How to Do Keywords Research for SEO: The Complete Guide

Using the right search phrases is one of the single most important steps that can guarantee improved visibility, traffic and growth for a website but, you can’t figure out the right search phrases without doing a proper keyword research.

For most businesses, finding the right keywords can be daunting. Many new businesses have lost count of wasted SEO efforts that can clearly be linked to lack of proper keywords identification.

And I can totally relate because during our early days, for many months we couldn’t have a decent number of visitors to this website. We didn’t even understand the keywords that were important to us or the ones we should have optimized for.

Most brands have been at this point. As I got to learn over the years, Keywords research is one of the most critical aspect of search engine optimization that can make or break your visibility effort. And I’ll be sharing with you the lessons I’ve learned and how anyone can do keyword research in this guide.

What is a Key Word?

A key word or keyphrase is an important search term used by searchers when they search for anything on the search engine like Google. It is the term you want to rank for with your content or website.

What is a Keyword Research?

A keyword research is the art of searching, understanding and using the relevant kind of keywords that will be used by your target audience when they to optimize your website and website content, in order to make your post more visible to them.

Why Keyword Research is Important

The reason keywords research is important is because it helps you in getting your content across to the right audience.

And getting your content in front of the right audience will increase the possibility of getting them to come over to your website and possibly, take the kind of action you want.

Now the question is, how can you do a keyword research that works for your website and content?

To do a keyword research, the following are important keyword research strategies you need to put in place.

Define your Goal

This is very important. If you want to do a keyword research and get a better rank, you need to clearly identify the goal you want to achieve with the optimization effort you’re about to put in place.

For example, to be able to define your Keywords Goal, you want to ask yourself questions like; why am I doing this? What do I want to achieve with this set of keywords I’m researching about?

Besides getting more views, there are many other things you can achieve with a keyword research.

This could vary from making sales, getting real exposure for your blog to other things like getting back links etc.

Whatever it is for you, if you really want to do a keyword research that ranks, you need a specific goal so you can streamline your keywords around that.

If your goal is to attract a better traffic to your blog for example then you need to identify keywords that can get you to attract more website visits and then optimize your website using that keyword.

Same thing applies if you want to achieve more sales. Pay attention to identify your business goals so you can use keywords that will get you to achieve those goals much more easily.

Pick a Niche

After you’ve successfully picked a goal, I will assume you do not have a niche. So, this is a good time to pick a niche, industry or target audience. If you already have a preferred niche, then you can ignore this part.

Decide, which niche or industry would you have to target, if you really want to create the result you have in mind?

If you already have a niche, that’s no problem. You can decide to micro-niche to a little part of the niche that will serve you better, based on your goals.

Or alternatively, you can choose a different niche altogether if the current one doesn’t serve your purpose anymore.

Picking the right niche and target audience is very important because this is where you’ll find your client and buyers if you’re selling a product or service.

If you do not pick the right niche then you might waste your time targeting the wrong audience and this might not create the results you want.

So, to get things working, you don’t just need keywords you need the right keywords for the right audience.

Use Keywords Research Tools

Now that you already understand your goals and the specific niche you need to get into, in order to achieve this goal, the next thing you want to do is to use the keywords research tools to easily research your keywords more effectively.

There are a number of these keywords tool you can use out there. And some of them are free to use. I’ll be listing out the important ones below:

Google Keyword Planner

This is one of the most important tool you can use to do keyword research. It is a powerful tool from Google. And considering that Google controls the largest share of the search engine traffic, you should be sure to get a very decent and realistic report using this keyword tool.

With Google Keyword Planer, you can find keyword ideas, search volume etc. however this tool might not come as easy to use or straight out of the box as the other keyword research tools.

Ubersuggest

This is quite a popular keyword research tool by NP Digital. It shows keywords ideas, search volume, suggestions, comparisons etc.

It is more of a straightforward keyword research tool, giving you a brief overview of a particular keyword however, the free option is limited.

Ahref

Ahref is another freemium search engine optimization tool that provides a comprehensive keyword analysis. It has both free and fully paid segments that can give you a very comprehensive information on keywords and optimizations.

Google Trends

Google trends is another keyword research tool that is very useful for businesses and SEO experts. It is free and also very helpful in identifying trending keywords and some geographically targeted keywords.

Outside these, there are a number of other keywords research tools like Semrush, Wordstream, Keywords everywhere etc. that you can use but these ones can get you a headstart with your research.

Initiate Keywords Analysis

With your keywords research tools sorted, you now have to take further steps to initiate a keyword analysis where you’ll evaluate the keywords, find out their search volume, check out the competition level etc.

The reason you want to do this is to really know the specific keywords you should be optimizing for.

So to get started with your analysis, you want to look at the following:

• Search Volume: This gives you an idea about the number of people searching for that keyword over a period of time. So when a keyword has a high search volume, it indicates that more people are searching for it.
• Keyword Difficulty: This is an indicator of how difficult it is to rank for a particular keyword. With a less difficult to moderate keyword, you can start to get ranking much more easily, compared to a very difficult keyword.
• Cost Per Click: Gives you an idea about the commercial value of a keyword or how much you’d pay for, if you were to go for that keyword. Usually, this also relates back to the competitiveness of the keyword itself.
• Google Trends: Goggle trends analyzes the keywords people are currently searching for on Google. The search volume in targeted regions. It gives you on idea on what could rank and stay relevant for a long term. And of course, other keywords that will be ranking for a shorter period of time.
• Suggestions & Comparisons: This offers insights into alternate keywords that could be used outside your main target keywords. This can be helpful when you’re looking at semantics SEO which is a great way to optimize for topics.

Taking out time to evaluate your search phrases as part of your keywords optimization gives you clarity on specific keywords that will work for you and the duration of time it might take, considering your peculiarities.

Analyze Competition Keywords

There’s a good chance that there are other brands in the industry who are already well established and probably, getting a decent visibility.

As part of your keyword research, you have to find out who they are and the particular keywords they are using to get the visibility they are having.

The keywords research tools I already mentioned earlier could help you in this regard. All you need do is analyze the brands using those tools and then get some insight on the specific keywords they are ranking for.

As soon as you have done this successfully, you want to look out for the gaps they’ve left behind and how you can come in to fill that gap.

For example, let’s say some of the top ranking websites in your industry are ranking for search terms like “content marketing experts in Africa” and no other website was talking about or ranking for content marketing in your country, you can decide to optimize and rank for that.

You don’t always have to go toe to toe with already existing brands as you go about optimizing for search visibility from the ground up.

Identify User Intent

Outside finding out the right keywords, during a keyword research, it is also important to find out the user intent.

Like i mentioned earlier, this is very important for semantic search engine optimization. And beyond that, it gives you an idea about the user’s context, including the kind of content a user will expect to see, based on their preferred keywords.

For example, there are some kind of keywords that as soon as you see them, you’ll get to understand that the user is looking for informational content. This includes keywords like: “How to…” “A complete guide on…“, “7 Steps to…” will most likely denote informational content.

Keywords like “Buy…” “where to get…” etc. would most likely connote a transactional intent while keywords with phrases like: “SEO experts in…“Veterinary shops in…“, “Professional Freelance Writers in…” will always connote a search for some specific services.

Understanding your user intent is not merely important in getting you to deliver on content that will meet the needs of your average user, it will get you to optimize beyond keywords. You will get to position your website for effective topic expertise.

Get a Keyword List

After identifying your keywords, analyzing them and finding out what really matters, it’s now time to create a keyword list and optimize them based on your needs and priorities.

So at this point, you want to have a look again at your goals and priorities for both the short and long term.

Identify the keywords that will fit in for these, based on their relevance. While doing this, also pay attention to other factors like the search volume, keyword difficulty, user intent etc.

Doing this will give you further insights on keywords you should optimize for and when you should optimize for specific keywords as part of your search engine optimization strategy.

And when this is fully done, you have to go ahead and prioritize keywords, based on how important they are to your marketing and of course, based on your keyword research outcomes.

Create & Optimize your Content

Content is the hallmark of keyword research.

Without good content, a keyword research is meaningless. That’s why to do a keywords research that works you need content that works.

To get started with this, you need to create content based off your keywords research outcomes. That’s the first step.

Now, you don’t have to create and optimize with keywords just any kind of content. That won’t help. You need to create valuable and well researched content that meets the needs of your target audience, exhaustively.

Yes, you have to go far and beyond everyone else, to offer additional value that is hard to beat.

Within that content, work on optimizing your choice keywords, using them in strategic locations within your content, including your meta tags, meta description, sub titles etc.

PS: While optimizing your content with relevant keywords, do not over stuff your keywords. You’ll be penalized. Be sure to use a mix of as much keyword variations as possible.

Optimize for Alternate Keywords

Beyond using exact match key words, pay attention to optimize your website and content for synonyms, related search phrases and alterate keywords.

Doing so will help you in ranking for keywords or search terms related to your choice keywords or let’s say with this strategy, you’ll get the chance to to show up for a topic instead of showing up for a specific keyword only..

This still falls in line with search intent which we discussed earlier. But, to get it better into perspective, optimizing for alternate keywords will get the search engine to understand and index your website far better than they would if you were optimizing for just a single keyword.

Also, it will ensure that you do not get to over optimize for a single search phrase which can actually lead to a penalty.

Like I mentioned earlier, to really dig into this, you need to understand the intent of your target audience while searching for your content and then try to use that to understand alternate or relevant search phrases outside your target keywords.

Let’s get a bit practical.

If i am trying to rank for search engine optimization for example, instead of using only “SEO” as my keyword, using relevant keywords like Search Engine Marketing, Search Optimization, Content Optimization, SEO Optimization, Search Engine etc. can actually help in positioning my content for topical visibility.

Optimize your Website

Doing a keyword research that works is not just about getting the right keywords for your blog post or content. It also has a lot to do with your website itself.

So, beyond your blog posts, your website has to be also optimized with relevant keywords. This is very important.

So, after you’re done with your keyword research, go to each of the individual pages on your website and optimize them with the relevant keywords.

Pay attention to optimize all relevant areas like the title tags, SEO title, Meta tags, Meta Descriptions etc. Ensure that you have the right keywords at those locations. This is very important.

Final Words

In conclusion, keywords research is a big part of search engine optimization that can actually make or break your success. Understandably, a lot of beginners do not know how to get started but with this guide, you have all it takes to hit the ground running.

You will learn a lot more as you get to optimize your website using the right keywords you’ll get from this guide. And you’ll also get to experience improved growth as you monitor your analytics insights, evaluate your outcomes and keep grounded using the right measures.

But most importantly, you don’t have to do this alone. You can get our SEO Experts to walk with you all the way here.

Now its your turn. What are some of your biggest challenges when it comes to keywords research and optimization? Drop your comments below.