What is keyword research
Keywords are the words or phrases that a user types into a search engine to find your website. Your website will only appear if you have these keywords or phrases on your site. If the two match up then bingo, you have new users visiting your site!
As a website owner its important to understand what users are searching for and where your website might be found. This is when you start to perform keyword research to understand what keywords you need within your site content to get the right users to visit you. If we just write any content on the site we could end up with the wrong users visiting which will increase the bounce rate and provide you no benefit.
How do keywords help your SEO
Keyword research is important to understand your customers better and get the right traffic to your website. If you can find the right keywords and work these into your website you will appear higher up the rankings in search engines. This means your website will get seen more often and you will get better quality traffic.
Keywords don’t have to be individual words they can be phrases as well. These are called long-tail keywords. These type of keywords are often more specific and less common, so focus on a niche area. Focusing on long-tail keywords is a great SEO tactic as there can be less competition and higher conversion value.
How to do keyword research
Keyword research starts from a topic, idea or a focus keyword you’ve heard. You might have noticed your customers asking you the same question or you have a new product that you want to launch. This initial concept is what starts your keyword research.
Once you have this initial focus then type it into search engines and see what results you get. Is this where your want your website to appear? Look at different sites from that search result and you may see other common keywords they are using. Make a note of the words that keep cropping up.
You can also enter the keyword into google and see how it auto completes that word for different ideas. For example, if I type into Google ‘keyword research’ it completes the sentence with things like tools, tips, templates, meaning.
The best free keyword research tools
You can also use different website tools to help you find keywords, see the competition for these keywords and search volumes. The keyword planners all generally work in the same way, you enter your website domain, country and it tells you the keywords you are ranking for plus keyword ideas. Take a look at the following sites.
3. Google Keyword Planner – you need an AdWords account to gain access but it is free.
4. Wordtracker
The purpose of keyword research
Keyword research is crucial for the success of your digital marketing. By performing keyword research you learn:
· Where your website needs to rank
· How competitive keywords are
· What your customers are looking for
· How to find niche areas which can give you higher conversion
If you have any questions about keyword research, your website rankings or how to improve these I’d be happy to chat through this and provide support. Get in touch via the contact form.
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