Do you wonder why suddenly “keyword” has become one of the most frequently used terms? Do you also see it everywhere as we do? Is it déjà vu, or is it actually happening? Lots of questions pop into your mind, and that’s when you begin your own research. Let me break it down for you in simpler words.

Has it ever happened to you that you have quite a common topic to think or write about (which, by the way, is subjective in nature), but when you jot it down as it is, in the search engine, the results are not what you are looking for? Well! It happened to us quite a number of times. The main reason for its occurrence is that we have brilliant ideas at the back of our minds but no specific keyword for them, so we end up getting a load of incoherent results.

What is the deal with keywords?

Keywords are the words that people type in search engines, to get the desired information. For example, if you are looking for a good handbag, you would surely type “female casual handbags” on the search engine. Though there are multiple words here, a keyword is also present to generate numerous results. People often call keywords by the name of Google searches, and though they are synonymous terms, people related to the SEO industry tend to use this terminology quite frequently.

Are keywords THAT important?

Keywords hold mighty importance in the world of search engine marketing, and they have laid the foundation for marketing campaigns, like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-per-click (PPC), because they make your website visible among a plethora of results for your searches. People get their web content tailored around the keywords in order to make their websites rank on top of Google results. As a result, lots of web traffic is diverted your way. Sounds juicy, no? Yes, it does! Let’s first delve into SEO and PPC. Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the method to optimize your website and make it appear in Google’s organic results. It brings specific and quality traffic to your website. There is another way to make your website visible as a result of a specific keyword search, and that method is called Pay-per-click (PPC). Here, you have to pay Google to bring your website to the front for the keyword search results. For that, you need to have a big fat advertising budget and you will be positioned way above the organic results. We do not want to burn a hole in your pocket so let’s focus on SEO and how to do keyword research for it.

Keyword research to make or break — how to do it?

So far, we all are aware of the MAJOR importance that keywords have in the world of SEO. The right kind of keywords is like a lifeline to drowning online businesses. They are responsible for making the process of SEO success and for that, you have to do extensive keyword research. Now, the most sought-after questions arise — what is keyword research? How to do it effectively? Keyword research is the term used for the process of discovering what words and phrases your target audience is using to search for businesses like yours and then optimizing your content according to that, to appear at the forefront in the search engine results. Keyword research lays the foundation for the strategy designed to get the target audience to find your website. As simple as it may sound, IT IS NOT THAT SIMPLE. It requires a lot of hard brainstorming and underlying research about what people are currently searching for. If your keywords are too difficult, you will have a hard time getting a good ranking on Google and if the words are the ones that people don’t search for, you will get a lot of traffic but it won’t convert. If you take a thorough look around the SEO market, you will find a number of methods and tools widely used for the very purpose. We will outline some of the methods and tools below so that you can select the one that works best for you. You can start by making a spreadsheet with general categories for your keywords. These categories should correlate with the product categories that you have. The list should be short with 8–10 topics, maximum. You can even imagine yourself as a buyer for your product or service. Now that you have properly defined general categories, it’s time to identify the terms or phrases that the potential customers might use in the search bar to locate your products or services, within each of your general categories. You can extract this information from website analytics software like Hubspot’s Sources or Google Analytics report, and identify the keywords people are already using to arrive at your website. This can help you to brainstorm the words around that data and make your research fruitful. This method opens many closed doors for you. You can even ask your co-workers and peers for their valuable insights. Researching for keywords is an art and there are many creative ways to get success down that dark road.

• Take Google as your search engine, search a keyword in it and you will find a list of related search phrases at the bottom of your page.
• For more extensive research, find the same on the second page as well.
• There are websites that offer charts of phrases people look for related to your topic.

Your competitors can be your ladder taking you up. Identifying the keywords that send traffic to your competitors will be the best way to identify your keywords. Just make sure that the level of the competitors matches that of your own. If you take huge brands as your competition, your business will be crushed into pieces. The simplest way to analyze the strength of your keywords is by using an SEO tool or a keyword research tool. A few popular keyword research tools are Semrush, Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, and Wordtracker. Both Ubersuggest and Wordtracker offer free versions for us to begin. When you are analyzing your keywords, this is what you actually look for.

1. What exactly is the term that people use? You must ensure that your keyword phrase is the same as the search term used commonly.
2. How high is the search volume? It is necessary to learn how frequently the keyword phrase is used because if nobody uses it, then it won’t be of any help to you in structuring a strategy around it. So you must reach for the keyword with the highest search volume.
3. You must check for competition as to how steep it is. The paid tools have the ability to set paid ads apart from organic search. You must look for the ones with an increased search volume but lower competition for organic search. Now that’s a sweet spot everyone would aspire to achieve.

WRAP UP!

The Google trends have a 180 degrees shift and keyword research has played a crucial role in shaping those trends. The digital marketing game has taken a leap forward ever since SEO made its debut in the big picture.