Keyword Research Guide
Did you know that Keywords are the indigeneous part of SEO ? With the ever evolving Google algorithm update, one thing that has always remained consistent for Digital Marketer is the keyword research.
However, the process of doing the keyword research has also been changing with the time. The real strength of keyword research lies in a better understanding of your target audience & market.
So, what’s the right approach of performing keyword research?
Before starting the process of keyword research first let’s know about the basic things - what actually the keyword means, what keyword research is and what does the keyword research tools refer to.
What actually the keyword means?
A keyword is a word or phrase that people use to search the information in search engines.
Over 63,000 searches are conducted per second on Google itself which translates into approximately 3.8 million searches per minute and 228 million searches per hour.
Whatever the word is used in search engines to get the information, those words are meant to be keyword.
For example:
- Price of mobile
- Places to visit in Nepal
- Buy Samsung mobile
- Best SEO tools
- How to do keyword research, etc
What is a Keyword Research?
Keyword Research is the process of identifying, analyzing and using the relevant keywords in the website. It is literally a series of methods & techniques used to uncover relevant & profitable keywords for your business.
Why is it important?
Keyword Research is important because it plays an important role to rank your site on a search engine, if you choose good keywords and relevant to your business or brand then it will be easy to rank your site.
Words that people use every day to search for different information has also the ability to rank the site. While researching the keyword for your brand you must focus on the word that people are using to search for information relevant to yours.
What does the keyword research tool refer to?
Keyword research tools are simply the ones that generate a list of the results of relevant keywords that we search for any topic. Some keyword research tools also show the value of the search volume, competitors rate, CPC and other metrics.
There are two types of keyword research tools. They are free and paid keyword research tools.
Free Keyword Research Tools is the type of keyword research tool which are free to use.
Some free tools are Keyword Everywhere, Google Keyword Planner, SEO & Website analysis, Ubersuggest, keyword.io, Semrush, etc.
Paid Keyword Research Tools are the type of tools which you have to pay a certain cost for using it. Some of the paid Keyword Research tools are Ahrefs, Google Ads(Keyword Planners), etc.
Keyword Research is necessary but how you conduct the keyword research is what matters. Keyword Research is not an easy task as it looks and not also a difficult one. If you follow the following process then it will definitely help to generate good results for you.
Here is the process that I used to find the keywords with higher search volume, more visibility, low competition and high relevance to the site.
While analyzing the keyword for your business, you have to take care of these three factors:
- Audience
- Products or Services
- Location
Basic Keyword Research Process
Let's start the keyword research process with an example. Consider a Job Portal’s Website that offer different job recruiting services in Nepal.
So, How to do it?
At first, analyze
Audience:
Audience research is the first & foremost step. At this stage, you will try to define the audience for your product or service. In this case, the audience are those people who are seeking a job. Their ages might range between 18-35 yrs .(both freshers & experienced)
Product/Services:
Their services include different Job recruitment and act as a bridge between employer and employee.
Place:
Since their job services target Nepal so the place can be the cities of Nepal.
Now, since we have determined our audience, products/services, & place, let’s start the first step of keyword research analysis:
Step 1: Brainstorming
It is the first stage of the keyword research process. It is simply the process of generating basic idea of keywords which you think is relevant to your website based on the above mentioned three factors. Then list out all the keywords in one sheet that comes up in your mind which you think people can use to search for the brand relevant to yours.
Considering the above scenario, keywords that pops up in my mind include.
Brainstormed Keywords:
Job Portal in Nepal
Job Finder in Nepal
Job Vacancy in Nepal
Job Site in Nepal
Based on the audience, services/products, and location, we just finalized these 4 keywords and added it into the excel sheet.
Now, drive to our 2nd step
Step 2: Google Suggestions
Pick one word which is relevant to your business, then enter that keyword in search engine, you will get the list of keyword suggestions at the bottom of the page.
Let’s type one of the brainstormed keywords and see what google suggests to us.
Google suggestion results at the bottom of the page:
You can continue the process for each brainstormed keywords.
Here, we got the list of keywords from the google suggestion. I sorted out the relevant keywords only and listed it in an excel sheet.
Now, I will use some keyword research tools for further keyword analysis for our website.
Step 3: Keyword Research Tools
Up to now, we get some number of the keywords from the brainstorming and google suggest. Using the Free Keyword Research tools, you can get the list of relevant keywords of any topic.
Also, some keyword research tools provide the metric value of the keyword. When it comes to keyword research & analysis, different keyword research tools will help to find out the LSI keyword, informational Keyword, and long-tail ones.
Finding LSI Keyword
LSI(Latent Semantic Indexing) Keyword are those keywords that are similar to your main or seed keywords.
Now I am using the “LSI Graph” one of the free keyword research tools to find the LSI keyword.
Simply enter the main keyword from the brainstormed list in the LSI graph tool. With this awesome tool, you can generate the list of LSI keyword with a metric value from a single keyword.
You have to do it by using each main keyword to generate a list of keywords for your website and have the option to choose the best one.
Finding Informational Keyword
People are always searching for information on the web. If you can understand what they are searching for and provide the relevant information to those people then they definitely will visit your site, increasing the traffic rate and conversion.
You can simply use the informational keyword as a topic for strategic content marketing.
It’s simple to find the informational keyword. The “Answer the Public” tool is better to use for finding the informational keyword.
Here, you can simply type the keyword and get a list of the question like this:
Finding Long Tail Keyword
Long Tail Keywords are those keywords having 3 or more words with high search intent and low competition rate. In SEO perspective, those keywords are important because it has good search intent, help in driving more traffic to a site and result in better conversion rate which also helps in building the brand.
There are many keyword research tools to find long tail keywords. Here, I will be using some of my favourite one to find the Long Tail Keyword.
Keyword.io
Keyword.io is a free/paid tool. The dashboard of the “Keyword.io” look something like this:
Just add the main keyword or seed keyword in the left field, in the next field select the country and press the search button. Here we get the list of the long-tail keywords
Keyword Everywhere
The next keyword Research tool “Keyword Everywhere” can be used as a free browser extension which is accessible in both Google Chrome and Firefox browser. To use this extension first you have to add in your browser.
After adding the extension, whenever you enter a keyword in the search engine, you can view a list of the keywords at the left side of the result page like this:
You can use this process for other remaining keywords.
SEMrush
“SEMrush” is also an awesome tool to search the keywords which gives keyword result with their metric value(search volume, Competition rate, CPC etc). There are many other SEO features in SEMrush tool. However, you can use “Keyword Magic Tool” for an efficient keyword research.
The dashboard of the SEMrush look like the following:
Just enter a keyword, select the country and click the search button. Then it will display a list of keywords with its metric value.
For each keyword, check its search volume and competition rate. Then list out the keyword which has the best search volume and low competition rate on the excel sheet.
There are several other techniques that you can use to research the keyword for your business.
Another way of Keyword Research Analysis is
Competitor’s Keyword Research
Here the keyword research begins like
Considering the above scenario let's find our competitors:
You might think “how can I find my competitors?”. It’s simpler than you think. Just enter a keyword relevant to your business on a search engine, and you will get the list of the businesses that are providing services like ours. Those websites which are at the top of the list are your real competitors.
Or you can use some tools to find the competitors. Let me use the “SEMrush” tool to list out competitors. First, enter your business site’s URL in the search bar.
Then click the search button, after that you will get the site domain overview. There you get a chart and list of organic competitors
With both results, our top competitors in this case are ramrojob.com and merojob.com.
After knowing the competitors now you can analyze the keywords that your competitors are using and ranking effectively in their site.
To analyze their keyword, here I am using the “Ahrefs” keyword research tool.
The dashboard of the Ahrefs looks like:
I am taking “merojob.com” as our competitor.
Enter the URL of the competitors in the search field. Then, we get the domain overview.
Then click the Organic Keyword which is at the left corner. As a result, you get the list of ranked organic keywords of your competitors.
After performing keyword research with the above techniques, I am sure you can get the list of hundreds or even thousands of keywords. You will think about what to do with those keywords.
Now it’s time to analyze those keywords on the basis of relevance to the product or services you are offering, search volume, and competition.
You can list the relevant keywords with high search volume and low competition rate.
Finalizing Keywords:
After listing out all those keywords (LSI Keyword, Long Tail Keyword, Competitors keyword) with their metric, it will be easy to choose the best keywords on the basis of its monthly search volume, competition rate, CPC, etc.
Always use the keywords which are relevant to your site with high search volume and low competition rate. Those keywords can be helpful to rank at the top of SERP.
After analyzing the keyword, we get the final keyword that is relevant and better for our business website to use.
At last, you can finally get the list of organic keywords then you can simply select the best one for the site which can help to rank your site on the top of search engines.
Conclusion
And there you have it. A step by step keyword research tutorial for finding effective keywords for your business or brand. This guide will help you in finding the different keywords relevant to your business and the services you provide. After uncovering the best relevant keywords for your business, it is now time to use those keywords at relevant space for better ranking.
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.
Digital Terai is the leading digital marketing agency in Nepal. Do let us now if you need any help regarding SEO in Nepal.