Keyword research is the process of finding and analysing keywords that people are searching for on search engines (Google, Bing, Youtube, etc). Keyword research is an important tactic to improve the search engine optimisation (SEO) of your website, Youtube channel or podcast.
Keyword research isn’t only about finding the number of searches for each keyword. It’s about researching how people are searching the internet and the language they are using. This allows you to better produce your content to target keywords, which in turn helps people find your content.
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Why is Keyword Research Important?
The internet is an extremely competitive environment, this is because the barrier to accessing the internet is very low. There are over 500 000 new websites created on the internet each day, making it very hard to stand out on the internet. You need to stand out from the crowd.
Keyword research is going to allow you to find popular keywords that people are searching for. This means that you can create content that targets these keywords, instead of creating content that no one is searching for.
Put simply, keyword research is important because it helps you find popular search terms. This in turn lets you create content that people are searching for.
How to do Keyword Research?
There is no magic bullet for doing keyword research, there are different techniques and tools you can utilise to find popular keywords. Here are 3 techniques to do keyword research and find popular keywords. All these tools are free and easy to use. These tools and techniques are ranked in order of complexity to use, so as you become better at keyword research you can progress to the next tool.
3 Free Keyword Research Techniques
Technique 1 – Suggested Search Terms.
This technique will help you identify and find popular keywords.
Step 1. Go to the search engine you want to do keyword research on. Google is the most popular search engine, but there are countless others, including Bing, Youtube, Apple Podcasts etc. You get the idea.
Step 2. Start entering keywords that you want to learn about. The trick here is to pay attention to the keywords that the search engine suggests. The rule is that the most popular search terms get suggested first. This tactic also generates similar keywords that you might want to target.
The search term which is more popular always appears at the top of the suggested search terms.
Step 3. Look for patterns in other search engines, this will help you identify the most popular keywords. In this example, “how to train your puppy to stop biting” is obviously a very popular keyword.
However it’s not always best to look for the most popular keyword. This is because the most popular keyword often has the most content already produced for it. So lookout for slightly less popular keywords that will be less competitive.
Technique 2 – Related Searches.
Step 1. Go to the search engine you want to do keyword research on. Enter your original keyword.
Step 2. Scroll down until you find a section called something like “related searches”. Most search engines have this section.
The similar searches section is an excellent place to discover popular keywords which are similar to yours.
Step 3. In this example, I use the keyword we found earlier of “how to train your puppy to stop biting”. The search engine will automatically suggest keywords that are similar and popular. Take note of any interesting keywords, and the language people are using.
Technique 3 – Google Keyword Planner.
This technique is the most complicated method for doing keyword research, but offers the most detailed analytics. It will help you find out how many people are searching your keyword on Google.
Step 1. Login in to Google Ads (it’s free to join with your Google Account).
Step 2. Navigate to the tool Keyword Planner.
Step 3. Select the option of “Discover New Keywords”.
Select “Discover new keywords”.
Step 4. Enter your keyword into the search box, and hit “Get Results”
Choose a keyword that is reasonably broad, this will let Google find more results.
Step 5. Google will then show you information about this keyword, and other similar keywords. The most important number to look at is the “Avg Monthly Searches”, this tells you how many people are searching this keyword each month.
Take note of the Average Monthly Searches, this indicates the popularity of each keyword.
What to do after Keyword Research?
Keyword research doesn’t give you all the answers, the next step is applying this knowledge to your website, blogs, Youtube videos and other content. Take the keyword you’ve decided upon targeting, and apply it to your content. This means, including the keyword in the title, the description and the body of the content.
Don’t over use the keyword (you can get penalised for this), but you want to make it easy for the search engine to discover which keyword you’re targeting.
Keep doing Keyword Research.
Keyword research is a skill you can get better at. The more practise you do, the better understanding you will develop of how people are searching the internet. Understanding how people search the internet is the foundation of SEO.
