Is it your goal to get thousands, even millions of readers to your blog each month? It can be an achievable dream, added by the helpful tool of keyword research.
Check out the graph above. FirstStepBlogging is a brand new website of mine. I started it in late December of 2020, less than a month ago. I intend on using keyword search and applying it to Firststepblogging‘s blog starting TODAY– so follow me for updates. It is my goal to get 10,000 monthly visits by this time in 2023. Lets see if I can do it… I want to show you all that Keyword Research can, and does help!
It also certainly helps to have awesome content on your website, and word of mouth goes along way on social media platforms – so, look at keyword research as a compliment to a successful SEO campaign for your blog or website.
Moving forward, this article is intended as an introduction to keyword research for beginners although I have to say with some pride that it also features quite a bit of information available for every level blogger or business owner starting a new website.
So, What Is Keyword Research?
First the bare-bones basics. What is a keyword or keyword phrase?
This one is really simple. A keyword or keyword phrase is a collection of words people use to obtain results from Google and other search engines.
For example, a person could type in the word acne and get 260,0000 million results but narrow it down to adult acne, and get half as many results.
A person could type in how to prevent acne, and get less searches, type in acne creams and get a different number of searches and type in acne doctors in Boston and get completely different results.
The purpose of keyword research is to determine as much as possible the number of keywords that people are searching for and provide useful solutions for Google to choose your website over another when people do a search.
Notice I bolded the word useful. That’s because Google is far more than finding the number of keyword searches that people are searching for and expecting that if you have more of those keywords, that Google will place you high up in the rankings.
Some keywords are totally impractical to expect results for.
Let’s say you are a small mom and pop hamburger restaurant in Los Angeles and you claim to have the Best Hamburgers in Los Angeles.
Says who? You alone as the owner?
Don’t expect to get a lot of searches (in fact, more than likely you can expect just one or two searches in an entire year) if you are lucky.
If your restaurant happens to be reviewed by the Los Angeles Times food critic, then perhaps you can expect quite a few more searches.
But if you have a niche, say you are imitating the famous $777 burger in Las Vegas which features Kobe beef burger you will narrow the odds, and if you serve as the $777 Kobe beef burger with lobster, you’ll narrow things down even further.
How important is keyword research?
Well, according to a study of 1 billion websites (that’s right, you read it correctly, 1 billion) over 90 percent of websites get zero organic search engine traffic from Google.
And a significant reason why according to AHREF.com? Terrible link building. Google uses link building as its #3 criteria, yet 66.31 percent of all those billion websites don’t even have a single backlink. An additional 26 percent of all websites have 1 to 3 backlinks.
When determining keywords for your campaign, begin with making a list of relative topics or seed words in which to begin.
For example, if you sell coffee machines, you might want to list espresso machines,
cappuccino machines, French press machines, and the like.
These seed words are not the ones to target in themselves as they are still too common, but they are basic categories that you can use to build your list of keywords underneath.
Besides doing research on keywords, most blogs and businesses spend the vast majority of their time focusing on long-tail keywords.
What are long-tail keywords? They are searches that are very specific.
For example, if a company sells olive oil, a search for Spanish olive oil will yield millions of results. You will get better results by advertising Arbequina olive oil.
However, that is probably still too broad. Single source Arbequina olive oil will probably be the broadest longtail keyword you will likely want to use.
Organic Arbequina single source olive oil will probably be better, and custom made single source Arbequina olive oil will be better yet.
The idea is to narrow down your keywords into very specific searches that only a few providers will mention and only a few people here and there will search for.
Why? Because people who get very specific in their searches tend to be very motivated to buy.
Once you’ve narrowed down your list of keywords and long-tail words, your effort is not done there.
That said, Here are the Steps:
The first thing you want to know is how your competitors use keywords.
First of all, be honest when you talk about competitors. If you own a used car lot in Brooklyn, New York, your competitors are. They are not the 425 auto dealerships in New York City. They are just the 20 or so local used car dealers in Brooklyn.
Don’t focus on the keywords your local Mercedes dealership uses unless you also feature a lot of Mercedes on your lot.
Be very focused. On the other hand, by searching all 20 local used car dealerships, you can learn a lot about what others are focusing on.
Once you have identified all the keywords they are using, do a search for synonyms as well. For example, there is more than one way to say luxury automobile.
One longtail search word might be an “opulent used automobile. Another might be “high-end automobile.” A third might be “slightly used luxury automobile”
Thirdly, you will want to use a Keyword Research Tool.
Keyword searching is very difficult without a keyword research tool. There are literally dozens out there, and if you are at all serious about conducting an effective SEO campaign, they are well worth the money.
Without a keyword research tool, you will be missing many effective keywords you can try to exploit.
A typical keyword tool will go through millions of keywords and predict with up to 90 percent accuracy how much search volume a keyword will likely provide.
A key factor in obtaining a keyword research tool is what is known as SERP analysis.
Using SERP analysis, your keyword tool will help you analyze exactly why your competitors may be ranking higher than you.
For example, you may be using better keywords on your Vito’s moving site than your competitors but they may be ranking higher because they have more backlinks, are optimized for speed and mobile, and more.
Remember that keywords are just a part of your overall ranking, rather than the entire picture. To rank high, you have to present the complete package.
Realize too, that to Google, content is king. Google doesn’t really care about whether you get business or not. But if in the case of our Brooklyn used auto dealer, if you frequently run articles about how to buy a used car, how to finance them, how to check them out before you buy etc, then Google will reward you for this.
So never forget, content is paramount to Google and plays a huge part in how you rank,
SEO guru Neil Patel has a lot to say about keywords. For example, he has an entire article about obtaining 20,000 or more visitors using longtail words.
One of the questions he is frequently asked is how long should a longtail word be.
And his answer is to use various synonyms of 4 words or longer.
For example, in the fitness category, off the cuff, he lists 8 examples including catchy names for fitness programs and fitness programs USA weight loss.
Note how the latter is a very specific keyword combination as it pairs fitness programs, in the USA that produce weight loss.
If the program was a Yoga program, a similar keyword combo might be Yoga fitness programs for flexibility in the USA.
Coming up with those various keyword combos can be a very tedious process if you attempt to do it by hand, so when you plan your SEO campaign, do yourself a favor and first buy yourself a keyword tool.
Note that many keyword tools can be obtained on a trial basis for 30 days or more, and you may need to try three or more to find the best program for you.
Now, How to analyze keywords?
There are many different criteria you can use. AHREF says that among the methods available are search volume, clicks, traffic potential, keyword difficulty and cost per click.
Notice now that we are getting into very advanced waters, and the vast majority of websites may not need all the advanced features available in a keyword tool, but its nice to know they are there.
Ultimately, and to be honest, some bloggers might feel more comfortable and can make great use of a local SEO optimization company, as having only a little knowledge can be a stressful thing and also the whole idea of keyword research may become quite overwhelming when it comes to SEO campaigns.
You might feel better to have someone hold your hand and guide you to proven results, and that’s OK! Think of your goals and the reason why you’ve started a website or blog and make the decisions that work best for you.
References:
- https://ahrefs.com/blog/search-traffic-study/
- https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-do-keyword-research-ht
- https://yoast.com/focus-on-long-tail-keywords/
- https://neilpatel.com/blog/how-to-generate-20000-monthly-search-visitors-through-long-tail-traffic/
If you enjoyed this article, then please give me a shout! I can be found on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Also, sharing is caring 🙂 Have you tried or do you currently use keyword research for your blog? How is it working out for you? Let me know in the comments below 🙂
