Effective keyword research is inarguably the most vital aspect of a successful SEO campaign. While the whole concept may seem a bit daunting to beginners, conducting keyword research can be a relatively simple process with the use of certain tools. Listed below are a few tips that will help both, simplify your keyword research and make it effective in the long run.
Start with Market Research
Before starting keyword research, it is always advisable to get to know the demographics of your target market. This important step will help you summarize the niche market you are to discuss. Furthermore, finding about your target audience’s likes and dislikes will help you narrow down the list of keywords they use.
Create a List of Potential Keywords
Brainstorm with your friends, colleagues and clients to try to find the words you think a customer would type into their search box when trying to find you. Your list should contain both single and multi-word phrases that are that are broad, targeted and buying-oriented. An important rule here is to keep the focus on words that are appropriate but not too excessively used.
Use an Effective Keyword Tool
An effective keyword tool will help you narrow down your list to include highly attainable and sought-after keywords and phrases that will bring the most qualified traffic to your site. A keyword tool also lets you know how many users are conducting searches for a specified term and how many of those searches are actually converted into leads. Here are a few of the widely used keyword tools that can help you finalize your keyword list.
Google AdWords Keyword Tool: The Google Keyword Tool is the most recommended tool in keyword research for two reasons-it’s free and the data is from Google.
Wordtracker: This tool gives you the opportunity to look up popular keyword phrases to determine their activity and popularity among competitors, helping you decide on the competitiveness of each phrase.
WordStream: WordStream offers both basic and advanced fee based tools to help you organize your keywords and increase your profitability.
Google Suggest: This tool offers you with numerous synonyms and related word suggestions that can help expand your original list.
Thesaurus.com: Similar to Google Suggest, this tool helps in finding synonyms and related word suggestions that you may have missed out.
Check for Relevance
After finalizing your list, be sure to make certain that thatall your keywords are directly or closely related to your products and services. Your keywords and key phrases should contain a mix of both broad and targeted keywords. Also create aspreadsheet or some other visual aid that will allow you to easily see each word’s conversion rate, search volume and competition rate. This will help you calculate how viable each keyword is for your site.
Be sure to include your targeted keywords not only in your on-page content, but also in title tags, meta description tags, headings, anchor text/ navigational links and alt text to maximize your SEO campaign.
