What is Keyword Research?
What is keyword research?
Keyword research is the process of discovering search terms that people are using to find something through a search engine. These terms are commonly known as keywords. The goal of keyword research is to identify the search patterns your buyer personas are using to find your products or services.
What’s the point of keyword research?
By finding the keywords that your Buyer Personas are using, you can identify the phrases that you should use in the content on your website to obtain organic rankings. This is called optimizing content, and is most commonly referred to as Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short.
Another reason for doing keyword research is to understand the search behavior and patterns of your prospects. The insights that you can obtain through keyword research can provide guidance on how to organize content in your site and maximize your conversion rate.
Keyword research is the foundation for any good SEO plan. If you don’t know what keywords your audience is using, then you can’t optimize your content to target that audience. This can lead to attracting the wrong types of audiences, or worse, not appearing in search results at all.
When in the SEO process should I perform keyword research?
Keyword research should be one of the first steps of the SEO process. Keyword research should be done before any planning, implementation planning or content creation begins. You shouldn’t stop there though, as you’ll also find new potential keyword categories as you learn about what your target audience is interested in.
How do I find keywords?
There are many different tools that can help you identify potential keywords. There’s the aptly named Keyword Tool from keyword.io; Google’s keyword planner; Bing’s keyword planner which also shows the search volume of Bing, AOL, and Yahoo combined; plus many more free tools. There are also paid options if you want to invest a bit of money for some added convenience.
What should I look for when performing keyword research?
The end goal of keyword research is to get specific keywords that exactly describe the content of the pages in your site. Keywords that are longer (often called a long-tail keyword phrase), but exactly describe what the searcher is looking for are a perfect fit for targeted keywords.
How do I find related keywords and trends in search patterns?
The best way to answer this question is with an example. In this example, you are the owner of a CNC Machining business. There are many other businesses that call themselves CNC Machiners and use the keyword ‘CNC Machining’ on their website. What makes your business different, however, is the different materials that you’re capable of machining. If your equipment, tooling and know-how include the ability to machine materials like copper, ceramics, or hardened materials like Hastelloy and Titanium, then you have the opportunity to use keyword phrases specific to those material types to differentiate you from the competition.
Leveraging keywords that describe more specific capabilities allows you to target the types of customers that require the specialty products and services that your business can provide. These keywords are also less contested, due to there being fewer businesses that would use them.
Keyword research is the initial first step to effective SEO. If you’re interested in more information about identifying your buyer personas search patterns, send us an email at info@magnorth.com. We are here to help!