What is Keyword Research?
by Rishi Anand
Do you want to get your website ranked first in Google search results? It’s hard, but not impossible. Getting listed even on the first page of Google can be done by the process of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Keyword Research is considered to be a major part of SEO. With keyword research, you can find the most trendy and searched terms for search engines, mainly Google. Subsequently, you can incorporate that term in your website or blog content to push your site to a higher rank on search engines and thus, create more traffic. Keyword research focuses on a set of target keywords that you need for your chosen content to rank higher. You can find and analyze the actual search terms that people enter into search engines and target your content at them.
The History of Keyword Research
In the 2000s, the process of keyword research was completely disparate from todays’ time. Optimizers are only used to focus on keyword stuffing, search volumes, and thin contents. Earlier, this proved to be an effective method to rank faster. However, as time passed, it turned out to be a failure because of the lack of quality content, growth of search intent, and change in Google algorithms. Therefore, the evolution of keyword research started and today, it is a much more developed process and an important part of SEO. It has now become more and more topical.
The Process behind Keyword Research
Once you have decided on your persona, you will have to forge a plan for the keywords, for which you are already ranking and for those keywords, for which you want to rank. A very good and easy method to follow is the PIE Method. The term ‘PIE’ stands for Protect, Improve and Expand. Let’s dig deeper.
- Protect – It concerns the protection of your position for the keywords that you already rank for. These can be brand names or keywords that are related to your product and service.
- Improve – This portion deals with the prospect keywords, for which you rank anywhere from the second to the tenth position of Google Search result.
- Expand– It refers to those keywords, which can perform well in the only PPC because these have no visibility in organic search results. They can be used as new campaign keywords for a PPC campaign.
By using the above approach, you can begin your keyword ideation and proceed further with perfect keyword research.
Few Factors to Consider before Choosing Keywords
Before you find ways to get traffic or rank your business on Google, you need to know your audience for some points such as –
- Who is my target audience?
- What are they looking for?
- What are their goals?
Perfect keyword research is always based on your audience requisites. You should always consider the above-given points about your audience to select the best keywords. Keep answers ready for your inner queries, like, “what you want to rank for” and “what your audience wants” So, focusing on your audience should be your priority. Then only you can use the best keyword research strategy to polish your ideas and plans which can be more successful rather than focusing on illogical keywords.
Types of Keywords in SEO
For perfect conduction of keyword research process for SEO, you should have prior knowledge on various types of keywords, which are primarily used in the contents. There are mainly three types of keywords, which are –
- Short-tail Keywords– These keywords are known as ‘main’ or ‘seed’ keywords in the SEO world. These consist of only one or two words but they are mostly searched for ‘generic’ keywords in the search engines.
- Middle-tail Keywords– These keywords are known as “targeted” or “intent” keywords. Because these words point to queries such as, ‘what the product is for’ or ‘what kind of service is or product is the searcher looking for’. Middle tail keywords contain three to four keywords but these have fewer search volumes than the generic keywords.
- Long-tail Keywords– These keywords are the most wanted and targeted keywords for SEO professionals. The keywords are very detailed and have a specific intent in them and therefore, they have a high rate of conversion. Long-tail keywords contain more than 5 words.
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Some Effective Keyword Research Tools
Most SEO professionals look for the best keyword research tools to plan and implement their keyword research process. Many of them go with the paid tools and many choose free tools to get the best keyword suggestions. Below mentioned are some of the widely used tools, which you can use for your keyword research process.
- Google Keywords planner is one of the best tools which can help in search volume estimates for the keywords. It also assists in generating new keywords from the existing targeted words or phrases.
- Google Suggest is also considered to be the best tool for keyword research. It was introduced in 2012 and is used as a live feature while the user is typing search phrases into the Google website. Google suggests the organic search input of billions of other users and tries to guess what a user might be looking for.
Conclusion
Keyword research is a basic and mundane task and it’s a necessity for a perfect SEO of any content or web page. Without keyword research, it is impossible to do a productive SEO because you will never know what exact keywords are being searched for, and what you should target. Being a digital marketer, or a business owner, remember that keyword research is the seed, by which you can grow a big tree of highly effective and positive SEO results.
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