ranking, our blogs/ content face SEO difficulties, improper use of target keywords, etc. When high-quality domains use the target keywords and generate a lot of traffic, it is advisable not to use such keywords as it will divert the traffic there.
5. Competitive Advantage
In any industry, there are a lot of businesses, and most of them resort to having an online presence nowadays. This leads to tough competition in the market, and it gets challenging to prevail. However, if you have good keyword research done, you will lead to more traffic toward your website, which will further increase the chances of converting potential leads into customers. Thus, you can benefit over and above your competitors in the market.
