You’re now down to performing keyword research, so you’ll need to know how to go about it. It’s time to start looking for some keyword suggestions once you’ve chosen a tool like Google Keyword Planner as the gold standard, but there are several advantages to other platforms such as SEMrush and Conductor Searchlight.
These are some of our most important recommendations for better keyword research, regardless of your company or software.
Decide What You Want to Know Before You Research
It’s easy to get sidetracked while doing keyword research and begin looking at keywords without understanding what you’re searching for. You may wind up spending hours attempting to discover the ideal keyword for a specific page, or just picking every term that appears relevant to your website because it contains words similar to those needed on your site.
Consider the reason for your study – are you creating a keyword profile to evaluate the performance of your website, do you need content gaps in your market to take advantage of them, or are you simply looking for a few keywords to create a new page?
Before you start using Google Keyword Planner, take a look at the scope of your search. You may get a better idea of what keywords to find and when you have enough data to move forward with your digital plan by determining the scope of your keyword research before you go into Google Keyword Planner.
Don’t Focus Only on Monthly Searches – Intent Is Crucial
Naturally, the first metric you look at when picking a keyword to target on your website is how many people are looking for it. However, if you have no hope of getting your website to Page 1 or 2 of Google, or if your page doesn’t provide visitors what they’re searching for when they search, that number isn’t significant.
This is where search intent comes in – determining what consumers are searching for when they use a keyword. There’s plenty of room for debate about whether or not there should be a separate guide on search intent, but as a general guideline, make sure you Google what’s ranking for a term before deciding to target the most popular one.
There, you’ll find out which users Google thinks are currently getting the best service for that keyword, as well as what your page will be competing with. If the material you want to create does not address the search in a comparable or superior way to other sites, you should think about changing the phrase.
Examine the Competition
If you’re not sure what keywords to search for, the first place to look is at what your competition ranks for. SEMrush and Conductor Searchlight can assist you in determining what keywords your rivals are ranking for, but Google Keyword Planner has a quicker approach than that.
Select “Start with a Website” on Google Keyword Planner, then simply enter your competitor’s website. After that, you’ll get a plethora of keyword suggestions based on what the page is currently ranking for, as well as all of the other information the keyword planners already provide you with.
You may also conduct a broad search for “work from home” or specific keywords within that phrase to find even more possibilities. You can go down as far as category pages for types of shoes or a blog on how to care for your pets while working from home if you so choose, and there’s no end to the possibilities. It’s an easy approach to get right into the terms you’ll need for your content to be successful and outperform the competition.
Use Google Search
It’s easy to assume that if you want to rank higher on Google, you should look at Google. You’ve undoubtedly already been looking up certain keywords here and there to see whether your website appears and what other sites are ranking.
However, if you know where to look, Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) have a plethora of additional information sources on keywords that people are searching for.
Before pressing enter, have a peek at Google Suggest and the keyword variants it provides – it’s an excellent starting place when hunting for those hard-to-find long-tail keywords.
Take a peek at the People Also Ask section, which reveals what query keywords and long-tail phrases individuals are searching for when they search for the subject.
Target Variations
So, you’ve discovered the word or query that you want to use for your new page — excellent! There’s still potential to improve your content’s usefulness even further by using that keyword.
After that, you should look for variations of the keyword on the same page to include. Synonyms and semantically related terms can aid in the expansion of your keyword count while also improving the rankings of associated keywords.
Even if you’ve discovered the most-searched-for keyword, there may be a long-tail version of it that’s even better for your page. Even more, keywords can be targeted by scouring the alternatives.
Queries and questions are other alternatives that you may target. If you’re a coffee roaster who offers ground coffee to consumers, your homepage, which focuses on terms like “best ground coffee” and “order ground coffee online,” may appear to be hitting the mark. However, if users are searching for “where can I buy ground coffee online” or “what is the greatest ground coffee,” they might also be looking for things like this.
Search engine optimization has a lot to do with the fact that Google now considers search queries and questions, just as it does synonyms and related terms. These query and question keywords might help you improve a page’s ranking performance on Google across a range of phrases by targeting these query and question keywords. Nailing down your content’s answers to these words will also aid in your position in the elusive “People Also Ask” section, allowing your website to rise up the ranks of Google SERPs.
