In the current internet marketing scenario, that primary goal of any website would be to reach the top ranks of search results for their desired keywords. More importantly, marketers have started focusing on keyword ranking to reach their target audience effectively. Keywords pave the way for topping search engine results and maximizing the online visibility. Furthermore, they help you connect with your target visitors. Furthermore, keyword research is a way of knowing the trends in web searches (i.e. new demand for products, new products and services, and content that people look for).
Keyword research is not based mainly on what the audience looks for but on how frequently people use a particular keyword. The fact that people are looking for different things while typing the same key phrase in the search box can not be discounted. For example, if three females are searching for shoes online. Female 1 will type “women’s shoes” in the search box if she is undecided about what type of shoes to look for. Female 2 who wants to search for some modern types of shoes may type “heels”, “flats”, or “pumps”. Female 3, on the other hand, who might be looking for a cheap pair of shoes may type “cheap lady shoes”.
For just a single query, which is “shoes” and only three people involved, there are already a lot of keywords. Hence, the goal of keyword research is to find the best keywords that are frequently searched by people and proceed from there.
Making use of keyword tools available online
Manually analyzing the keywords is a tedious work and it is impossible to generate accurate results not because your math skills are inferior but because there are billions of people using the internet. Thankfully, there are many keyword tools available to make the keyword research easier for you. Here are some of the best and most reliable tools to help you in your keyword ranking and research process:
Google Adwords keyword tool
Unlike the Google Keyword tool that existed in the past, the new tool has an entire host of features to help you identify the growing or shrinking popularity of the keyword, create hundreds of keyword combinations and filter out low volume keywords. Remember, this tool was designed with Adwords buyers in mind, so there will be lot of features that are not useful for you.
Here is how to use the keyword tool to derive maximum benefit out of it in terms of keyword ranking:
Step 1: Register for a Google Adwords account, log into your panel and select keyword planner from the tools section.
Step 2: You will be presented with four different options; however, you will only need the following two tools:
– Search for a new keyword and ad group ideas
– Multiply keyword lists to get new keyword ideas
Step:3 Choose ‘search for a new keyword and ad group ideas and enter the seed keyword. Remember, the keyword suggestions you will get will largely depend on the seed keyword you put.
Step 4: Choose multiply keywords lists to get new keyword ideas. This tool will mash the keywords together to form hundreds and even thousands of combinations. Many of the results will be gibberish but you are quite likely to find a gem.
Bing Ads Intelligence
Bing Advertising Intelligence is yet another important tool which allows the user to build and develop a keyword list using Microsoft Excel. Because it is created by Microsoft, keyword ranking data comes from the Yahoo Bing Network which are two separate search engines used by many. It is helpful because you can optimize your keyword searches with a large list of keywords up to 200,000. Also, it provides data that is relevant to your search. The only thing you need is a pre-installed Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Visual Studio Tools.
Google Trends and Google Insights
Another important tool that you can use is Trends by Google. It is a simple page but provides relevant information as to what people are searching for in the web at a particular time and at a particular geographic location. This is a very helpful tool because you can easily track what your target audience wants. It is also a means to know the demands of the online market. It provides data on what is trending around the globe and it also provides the searches made by people in real time.
Wordtracker
Wordtracker is also a very important tool and you don’t have to pay for it. It provides and suggests new keywords for you to invest on. With its Keyword Research Suite, you can easily find the best keywords you can use to increase traffic and get visitors for your site.
For starters, these tools are indeed helpful and you won’t spend anything to use them. But as you progress and gain more knowledge about keyword research, you can soon venture into other sites that will cost you money but can generate more effective results.
Keyword Difficulty
To come up with the appropriate keyword, it is not sufficient to know the demand for such term or phrase. You must also understand how difficult it is to attain high rankings by using a set of keywords because more often than not, the top companies are already on the top spot. If you are new in the business, it will take hard work and time to attain the results you want – even years!
You need not worry much about keyword difficulty because like keyword research itself, there are tools that can help you analyze the difficulty of keywords such as Moz’s Keyword Difficulty and SERP Analysis Tool. These tools examine the volume of search and analyze the competitor’s behavior in relation to a keyword of phrase to help you in the keyword ranking process.
Tips for Successful Keyword Research
There are indeed many possible keywords that can fit your website’s content but the process of selecting a keyword to be included is not easy. Keyword value and competition should also be considered.
Knowing the Keyword’s Value
Here are a few steps to help you out.
• Step #1: Check the popularity of the search term and the search volume. The tools provided by Google such as Keyword Planner and Trends can suggest the popular keywords as well as a way to validate the keywords.
• Step #2: Look for the phrases that are directly related to your content as well as similar phrases that have high search volume. Include these keywords and key phrases to your list.
• Step #4: Make use of your competitors’ efforts by finding their keywords using tools such as Google Analytics, Google Suggest, Ubersuggest and other similar websites.
• Step #5: Brainstorm with your colleagues or partners regarding keyword ideas. This is helpful because all of you are potential consumers for another person’s website.
• Step #6: After collecting several phrases, the real evaluation begins. Narrow the keywords only to those that are relevant to your topic. Use one key phrase—the length of which depends on your intention. If you want to be the only website which uses a particular keyword, long-tail keywords which are more than seven words can be really helpful.
• Step #7: Check for competition by searching for the phrase and estimate the competitiveness of other websites.
• Step #8: Use the most valuable keywords and place them where it can lead you closer to your goal. As keyword research is important, the same goes with keyword placement.
Industry and Competitor Research
Searching and identifying the right keywords is just the beginning of being able to reach your goals. You also need industry research because although you found the perfect keywords you may have many strong competitors that would make it difficult for you to be at the top results. For a good industry research, you must ask the following questions: “Is my content better than my competitors? Is my content proposing an alternative solution?”; “Can my content be presented visually?”; “Is the content provided by my competitor informative and revolutionary or a mere repetition of the things people already knew?”; and “Could I present a better and more informative content?”. Like keyword research, industry and competitor research is impossible to deal with manually so there are websites that can help you such as Alltop.com, Feed.ly, and Semrush. These are helpful sites to make your research easier and save you time and money.
Final words for keyword ranking
You want to generate traffic and at the same time land in the search engines’ first page. It may have been difficult before but with your knowledge of keyword research and a good keyword research tool, everything will be easy in the long run. All you have to do is to apply what you have learned and not to stop there—you must also share what you know and eventually develop your own method in successful keyword research. Do not lose sight of your goal of being visible in search engines without compromising on the quality of content being used.