Keyword research used to be easy. All you needed to do was type a relevant phrase into Google’s keyword planner. The tool provided a list of keywords with the most search volume and you proceeded from there.
Things have changed considerably since then. Google has become more vigilant and doesn’t allow tactics like irrelevant keywords, repetitive content for similar keywords, keyword stuffing, etc.
If you really want to draw traffic to your website, you need to conduct thorough keyword research for your marketing campaign.
This article provides some tips and tricks on how to do keyword research in 2019.
1. Prepare a List of Words for Your Company
The first step is to create a list of words and topics relevant to your industry. This provides a foundation for your keyword research and ensures you find the right phrases.
This process is easy and won’t take much time. For example, if you’re a digital marketer, your industry works will include:
- SEO
- PPC
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing
- Search ranking
- Backlinks
- Email marketing
These are some of the many words relevant to your industry, This list can form a foundation for further research into the topic.
Make sure you only include broad terms that are completely relevant to your field in this list. Don’t use generic terms that might be applicable to other industries as well.
For example, terms like analysis, budget, reports, etc, are used by marketers frequently, but they’re not solely marketing terms.
2. Use Keyword Tools to Find Relevant Keywords
Once you have the list of the most relevant words or topics, you can use keyword tools to find related keywords. There are many free and paid keyword tools available online and all of them will provide a list of phrases on every search.
You can use popular platforms like:
You can also perform a simple Google search to find relevant topics and keywords. Just type the term and scroll down to the bottom of the search engine results page. You will find a small list of alternative search term suggestions.
Sort through these keywords based on search volume, site clicks, relevancy, and keyword difficulty.
It is a good idea to keep in mind that search volume isn’t always an indicator of effectiveness. A particular keyword will have a high search volume but low click rate.
Keyword difficulty is also a good factor to consider. Some keywords are competitive like SEO packages, cheap SEO packages, Affordable SEO packages etc. so it is difficult to rank based on them. You should make sure your keywords aren’t too difficult to rank on.
3. Perform Competitive Keyword Research
Competitors can be an excellent resource for marketing information, especially if you’re new to the industry. You can learn a lot about your customers and effective marketing strategies by just looking at competitors. Here are some tips on how to utilize this resource:
- Create a list of influential and successful competitors in your industry.
- Conduct a scan of their most successful pages to find the keywords they target. There are several tools that will allow you to do that.
- Conduct as a simple Google search of the keywords you intend to target. Study the search results and see who is ranking on the keywords. If the first few results include your competitors or influencers in your industry, you’re targeting the right keyword.
This will help you create a solid list of strong keywords to target. Few other keyword research strategies are this effective.
Also Read, How to Choose a Perfect WordPress Theme For Your Business Niche
4. Intent-Based Keyword Research
Machine Learning and AI are one of the primary reasons behind the changing keyword research strategies. Search engines don’t work like they used to. Instead of matching keyword and search terms exactly, search engines now look at intent.
The search engine will look at factors like user search history, recent searches, location, demographic, etc. This helps the engine identify the intent of the user and perform search accordingly.
This means when you’re performing keyword research, you need to focus on user intent as well. The best way to do that is to look at your customers or target audiences.
- Develop an ideal buyer persona for your business based on your company data and industry research.
- Take time to understand the requirements, pain points, and preferences of your target audience.
- Find keywords related to these requirements, preferences, and pain points. You can use popular keyword tools for this process.
Once you have done your research, you can easily develop a list of keywords that match customer intent. This won’t just help improve your rankings, but will also satisfy your target audiences.
Intent-based keywords are often long-tail and specific. They might have lower search volume, but they bring in more clicks and conversions.
It is better to use keywords that bring in more clicks and conversions than keywords with high search volumes.
5. Keep Voice Search in Mind
One research suggests around 40% used voice search on a daily basis. Another indicates that around 50% internet searches will be voice-based by 2020. People have become very comfortable with AI assistants like Google Assistant, Alexa, and SIRI. They don’t hesitate to use these tools every day for search.
Keywords for voice search are vastly different from keywords for regular text-based search. This is because people perform voice and text search differently.
You can observe this in your own search behavior. When you perform a text-based search, you will type in a short phrase or word. For example,
“Height Mt. Everest”
However, you will instinctively take a different route while asking the AI assistant the same information. For example;
“What’s the height of Mt. Everest?”
This is a small difference, but it has a big impact on keyword research. Most people ask questions and search full sentences because it is easier to speak these things than to write them out. Keep that in mind while conducting keyword research.
These tips will help you find great keywords and reach your best audience.
Justin Kemp is working as a Jr. content writer and blogger with Ranking By SEO. He can be seen blogging about digital marketing, SEO, SMO, PPC, etc.
This is quite great list but you can keywords everywhere as well. I have used Smerush and ahref and I feel Smerush works well for me