Selecting Strategic Keywords- The SEO Guide
Even though Google rolls out numerous algorithm updates to help you generate traffic for your website, the one element that remains consistent throughout is- Keyword Research.
Thus, we need to know what keyword research is and how we implement it strategically to boost our SEO? Let us discuss the meaning and step-by-step process of generating keywords to help attain your SEO goals?
What does Keyword Research for SEO mean?
Keyword research refers to the process wherein we use specific words, terms or phrases to look for something online. For example, if you wish to look for restaurants near you to visit, you type ‘Restaurants near me’ on the search bar, and the results appear in front of you. This specific term is known as Keyword Research.
Why do we need keyword research for SEO?
Keyword Research holds a significant place in boosting your SEO as through these; you can drive traffic to your website. Continuing the above example, if you use keywords and other SEO strategies effectively, your search result might appear on top, which would be perceived by the customers as credible and would bring more clicks for your website.
Thus, accurately predicting your customer queries and understanding the intent behind them is essential for optimizing your content. Researching keywords that are high in search volume would enable you to plan your content accordingly.
Process of Keyword Research for SEO:
- Finding ideas for keywords:
The first step to researching keywords is to know well about your business and what the customers frequently query about all topics. This involves:
- Putting yourself in your buyer’s shoes to see what they would generally be enquiring about. What exactly would their intentions be behind the searches, and what keywords with the desired search volume might be able to answerthem?
- We are teaming up with the sales team to understand the buyer’s perceptions and requirements.
- Competitor’s actions must also be noticed. To optimize their ranks, the keywords used by them must also be kept in mind to better position the website.
- Using Keyword Research Toolsprovides you with professional analysis and suggestions to use on an SEO budget.
- Categorizing keywords into various topics:
After getting various keyword ideas, it is necessary to narrow down your list for a better yield. To do that, you can use multiple SEO metrics like search volume, clicks, traffic potentials etc.
It is also necessary to categorize the selected ones into topics under which they fall to plan your other content. To clarify, let’s take an example of shoes:
When you search for ‘Shoes for men,’ the search results present you with various options like, ‘Shoes for men casual,’ ‘Shoes for men formal,’ ‘Shoes for men under 500’ etc., thus, you need to categorize your keywords accordingly, to avoid any difficulty in locating your website.
The keywords can also be categorized based on the format of your content, what it is representing and what exactly is its selling point. For example, A blog post (Content-Type) about reviewing vegan chocolate cake (Content-Format) made at home using some chef’s recipe (Content Angle).
- Choose the best keywords:
Your keywords must satisfy the following factors:
- Meeting searcher’s needs
- Enriched content providing more weight to your content using backlinks, promotions etc.
- I am getting traffic on your website.
- Balance of long ( 3 or more words) and short (1-2 words) keywords
- Reviewing keywords continuously:
The keywords should not be just used once and forgotten later. These should be reviewed constantly for any changes that might occur over time. This includes reviewing keywords by:
- Region: Keyword strategizing must be done based on area as each part has its sub-interests.
- Season: Christmas, Diwali, Easter, Summer, Winter etc., impact the search for keywords. For example, search for ice cream and cold beverages spike in summer and reduce in winter.
- Rival: The rivals may change their strategies that might impact your ranking on SEO.
Thus, the timely review would help you to further plan your actions and strategies accordingly.
Conclusion:
Even though Keywords are just one aspect of SEO, it is reasonably necessary to understand their significance. Proper research is to be conducted to identify the best possible keywords that would bring traffic to your website and increase search engines’ ranking. Thus, by understanding the basics of keyword research, you should be better able to find your niche in SEO.
