In this digital era, users just do not stumble upon your website. Instead, they look out for information, products or services they need. This makes Internet a great channel to reach out to users today, with a whopping 50% penetration from the global audience.
To make your business visible to the right audience you should target the right keyword(s). Ideally, the same keywords that the users would key in into the search engines. So, it is important to do keyword research before embarking on your digital marketing campaigns or Search Engine Optimization.
Today, there are several qualitative
keyword research tools and keyword research methods to help you choose the
right keywords based on their search volume and competitiveness.
Wondering how to do keyword research
like a pro? It is quite simple. Once you importance of keyword research in SEO,
you can become a keyword research expert and leverage suitable keyword research
free tools to choose the top keywords that work for you.
How
Do You Do Keyword Research?
The process of keyword research
involves understanding the value of the keywords and measuring it against the
competitiveness. The goal, however, is to boost your website traffic.
With so many tools around, it is
obvious for you to think how to use Google trends for keyword research. Well.
Once you get a hang of it, everything becomes easy.
Related
: How to Use Google Search Trends for SEO
One of the prominent tools is the
Google Keyword Planner. Several marketers and businesses often ask “How to use
Google keyword planner for keyword research”. Well, it is a simple self-explanatory
tool that works wonders.
Evaluating
the Importance of Keyword Research
While it is possible to reach out to
50% of the world’s population online, it is important to understand the need to
make sure you are visible to them. This is exactly where there is a need to
understand the importance of keyword research. You cannot reach out without the
help of highly targeted and specific keywords.
As internet marketing has exploded,
almost every business has a hand in different types of advanced digital
marketing techniques. Some of the popular online marketing techniques include
content marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing as well as
conversion rate optimization.
Keyword research sets the foundation
for all these digital marketing practices. Online tools like SEMrush, Google
Analytics and others provide keywords, which explain where the organic traffic
is coming from.
Keyword Research is a Blueprint of Your Online Marketing Efforts
Keywords show what your business
does, what products or services you offer, whom you target, etc. When you use
the relevant and right keywords, your content marketers will know what kind of
content they should market. This ultimately helps you to build your CRO funnel
with a eider mouth.
Therefore, keyword research can be
regarded as the blueprint of your online marketing efforts. It makes everything
more efficient down the line. Moreover, as discussed before, if you do not know
which are the relevant search terms that lead to your website, how will you
drive traffic, generate sales and boost ROI?
Now, one thing we would like to say
at this point is, keyword research is an ongoing process, not a “one time
thing”. Still, several marketers do not do keyword research regularly for
different reasons.
Maximizing your keyword research
will help you to get the most qualified leads. That is the importance of
keyword research. It ultimately helps you boost your conversion rate and
generate higher revenue.
Here are a few major reasons that
explain the importance of keyword research for successful digital marketing.
Let us look into it one by one in detail.
1.
Keyword Targeting for Website Pages
When we talk about keyword targeting
in SEO, it is about using specific keywords for a particular web page(s). Here,
typically, every page on the website should be assigned with a focus
keyword, which focuses on the topic of that page.
Say, you have a pet grooming
business and you happen to sell kitty collars. So, you should have a page
dedicated to that product. Assume you write great content for that and the page
also ranked #1, when the keyword “kitty collars” is searched on Google.
Still, you might not be able to get
the traffic that you were expecting. So, what could be the reason? Part of the
issue is that your focus keyword is not a phrase that is highly searched.
While this keyword would rank #1 in
Google, it might not be frequently used keyword. This will make you lose out on
majority of the organic traffic. This is exactly where keyword research can
come to your rescue.
Thorough
Keyword Research
A good keyword research will dig
deep into your industry and helps you understand how potential customers
actually search for the products and services you offer. While you prefer
calling your product “kitty collars”, potential customers will be searching for
more generic terms like cat collars.
Therefore, keyword research will help you know what customers are looking for and quickly appear in that spot. Ideally, your focus keyword should target all the possible search phrases to some extent on the basis of what types of keywords or intent of our target audience.
2.
Competitiveness of the Keyword
While knowing what the customers are
looking for is a great way to start, it is also important to have a list of
keywords is important to create your strategy. For this you should know how
competitive your keywords are.
Although your primary keyword will
have high search volume, it is essential for you to check the competition for
that keyword. High volume keywords are often accompanied by steep competition.
By competition, we mean that you will have to compete with the industry
leaders, which will unfortunately will be an uphill battle you are bound to
lose.
So, instead choosing high
competition and high volume terms, you can turn to long-tail keywords – more
specific or detailed queries. These terms will often have less competition,
which gives you a chance to compete for organic traffic.
Long-tail keywords are the extended
versions of the primary keywords. Say, your primary keyword is “chocolate
cakes”, then the long-tail-keyword will be “delicious chocolate cakes”.
Unfortunately, these keywords come
with a trade off – that is they will typically have very low search volumes.
However, these keywords are good at converting your visitors into customers.
Related
: Long Tail Keywords – Be Specific and Boost Your Conversion Rate
Therefore, a solid SEO strategy
should be a healthy mix of both, short-tail and long-tail keywords. Also, as a
rule of thumb, be equipped to put in more efforts when you decide to target
broader search phrases.
3.
You Will Know What Keywords You Are ranking For
If you want to succeed in online
marketing, then it is important for you to know where you stand. This is
possible when you do keyword research, as you will be able to know what
keywords you are ranking for and who are your competitors.
You can use SEO tools like SEMRush to
get all the data that you are looking for. Tools like this will show you who
your competitors are. Next, you can leverage Google Analytics. This helps you
to find out which keywords you are currently ranking for.
Once you find this, you can
immediately find the related keywords. You can turn to Google AdWords Keyword
Planner to get the related terms. In SEMRush also this can be done by choosing
the option “Related Keywords” present on the “Keyword Analytics” drop-down on
the left hand side of the screen.
4.
You Can Find Your Competitors’ Target Keywords
It is important for you to know what
keywords you are targeting and then set your goals accordingly. This
can be done by taking a look at their source code.
Once you find your competitors’
target keywords, you will also be able to target these low-competition keywords
and then successfully outperform the rest. When you get insights on the
strategies that work for your competitors, you can quickly adopt it to boost
your business and gain a competitive edge.
This becomes all the more
significant when it comes to competing for the online space.
5.
Keyword Research Helps you Think Like Your Customers
One of the biggest importance of
keyword research is that it helps you to think like your customers. This can be
your great strength because you look forward to serve your customers better.
When you know the “what” and “how”
of their thinking, it will be easier for you to come up with a better online
marketing plan. Keyword research helps you to identify the best possible
keywords that are frequently searched by the users to find the products or
services that you sell.
Once you find this, you can then
check its competition and search volume and then identify the best possible
long-tail keywords.
6.
Increased Conversion Rates
Keyword research helps to increase
the relevancy and the quality of your web content. This in turn attracts and
retains the search users and potential customers. Meaningful content will
ultimately help you boost your conversion rates.
When you place the target keywords
in the right spot, it will positively impact your organic search rankings. Over
77% of the search users prefer organic links over paid ads and click on these
organic links. So, you will targeting this huge segment with the help of
keyword research.
7.
Insights on Marketing Trends
Now, this is one thing that any
marketer would never want to miss out on. Keyword research will help you to
gain deep insights necessary to create a great marketing campaign that works.
Apart from the current marketing
trends, keyword analysis will also present you with the user behavior, which is
critical for any digital marketing campaign. You will be able to know what is
important to your target audience or what is popular among them.
8.
Enhance Your Audience Engagement
Last but not the least, keyword research
helps businesses and marketers like you to get a chance to enhance the
engagement among your target audience. Once you do keyword research you will
know which are the keywords that bring traffic to your website.
You can then use those keywords to
create content that fascinates and interests your users across various social
media platforms. Therefore, you will be making an impact over audience across
different channels, including organic search.
What Are the Major Takeaways From Keyword Research?
Search Engine optimization is
critical to succeed in any business. Keyword make a huge part of this. If you
want to have a strong online presence, then it is important to understand
keywords and know how to look out for them.
When chosen and used properly,
detailed keyword research will help you to boost your business to a great
extent. Next, if you master long-tail keyword strategy, then you will not only
see spike in your website traffic, but will also get higher number of visitors
who will progress along your purchasing cycle.
Conclusion
One major importance of keyword
research is that you do not have to waste time wondering what works for your
target audience. As soon as you complete your keyword research you will be
quickly able to get all the answers that you are looking for.
Apart from the right keywords, it
also helps you to find all the necessary data and the findings needed to draft
a good marketing strategy. Once you carry out a thorough keyword research, do
not forget to completely optimize your website for those keywords.
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