What Is Keyword Research? Beginner’s Guide

Keyword Research is the most important step in SEO, and here in this article is a detailed guide to finding the best keyword and some of the best keyword tools to find the right keyword for SEO. 

Keyword research: Identifying suitable high-volume search terms is very important before writing any content for your website. Keywords are responsible for informing the direction of the content, making sure that the contents are relevant and searchable on the search engine. 

Though it normally seems to be hard and time-consuming, the effort invested in it is well worth it, considering that thorough keyword research gives a higher chance of ranking on the search engine. 

Nuggets: The Long-tail keyword is the main key to a successful SEO.

What Is Keyword Research? 

Keywords can be simply defined as words, which can be in the form of a word or long sentence(mostly in the form of questions). 

While Keyword Research can be described as a process of carefully finding, collecting and analyzing words/sentences people enter into search engines with the purpose of using them for a peculiar, which is mostly for search engine optimization. 

Keyword research is commonly a three-step process: 

• Research for keyword ideas that people are searching for. 
• Verify the SEO/ranking difficulty( which can involve; the search volume, the website ranking for that particular keyword, etc).
• Figure out the best way to rank on the search engine. 

Why is Keyword Research Important? 

Well as stated earlier in the post, Keyword research is the most important step in SEO/content writing. There is not going to be any content without a keyword to write about. But there is much more to keyword research.

Keywords are used to find solutions when making research online. And suppose your content is able to get in front of the audience, you gain more traffic. 

Features of Keyword Research

There are three features to consider when conducting keyword research: 

Volume:

When conducting keyword research, it is very important to consider the volume of the particular keyword, which is the average number of searches it has. And the lower the volume, the higher the chance of ranking first for the keyword. But if no one searches for the keyword, it means no traffic to your site. 

A keyword volume is measured by “monthly search volume (MSV)”. Which results in the number of times a keyword is searched per month. 

Search Intent/Relevance: 

This is integral to developing a keyword plan. Knowing the intent of the keyword is actually considering the purpose of searching for the potential consumer; in other words, putting yourself in the consumer’s shoes. 

Considering whether the content fulfils the consumer’s intent, goes a long way. Some of the intent to consider are; are they willing to buy now? Are they looking for a specific product/website/company, etc?

So having well-matched content that fulfils the consumer intent will compel the consumer to stay longer and help the website to rank higher on the search engine. 

Figuring out the consumer intent will help you use trigger phrases as part of the long-tail keywords.

Authority:

Sources/Websites with more authority are prone to be ranked higher and are also provided with more weight by goggles. So it is important to work very hard on your content, enriching the site with detailed and comprehensive information and also promoting the content to earn backlinks and social signals. 

So if a keyword’s SERP is filled with sources/websites with high authority, like Forbes, Wikipedia, etc., you probably have a tiny chance of ranking for that particular keyword, and instead, choose another keyword with less/no amount of sources with high authority. 

How To Conduct Keyword Research

Before beginning the keyword research process, it is essential to improve/optimize your content, paying attention to the features of keyword research explained above. 

Below are the steps that will help you perform detailed keyword research: 

Brainstorming Keywords:

Going online and beginning to search for keywords isn’t just right, first one has to brainstorm on what keyword niche they would want to write on. Some of the most common niches are Tech, Education, How to’s, etc. 

So brainstorming is the right beginning of the keyword research process, which involves deciding on your desired niche and identifying competitors in that niche. Once you are done brainstorming, then you can proceed to a keyword research tool and input your “seed/niche keyword” and there you can get an influx of keywords 

For example, if you own a carpentry company, you can seed the keyword can be: 

• Carpentry Jobs
• Luxury Woods
• Cheap woods, etc. 

However, these seed keywords are not meant to be a target with pages on your website. These keywords are like seeds you plant for the next step of the research process. Though it is an important step to getting started, don’t get obsessed too much over them. 

Check For Competitions:

Considering the competition and also which specific keyword they rank for is extremely important, these will help you know which keyword is best for you to rank on, and also on how to best write your content, to suit the algorithm which will assure your chance of ranking higher than competitions. 

And this can be done by just googling one of the keywords and checking who is ranking for that particular keyword. And if none of the top-ranking websites aren’t similar to your site, you should search for more similar websites, by being specific with the keyword. The goal is to target a more relevant website in that particular niche you are in. 

And once you’ve found out the competition, you can go ahead to a keyword research tool like ahref or Uber suggest to verify which pages attract the most traffic and what keywords these pages are targeting. 

You then repeat this process for every keyword, and you will end up with a list of relevant keywords. And we are yet to even finish the process. So whether these keywords ideas are either informational or maybe with another intent like a commercial intent, what really matters in this stage is gathering as many relevant keywords as possible.

And suppose you might have covered most of the keywords, you can always try using the content gap on the ahrefs’ website explorer; it will help you find keywords you are yet to rank for, but that some of your competitors are. 

Use (a) Keyword Research Tools:

Getting keywords from competitors is fine, yet there will be some keywords they are yet to rank for, which is why using a keyword research tool is very essential. And there are many keyword tools out there, but there are some that are mostly used by most people; which will be listed in this article.. 

Most Keyword Research Tools operate very similarly. It typically involves, inputting a seed keyword, and they show/pull keyword ideas from the database based on that seed keyword. 

Some of the most common Keyword Research Tools are:

• Adsense
• Ahref
• Ubersuggest
• Semrush

And while all these are good, the most well-known keyword research tool is the Google Keyword Planner (GKP), and though it is popularly made for people who want to display paid adverts on Google, it can also be used to find keywords for SEO purposes. 

Google Keyword Planner (GKP) is also capable of generating keyword ideas that aren’t really related to the seed keyword. In doing this, you can discover new seed keywords and these can produce new keyword ideas. 

All these tools are very great if you are just starting out, but there are limitations in terms of data and functionality in the free versions, so prepare to spend for more functionality and results. 

Here is an example of the functionality of a keyword research tool, in its pro version, which cannot be achieved in the free version.

Having over 3.9 million results on a single search can never be achieved with any free tool. It might seem like a huge amount of keywords, but the truth is best, and you’d learn how to manoeuvre and trim it down later.  

Study Your Niche:

Following the steps above is more than enough to generate tons of keywords, but at the same time, the process keeps you “in the circle” so to say. 

You can study your niche by going to places where your target audience hangs out, places like Q&A sites (e.g. quora), industry forums/groups, etc., and studying their conversations. 

For instance, this is an image from a thread on Reddit

And with a quick verification on the keyword research tool, you can get information concerning the keyword, and possibly get other keywords out of it. And also, the content on the Reddit thread can act as a foundation for your piece of content. 

Types Of Keywords– By Search Intent

There are mainly Four(4) types of keywords: 

Informational Keywords:

Not every keyword with a high search volume brings conversions to the websites. The reason is that people are simply searching for information, and these keywords are referred to as conversational keywords. 

Examples of informational keywords are: 

• Sleeping tips (2,400 searches/month[ii])
• Things to help you sleep (4,400 searches/month)
• Benefits of yoga (9,900 searches/month)
• iPad Air vs iPad Pro (2,900 searches/month)
• Best electric cars (22,200 searches/month), etc. 

These keywords mostly contain question words, as seen in the instances above.

These keywords have little intent to exact real actions, unlike transactional or commercial keywords. 

Navigational Keywords:

This is a type of keyword that is meant to help with navigation to locations. For example, when someone types in a  company name into a search engine, this is referred to as a navigational search.  

Examples of Navigational Keywords are as follows: 

• Brand names, Product names, Service names, Locations or Words such as Near me, Directions to Places, Prices, Cost of an item or service, etc

In such searches, the people are already familiar with the product, location or company already and want to find out the right website or location to either get a product or direction that leads to the location.

Commercial Keywords:

These keywords are mainly about the searcher’s interest in the product/service. And such queries are entered into the search engine to know more about a specific product or service. 

You can go for such keywords with lists, reviews, and comparison articles, depending on the actual keyword. 

Example of Commercial Keywords: 

• Pizza Hut restaurant near me 
• Iphone vs Samsung 
• Huawei P20 Pro review 
• Food challenge 

These keywords are valuable opportunities to reach a particular audience that could be a potential customer,mainly because it reveals the interest of a person to purchase or partake in some sort of commercial activity. 

Transactional Keywords:

These kinds of keywords reveal a strong intent of the searcher to take imminent action. And these kinds of keywords can be targeted with ads(paid).

Transactional Keywords are also referred to as buyer keywords because they are most likely used by a person who is ready to make a purchase.

Transactional Keywords Instances: 

• Buy iPhone 5s 
• Supermarket near me 
• Buy Crypto Online
• Truck For Sale, etc.

These types of keywords can occur when someone has already searched for the information, made the decision, and is determined to purchase the item/service. 

Final Words

In conclusion, with the information in this post,  there shouldn’t be any more queries concerning keyword research and if there are any, you can ask your questions down in the comment and I will make sure to reply. Thank you for choosing our website.