It can be a challenge to find the right keywords, not to mention a time-consuming process. You need to get an idea of how many people are searching for that keyword, what kind of content they’re looking for and whether or not you can rank for it.
And even if you find the best keywords, how will you ever get traffic from them?
So imagine if you could find keywords in a matter of minutes. With the right keyword research strategy, finding new traffic sources is easier than ever. In my blog post, you will learn how to do keyword research for beginners and experts alike.
The Fastest Way To Get Keyword Ideas
If you want a quick and easy way to get keyword ideas, start with Google itself.
Google has a built-in function that offers suggestions when you start to type in your keyword.
You’ll see the suggested phrases after the space key on your keyboard at the top of Google’s search bar.
This method is a great way to get commonly searched keywords without wasting time trying every combination of keywords.
Google also has a ‘related to’ section at the bottom of the SERPs, which is another excellent source of keyword ideas.
These are phrases typed in Google’s search engine by other users, and some will be relevant to your business objectives.
While on the search engine results page, look at the ‘people also asked’ section below the results for more ideas. You will be able to determine the search intent.
With just Google, you can generate hundreds of keyword ideas for your content within minutes.
How Do You Do Basic Keyword Research?
It starts with finding out what people are searching on Google.
You need to find the most popular search terms and phrases that are related to your blog. So, you can do some keyword research by using Google’s Keyword Tool, as it’s the one most people use at first.
There are four main sections of this tool:
Search volume – shows how many searches per month there have been on average for a particular keyword.
-Keyword ideas – these show how many searches for variations of the keyword you enter in the input box and where they rank on Google’s search engine results page (SERP).
-Ad group ideas – gives a list of specific keywords related to your query; this can be helpful if there is a particular keyword you want to target.
-Keyword difficulty – shows how hard it will be for your website or post to rank on Google SERPs for a given keyword.
More Keyword Research Tools
I’ve already mentioned the Google Keyword Planner, but it’s not the only option. There are some other good keyword research tools out there worth checking out.
Google Trends is used to see how popular a keyword is over time. Or to compare how different words are trending on Google. It’s also a keyword research tool for finding potential long-tail terms that would work well with your product. I’ll explain the difference between long tail and short tail keywords later.
SEMrush is an easy-to-use tool that provides a lot of information on the keywords you’re researching, as well as suggestions for related words and phrases.
Ahrefs is a great tool that identifies keywords, links to the websites they’re found on and provides information about their SEO strength.
Wordstream is an excellent tool because it allows you to find keywords by category, search volume, and more. It also shows how many clicks you’ll get when someone searches for that keyword in Google’s SERP.
KWFinder is another popular keyword tool that analyzes keywords and provides information about how competitive they are.
But it’s pointless using one of these tools unless you know what to do with it.
What Is A Good Search Volume To Target?
Generally, you should avoid targeting high-volume keywords. These are usually the most competitive and challenging to rank.
Instead, go for low search volume keywords because they can be more accessible.
But the thing is, no keyword research tool is 100% accurate. Every tool makes a best-guess approximation of the search volume based on its algorithm.
To make the most of keyword research tools and accurately measure how competitive a given keyword is, you’ll need to do some manual work too.
For instance, if you want to rank for “chocolate cake recipe,” similar research recipes on Pinterest or see what other bloggers are talking about in their content.
This process will allow you to figure out how much competition there is for the keyword in question.
You can use multiple tools to get an idea of the competitiveness of keywords.
For example, suppose one tool reports that ‘keyword A’ is getting 200 searches a month, while ‘keyword B’ sees 200,000. You see similar results across multiple tools. In that case, you’ll get a clearer picture of the true difficultly.
And there are also zero volume keywords to consider.
Long Tail Vs. Short Tail
There are two types of keywords; log tail and short tail.
Long-tail keywords. These are less competitive and more straightforward to rank for than long-tail keywords because they only target a subset of the population.
For instance, “chocolate cake recipe” is a long-tail keyword. It’s specific and requires less competition to rank for than something like “cake.”
Short-tail keywords are usually harder to rank for because they’re typically more popular and have more people competing for them.
It’s better to target long-tail keywords while your website builds more authority.
The Next Step
Now that you have many keyword phrases to choose from, it’s time to put them into action with search engine optimization. Choosing effective keywords is the foundation of any SEO strategy.
To rank for keywords, the content you create needs to be optimized.
Optimization can include:
– Title tags with your keyword phrase in them
– Headings and subheadings containing your keyword phrases
– Internal links using variations of that exact keyphrase
By focusing on a targeted keyword for each piece of content, maintaining the content over time with fresh updates, and being consistent with your SEO campaign, you will eventually see results.
But it doesn’t happen overnight.
To rank in Google it can take up to six months or even a year, depending on the keyword’s competitiveness. Another factor is how much content you have out there already ranked well in search engines.
So start now, and keep the rewards later.