How to Do Keyword Research for SEO: A Beginner's Guide (2023)

While Google keeps us busy with all thatAlgorithm UpdatesBeing introduced all the time, one thing has remained pretty constant for inbound marketers looking to optimize their websites for search: keyword research.

In this post we defineWhat is keyword research?,why does that matter,how to conduct your researchfor your SEO strategy andChoose the right keywordsfor your website

Why is keyword research important?

Keyword research helps you findwhich keywords are best targetedand gives you valuable information about what searches your target audience is actually searching for on Google. The information you can glean from these actual search terms can help inform your content strategy, as well as your broader marketing strategy.

People use keywords to find solutions when they search online. So if your content manages to reach our search audience, it can drive more traffic. Therefore, you should target these searches.

Also inentry methodology, we don't create content around what we want to tell people; We should create content around what people want to discover. In other words, our audience comes to us.

It all starts with keyword research.

To get an idea of ​​how Arel="noopener" target="_blank" hrefs can help you with your SEO keyword research, check out our case study and exclusive interview here.

Conducting keyword research has many benefits, with the most popular reasons being:

Information about marketing trends

Carrying out effective keyword research can give you insight into current marketing trends and help you focus your content on relevant topics and keywords that your audience is searching for.

traffic growth

Identifying the best matching keywords for the content you post will rank you higher in search engine results, the more visitors you drive to your website.

customer acquisition

If your business has content that other business owners are looking for, you can meet their needs and give them acall to actionthat take you through the buyer's journey, from the awareness stage to the point of purchase.

VonSearch by KeywordBy your popularity, search volume, and overall intent, you can answer the questions that most people in your target audience want answers to.

Keywords x topics

We hear more and moreSEO has evolvedin the last 10 years and how keywords themselves have become irrelevant to our ability to rank well for the searches people do every day.

To some extent, this is true, but in the eyes of an SEO professional, it's a different approach. Rather, it's the intent behind that keyword and whether or not any content is appropriate for that intent (we'll talk more about intent in a minute).

But that doesn't mean keyword research is an outdated process. Let me explain:

Keyword research tells you what topics people are interested in and, assuming you're using the right SEO tool, how popular those topics really are with your audience. The operational term here is topics – by researching keywords that get high monthly search volume, you can identify and rank your content on topics that you want to create content around. You can use these themes to determine which keywords to search for and target.

keyword search item

There are three main elements to consider when conducting keyword research.

1. Relevance

Google ranks content based on relevance. This is where the concept of search intent comes in. Your content will only rank for a keyword if it meets the needs of the search engines. Also, your content should be the best resource for consultation. After all, why would Google rank your content higher if it offers less value than other content on the web?

2. Authority

Google will give more weight to sources it deems trustworthy. That means doing whatever it takes to become a trusted source, enriching your site with useful informational content, and promoting that content for social signals and backlinks. If you're not considered authoritative in that space, or if a keyword's SERPs are littered with bulky sources you can't compete with (like Forbes or The Mayo Clinic), you'll have a less chance of ranking unless your content is exceptional. . .

3. Volume

You might end up on the first page for a certain keyword, but if no one searches for it, you won't drive traffic to your site. A bit like opening a store in a ghost town.

Volume is measured by MSV (Monthly Search Volume), which means the number of times the keyword is searched for per month across all audiences.

How to research keywords for your SEO strategy

I'm going to present a keyword research process you can follow to help you create a list of terms to target. That way, you can develop and implement a strong keyword strategy that will help you get found for the search terms that really matter to you.

Step 1 – Make a list of important and relevant topics based on what you know about your business.

To start this process, think about the topics you want to rank for in terms of generic segments. You'll create 5-10 topic groups that you think are important to your business and use those topic groups to find some targeted keywords later in the process.

If you're a regular blogger, these are probably the topics you write about most frequently. Or maybe they are the topics that come up most frequently in sales presentations. put yourself in your placebuyer personalities— What types of topics would your target audience search for to find your business? For example, if you were a company like HubSpot, sellingsoftware marketing(which happens to have some greatSEO Tools...but I'm straying), you might have common threads like:

• "Marketing entrante" (21K)
• "The Blog" (19K)
• "Email Marketing" (30K)
• "Lead Generation" (17K)
• "SEO" (214K)
• "Social Media Marketing" (71K)
• "Marketing Analysis" (6.2K)
• "Marketing Automation" (8.5K)

See the numbers in parentheses to the right of each keyword? this is hermonthly search volume. This data can help you assess how important these topics are to your audience, and how many different subtopics you might need to create content for to be successful with that keyword. To learn more about these subtopics, let's move on to Step 2...

Step 2: Fill in these subject areas with keywords.

Now that you have a few topic groups to focus on, it's time to identify some keywords that belong to those groups. These are key phrases that you think are important to rank for in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) since your target customer is likely to search for these specific terms.

For example, if I were to take this last topic area for an inbound marketing software company, "marketing automation," I would brainstorm some key phrases that I think people are writing in relation to this topic. This may include:

• marketing automation tools
• how to use marketing automation software
• What is marketing automation?
• How do I know if I need marketing automation software?
• lead breeding
• Email Marketing Automation
• Main automation tools

Etc. The purpose of this step is not to create your final keyword list. You just want to end up with a dump of phrases that you think potential customers might use to search for content related to that particular topic. We'll narrow down the lists later in the process so you don't have anything too unwieldy.

Although more and moreKeywords are encryptedby Google every day, another smart way to get keyword ideas is to find out what keywords are on your site.ofbeing found. To do this, you need website analytics software like Google Analytics or HubSpot's Sources report, available atTraffic Analysis Tool. Take a look at your website traffic sources and analyze your organic search traffic bucket to identify the keywords people are using to get to your website.

Repeat this exercise for each subject area you have. And remember, if you're having trouble finding relevant search terms, you can always reach out to your frontline sales or service colleagues and ask them what types of terms your prospects and customers are using, or what questions they have. These are generally good starting points for keyword research.

Not herehubspotwe use the Search Statistics Report for this part of the process.This modelIt's designed to help you do the same and categorize your keywords into topic groups, analyze MSV, and inform your calendar and editorial strategy.

Outstanding feature:Research Information Report Template

download the template

Step 3: Understand how intent affects keyword research and analyze accordingly.

As I said in the previous section,user intentit is now one of the most important factors in your ability to rank well in search engines like Google. Today it is more important that your website addresses the problem of a search enginedestinedresolve to simply load the keyword that the search engine used. So how does this affect your keyword research?

It's easy to take keywords at face value, and unfortunately, beneath the surface, keywords can have many different meanings. Because the intent behind a search is so important to its ranking potential, you have to be very careful about how you interpret the keywords you're targeting.

For example, let's say you're searching for the keyword "How do I start a blog?" for an item you want to create. "Blog" can mean a blogPostor the blog site itself, and the searcher intent behind that keyword will influence the direction of your article. Researcher wants to learn how to start a custom blog post? Or do you want to know how to actually start a website domain for blogging purposes? If your content strategy only targets people who are interested in the latest, you need to be sure of the keyword's intent before engaging with it.

To check what a user's intent is for a keyword, it's a good idea to simply type that keyword into a search engine and see what types of results appear. Make sure the Google content type is closely related to what you want to create for the keyword.

Step 4 – Search for related search terms.

This is a creative step that you may have already thought of when doing keyword research. If not, it's a great way to fill out those lists.

If you're having trouble finding more keywords that people might be searching for in a specific topic, take a look at the related search terms that appear when you type a keyword into Google. As you type your phrase and scroll to the bottom of the Google results, you'll notice some search query suggestions related to what you originally typed. These keywords can inspire ideas for other keywords you may want to consider.

I want a bonus Enter some of these related search terms and take a lookandrelated search terms.

Step 5 – Use keyword research tools to your advantage.

Search by KeywordSEO ToolsIt can help you generate more keyword ideas based on exact match keywords and phrase matches based on the ideas you've generated so far. Some of the most popular are:

• Ahrefs
• SEMrush
• Ubersuggest
• Google Keyword Planner
• SEcabin
• keywords everywhere
• Moz
• KeywordTool.io
• KWFinderGenericName

How to find and choose keywords for your website

Once you have an idea of ​​the keywords you want to rank for, now is the time to refine your list based on the ones that are best for your strategy. To see how:

Step 1. Use Google Keyword Planner to narrow down your keyword list.

emGoogle Keyword Planner, get traffic and search volume estimates for the keywords you're considering. Then take the information you learned from the Keyword Planner and put it to use.Google trendsto fill some gaps.

Use Keyword Planner to flag any terms on your list that have too little (or too much) search volume and aren't helping you get a healthy match as we discussed above. But before you delete anything, check out the trend history and forecasts on Google Trends. You can see if some low volume terms, for example, are really something to invest in now and reap the benefits later.

Or maybe you're just looking at a very complicated list of terms and need to narrow it down somehow... Google Trends can help you identify which terms are trending and therefore deserve more attention.

Step 2: Prioritize the fruits that are easier to find.

What we mean by prioritizing the low hanging fruit is prioritizing keywords that you have a chance of ranking for based on your site authority.

Large companies are often looking for high-volume keywords, and because these brands are already well established, Google often rewards them with authority on many topics.

You can also consider keywords with little competition. Keywords that don't already have multiple articles competing for the highest ranking may give you the spot by default, if no one else is trying to claim it.

Step 3 – Check the monthly search volume (MSV) of the keywords you have chosen.

You want to write content about what people want to discover, and MSV Review can help you with that.

Monthly search volume is the number of times a search query or keyword is entered into search engines each month. tools likeTalvolumen.iooGoogle trendscan help you discover the most searched keywords through free related keyword groups.

Step 4 – Consider SERP features when choosing keywords.

There are several snippets of SERP resources that Google will highlight if used correctly. An easy way to find out is to search for the keywords of your choice and see what the first result looks like. But for a quick overview of the types of SERP Featured Snippets, here's a description of what they are.

image packages

Image packs are search results that are displayed as a horizontal row of images that appear in an organic position. If there is an image pack, you have to write a post with many images to locate them.

paragraph excerpt

Featured snippets, or paragraph snippets, are small snippets of text that appear at the top of Google search results to get quick answers to common queries. Understanding search engine intent and providing pithy, concise answers can help you get a placement.

list fragments

List snippets, or listicles, are snippets created for posts that describe the steps of doing something from start to finish, typically for "how to" searches. Writing posts with direct and clear formatting and instructions can help achieve this placement.

video

Video snippets are short videos that Google displays at the top of a search query page instead of featured text snippets. Posting a video on YouTube and on your website can help you get that ranking if it's tagged with the specific keywords people are searching for.

Step 5 – Look for a combination of main and long-tail keywords in each block.

Broader terms are keyword phrases that are usually shorter and more general, typically one to three words, depending on who you're talking to.long tail keywords, on the other hand, are longer keyword phrases that often contain three or more words.

It's important to make sure you have a mix of head terms and long-term terms, as this will give you a well-balanced keyword strategy with long-term goals and short-term gains. This is because head terms are generally searched for more frequently, making them often (not always, but often) much more competitive and harder to rank for than long tail terms. Think about it: even without looking at search volume or difficulty, which of the following terms do you think would be the hardest to rank for?

1. how to write a great blog post
2. the blog

If you answered #2, you are absolutely right. But don't be discouraged. While keyword terms generally have the highest search volume (meaning the most potential to send traffic), the traffic you get from the term "how to write a great blog post" is, frankly, generally more desirable.

Because?

Because someone looking for something specific is likely to be a much more qualified searcher for your product or service (assuming you're in the blogging arena) than someone looking for something really general. And because long-tail keywords tend to be more specific, it's often easier to see what people searching for those keywords are really looking for. On the other hand, someone searching for the generic term "blogging" may be looking for a variety of reasons unrelated to her business.

So review your keyword lists to make sure you have a healthy mix of head terms and long tail keywords. You definitely want to get some of the quick results that long-tail keywords offer, but you should also try to eliminate the more difficult keywords for the long term.

Step 6 – See how competitors are ranking for these keywords.

Just because your competitor is doing something doesn't mean you should. The same goes for keywords. Just because a keyword is important to your competitor doesn't mean it's important to you. However, if you understand what keywords your competitors are trying to rank for, you can reevaluate your keyword list.

If your competitor is also ranking for specific keywords that are on your list, it definitely makes sense to work on improving your rankings for them. However, don't ignore the ones your competitors don't seem to care about. This can also be a great opportunity for you to gain market share in significant terms.

Understanding the balance between terms that may be a bit more difficult due to competition and terms that are a bit more realistic will help you maintain a similar balance that allows for the combination of head and long tail terms. Remember, the goal is to end up with a keyword list that yields some quick wins, but also helps you progress toward bigger and more challenging SEO goals.

How to know for which keywords your competitors are positioned? In addition to manually searching for keywords in an anonymous browser and seeing your competitors' rankings, you can use Arel="noopener" target="_blank" hrefs to generate a set of free reports that will give you the top keywords you want entered for. to the proof domain. That way, you can get a quick idea of ​​the types of terms your competitors are ranking for.

The best keywords for SEO

Understand that there are no "best" keywords, only the ones your audience searches for the most. With that in mind, it's up to you to create a strategy that will help you rank pages and increase traffic.

The best keywords for your SEO strategy consider relevance, authority, and volume. You want to find commonly searched keywords that you can compete for based on:

1. The level of competition you are up against.
2. Your ability to produce content that exceeds current quality ratings.

And you have the right keywords for the SEO of your site

You now have a list of keywords that will help you zero in on the right topics for your business for short- and long-term gains.

Be sure to rerank these keywords every few months – quarterly is a good benchmark, but some companies like to do it more often. As you gain even more authority on the SERPs, you'll find that you can add more and more keywords to your lists to deal with while working to maintain your current presence and then grow into new areas beyond that.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in May 2019 and has been updated for completeness.