How to Perform Keyword Research: A Beginner’s Guide
SEO is not what it was some 10 years ago and in the last few years has evolved quite dramatically into multiple disciplines or branches. Despite this, the fundamentals of SEO remain the same to this very day.
At its core, the key goal of all SEO strategies remains to find online opportunities to direct traffic and increase the visibility of a site on search engines, and the heart of any successful SEO strategy lies in good keyword research.
Keyword research predominantly is a way to connect your business with its potential customers and audiences.
Look at it this way, a search engine basically works as an information retrieval system that is built around user queries and its primary job is to satisfy those queries by listing the most relevant search results or website pages.
In simple terms, keyword research involves finding out the keywords your audience is searching for in a particular solution set.
In this article, we will be taking you through the very basics of keyword research while sharing best practices derived from years of experience.
Key Takeaways from the Article:
- What is Keyword Research?
- What is User Intent?
- How to Conduct Research Keywords for Your SEO Strategy?
- Best Practices to Improve Your Organic Ranking?
What is Keyword Research?
In simple words, keyword research is identifying popular words and phrases that people are using for their queries on search engines, such as Google or Bing. How does this help your efforts?
Well, knowing what your audience wants or what are searching for is very crucial in content marketing because this allows you to tailor your content around these keywords and phrases that help it rank or appear on top of search engine result pages (SERP).
What’s more, keyword research also helps you identify high-in-demand keywords and low-competition keywords which can help you further improve your organic search results ranking. However, in the last 10 years, modern keyword research prioritizes ‘Search Intent’ or ‘User Intent’. What does this mean?
What is User Intent?
Well, when you think keyword research today, it really should be topic research. You are not ranking for keywords anymore. You are ranking for intent.
So, you need to understand what people are searching for, and what typically what they are searching for usually depends on the intent of what they are doing or what their main search query is trying to solve or achieve.
What this means is users simply want to get an answer. This tells us that keyword research focuses on a topic. So, you would want to understand what the topic is and not just the keyword.
Everyone wants to rank for the seed keyword, but not everyone can do that because that keyword is at the top of the funnel and there is a lot of competition. Therefore, you would have to look for themes and associations that accommodate the ‘User Intent’ or ‘User Queries’.
In operational or practical terms, this means that you have to bear in mind that the primary purpose of searching keywords that are getting a high volume of searches per month is to find topics for you to create valuable content for your readers.
How to Conduct Research Keywords for Your SEO Strategy?
There are two approaches you can take to conduct keyword research:
Data Drive Approach
Many tools can tell you what keywords websites are ranking on. For instance, Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, and SEMrush are brilliant tools. The last of these can even provide a detailed analysis of what your keywords should be.
This a good approach is you to build long-term goals for your business. But for a short-term fix, you have to go one step beyond the data to fix your website. Why?
Well, all of these tools use their own algorithm and unless you hook them to the Google search console, the data can be pretty unreliable and even if it is reliable, it is all over the place and not specific enough to accommodate short-term approaches.
Qualitative/Strategic Approach
However, data will not give you all the answers. You have to look for them. You have to manually evaluate your website’s shortcomings and find what’s working for other sites similar to yours.
Constantly asking yourself, why is this blog so popular or why is this blog so popular? How are they providing the best customer experience?
These introspections will get you to the real answers.
Best Practices to Improve Your Organic Ranking?
Focus more on providing user-friendly content than search-optimized content.
During the past year, Google has changed a lot. There has been the E-EAT update followed by a Helpful Content Update, both of which focus on acknowledging the use of AI or authorship, adding expert opinion, and creating useful user-friendly content instead of search-friendly content.
So, keyword research is still relevant today, especially for organizing user journeys and sales funnels in paid advertising and campaigns.
Still, it won’t get you very far in SEO. So, if you want to appear in organic searches more often, focus on ‘User Intent’ and ‘Long-Tailed Keywords’ for continued success.
Other Resources You Can Explore
There are a number of online resources you can explore to gain additional insights on advanced topics such as different keyword categories, types of search queries, and how to use different keyword research tools. The best way to do it select a sub-topic and take a free course on YouTube.
However, before you go down this new learning path. We would advise you to look into Xfinity for a seamless, uninterrupted, and error-free experience.
With its blazing-fast speeds and reliable connection polishing your skills on data-intensive tools will become a piece of cake. For more information, contact the Xfinity customer service team to sign up for the plan of your choice today.
Final Thought
Like everything in life, the key to good keyword research or keyword optimization is finding the right balance between user-friendly content and keyword/search optimization.
