The 6 Fundamental For Keyword Research

In 2012, with the introduction of the Hummingbird update, Search engines shifted away from matching keywords in search queries to keywords on web pages. Today, the impact of SEO has moved keyword research toward a deeper understanding of what words mean in different contexts.

However, keyword research is still important in a different way than it has been in the past.

In this article, we will look into why is keyword research important, how to do keyword research in an effective wayWhat are the different keyword research techniques, and a few tips to rank higher on search engines.

What is Keyword Research?

In simple words, keyword research is the process of finding words, phrases, and queries that users are searching on search engines.

It involves finding relevant keywords for a website and individual web pages so that the audience can get the best page to answer their queries, which is also known as the search intent of a user.
Keyword research also includes categorizing search words or queries in the separate stages of a user journey and different categories of search, for example, informational, navigational, and commercial. 

Effective keyword research can help a user in many ways, such as a user can find a page for ‘how to’ in-depth solutions, a user can discover a personality or a brand, and many more.

Also, if keyword research is done carefully, businesses can take advantage of ranking on keywords and it would increase their website traffic.

Types of Keyword Research

In keyword research, there are main 4 types of keywords. These types of keywords are categorized based on the types of search intent of a user or we can say the general goal behind the user’s search.

Let’s understand these 4 types of keywords in more detail:

1. Informational Keywords

In this category of keywords, users are looking for solutions to their queries and not to be sold to.

If your business wants to target this audience, your questions of keywords should include phrases such as why/what/when/who/how/where as well as related phrases.

For our SEO example, your informational keywords list must include “SEO Tips” or “How to do SEO”

Informational keywords are mostly higher in the marketing funnel. This means that users are earlier in their purchase journey and less likely to take action, as a result, these keywords tend to have lower conversion rates.

However, can help you and your business to build brand awareness.

2. Navigational Keywords

When a user searches for navigational keywords that means they want to find a specific website or web page.

Here we have the example of, “Twitter”

The users who search for navigational keywords are already aware of the company or products they want to find.

A well-known brand or individual can take benefits of driving traffic to their website. It is also important to note that once your business is famous, your brand name will naturally rank higher than others.

3. Commercial Keywords

Users search for commercial keywords to research specific companies, products, or services.

People may want to check about companies or some product-related reviews, to compare products with other brands or may be looking for offers.

If you want to rank higher on commercial keywords, you can start with reviews, comparison articles, and listicles.

Let’s take an example of a “Free SEO Tool”

It appears from our above-given example, that people searching for this keyword are most likely to want an SEO tool or will be involved in some kind of commercial activity in the future.

Recommended Read: Tips To Rank Higher in Google

4. Transactional Keywords

These kinds of keywords show the user's intent to buy or take immediate action.

If you want to target this audience then you should implement paid ads and other strong marketing tactics. You can also use highly optimized product pages and landing pages where potential buyers or users can take instant action.

For a transactional keyword example, we have: “Buy Car Online”

User search for transactional keywords, when they have already done with other queries and now they have information, made a certain decision, and now wants to buy some specific product or service.

You may identify these keywords with, “Sale”, “Buy”, “Offer”, “For Sale”, “Subscription” and other related phrases. 

What are the elements of Keyword Research?

Now that we know, the main 4 types of keyword categories, let’s understand the different elements of keyword research which are essential to know for good results.

There are a total of 3 elements of keyword research which are as follows:

1. Relevance

Relevancy is critical when it comes to Google ranking. This is where the context of search intent adds. Note that if you want to rank higher on search results then your content should meet the searcher's intent.

Your content must provide the best resources for the query that users want to know. Google will never rank your content higher if content provides less value than other related content that exists on the SERP.

2. Authority

Google promotes the content and website it seems authoritative. You must create content with helpful information, and earn social proof and backlinks on your website in order to become authoritative.

Your content will only rank higher on search engines if you are authoritative in the first place and with great content otherwise a website like Forbes will never let you. 

3. Volume

Keyword volume is measured by Monthly Search Volume (MSV), which means the number of times the keyword is searched by users per month.

Your content may end up ranking on the first page of search engines for a specific keyword, however, if no user ever searches for it, you will get no traffic and no benefits.

It will same as running a shop in a ghost town. 

Why is Keyword Research Important?

Keyword research assists you in finding the right keywords to target and provides valuable insights related to a query that your target audience is searching for. 

Knowing these valuable keyword insights helps in creating an effective content strategy as well as ranking higher on search engines.

As we have already discussed earlier people use keywords to find answers or solutions to their queries, if your content is suitable for ranking higher and getting in front of your audience, you start gaining more website traffic. 

Everything starts with keyword research in order to get our audience to come to us. With keyword research, we don’t create content that we want to tell our audience but we create content around what people want to find. 

Keyword research has several benefits, the most important reasons are:

1. Understanding Search Intent

If you create content that people want to search for, then by meeting their requirements you can lead them in their buyer journeys from the awareness stage to the point of purchasing products or services.

By researching keywords on the basis of their search volume, keyword difficulty, and search intent of the user, you can tackle the queries that most people in your audience want answers to.

Read Also: Why is SEO important

2. Growth in Website Traffic

When you find the right keywords for the content you want to publish, you will most likely rank higher on search engines, and that will ultimately boost your website traffic.

With keyword research, you can identify the relevant long-tail keyword related to your products and services and by targeting these keywords, your content can attract highly targeted traffic for your website. 

3. Understanding the Competitive Landscape

It’s important to look at your competitor's keywords and content strategy in order to stand out from the crowd.

For example, at Arramton, when we conduct keyword research we take a look at our client's competition. With the help of this strategy, we get a better understanding of what keywords they are targeting, which helps us understand what they are offering as well as where they are lacking.

So you should use these competitors' insights to build your own content strategy. I’m not telling you to just copy and paste but to use these insights to create a better strategy for you or your business.

4. Find the Low-Content Competition Opportunities

Examining the overall competition of keywords becomes important when doing keyword research. There are multiple tools available that can help you identify the right low-competition keywords.

For example, when you use “Google Keyword Planner”, the keyword competition is measured by the number of advertisers that show on each keyword relative to all keywords across the search engines.'

The aim of these keyword research tools is to assist you in finding keywords with medium or low competition.

5. Find keywords with a Higher Conversion Rate

Keyword research tools provide many features such as keyword difficulty, which can be an indication that a keyword is too broad.

Usually, if the keyword is shorter then it is difficult to rank for, and the competition is also higher.

However, with the help of keyword research, you find many benefits such as finding less competition or long tail keywords, better-targeted keywords, and search intent, which will directly lead to higher ranking, more traffic, and an increased conversion rate.

How to do Keyword Research?

Now, I’m going to reveal a 5 steps process that you can follow for your keyword research. That way, you will have a step-by-step guide and you can focus on the steps that actually matter for a strong keyword research.

1. Make a list of Relevant Topics

To start your keyword research process, think about the topics that are important for you or your business. I’m sure you will come up with a few topics and then you will use those topics to help come up with some specific keywords.

Put yourself in the place of your buyer personas and think about what types of topics would your target audience search for and what you want your business to get found for.

For example, if you are a company like Arramton, you might have general topic buckets like:

» Software development (159.9K)

» Digital marketing (227K)

» Search engine optimization (47K)

» App development (13K)

» iOS app development (1.8K)

You can see these topics have a high monthly search volume, which shows how important these topics are for your target audience.

2. Find some Topic Related Keywords

Once you have a few important topics related to your business, the next step is to identify some related topics. These related topics are the phrases that your audience is interested in or conducting specific research on search engines and adding them to your content will help in ranking in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

To make you understand in a better way, let’s take our last example of Arramton, and I’d brainstorm and look for some related phrases that I believe my audience would search, which might include:

» Software development companies

» Digital marketing courses

» How to do search engine optimization

» How to start ios app development

» Which language is best for app development

Now, I hope you understand my point. However, the point of this step is not to make a list of your final keywords, we will come up with a specific list of final keywords later in this process.

You can repeat this process of finding related keyword phrases as you have.

Also, if you are facing any kind of issues in finding the relevant search items, you can always ask your team for it, and ask them what kind of phrases their prospective customers ask about. It could be helpful for you and a great beginning point for your keyword research. 

3. Understand the Search Intent

Understanding search intent is one of the most important components when it comes to ranking on search engines. It’s not difficult to make a list of keywords but because the intent behind a search is crucial to understand, you need to be careful about how you take your targeted keywords.

For instance, let’s take an example, assume you are researching “How to do SEO” for an article you want to write about. “SEO” can mean an SEO tool or the SEO Guide, and what a user’s intent is behind that keyword will make an impact on the direction of your article.

Does a user want to know about SEO? Or Does the user want an SEO tool? So if you are only targeting an audience interested in that phrase, you will need to ensure the keyword intent before finalizing it.

4. Research some Related Terms

You may be thinking that we have already covered this topic in the second step but this is an actual second round of searching your topic-related terms.

If you are struggling to find more terms, you can use Google for it, When you go down, you will find a list of related search terms and you can add those to your list as well.

Sometimes, you can get some great ideas from this section that you can add to your article.

Above are some related search terms that I found when I searched SEO in the google Search engine

5. Use Keyword Research Tools

Keyword research tools can assist you in coming up with more keyword ideas based on your keyword or topic. Also, these keyword research tools come with multiple useful features, such as you can find out the volume, keyword density, and traffic potential of any keyword.

The following are the most popular keyword research tools or you can also say SEO tools:

» Ahrefs

» SEMrush

» Google Keyword Planner

» Moz

» Free Keyword Research Tool

» SEO Ranking

Keyword Research Tips

Below are a few tips for effective keyword research, no matter what tool you are using and what strategy you have these are some general tips, you should follow.

1. Decide Your Scope Before Keyword Research

It is easy to stuck in the keyword research loop, you can easily go off-topic and start discovering keywords without knowing what are you looking for.

You can end up spending several hours typing to find the perfect keyword, or just without any thought grabbing every single term that appears relevant to your website.  

So consider the purpose of your research, by deciding the scope of your research before you hop onto keyword research tools, you can get a better idea of what keywords you actually need to find.

2. Intent is Key

No matter what the search volume of your keyword is, if you are not producing high-quality and useful content for the audience.

It becomes important to know what your audience is looking for when they search for the keyword. However, you should check on Google what is actually ranking for a specific keyword to target the biggest keyword.

Additionally, If the content you planning to write about doesn’t answer the search in a similar or better way than those other sites, you should change and consider a different keyword.

3. Take ideas from Competitors

You should look at what your competitors are ranking for in order to get a better understanding of what keyword to select. Many tools can help you to find out what keywords your competitors are ranking for.

It makes it easier for you to produce the right content for your audience that your competitors are not covering and you can stand out from the crowd.

Conclusion

Lastly, everyone has their own ways, strategies, and keyword research tools for tackling keyword research. However, it is important to keep in mind that keyword research is an ongoing process. Similarly, as keywords with the highest volume change month to month, the keywords you are planning to target are going to change over time as well.

So, if you want to be at the top of your SEO game then you must be at the top of the keyword research process and you must ensure that your business is making the most from Google Search.

To be at the top of the SEO Game, get in touch with us. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q 1. What are the 3 Main Elements of Keyword Research?

Ans. When developing your keyword list, it is essential to be planned, tactical, and calculated when concentrating on a few core elements of each remark. When managing your SEO keyword research, there are three factors that you must get a load of. These factors include the keyword’s relevancy, search volume, and user intent.

Q 2. What is the most important Element in Keyword Research?

Ans. The most important element in great keyword research is that your searched keyword should be highly relevant to your ultimate goal. Suppose you are selling specific products or you are a service provider. In that case, keyword relevancy may become easy to determine as you want someone to buy the product and service.

Q 3. What is a Keyword Research Strategy?

Ans. Keyword research assists you in finding those keywords that are relevant and best to target and offers valuable understanding to the queries that your target consumers are interested in and searching on search engines like Google. The perception that you will get into these exact search terms can help you immensely by informing content strategy and larger marketing strategy.