You're new to SEO and want to improve your website's ranking. How do you get started with keyword research?

1 Understand your niche

Before you dive into keyword research, you need to have a clear idea of what your website is about, who your target audience is, and what your goals are. You need to understand your niche, your unique selling proposition, and your competitors. This will help you define your keyword strategy and focus on the topics and terms that matter most to your business. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Google Trends, and social media platforms to research your niche and discover what your customers are interested in, what problems they have, and what language they use.

3 Use keyword research tools

Keyword research tools are software applications that help you find and analyze keywords related to your seed keywords. They can provide you with valuable data such as search volume, competition, difficulty, trends, and variations. Some of the most popular keyword research tools are Google Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, SEMrush, and Ahrefs. You can use these tools to expand your keyword list, filter and sort them by relevance and performance, and identify keyword gaps and opportunities.

5 Evaluate keyword difficulty

Keyword difficulty is a metric that indicates how hard it is to rank for a given keyword on search engines. It is based on factors such as the number and quality of competing pages, the authority and relevance of the domain, and the on-page and off-page optimization. The higher the keyword difficulty, the more effort and resources you need to invest to rank well. You can use keyword research tools to measure keyword difficulty and compare it with your own website's authority and resources. You should aim for keywords that have high search volume, low competition, and high relevance to your niche.

6 Organize and prioritize keywords

The final step in keyword research is to organize and prioritize your keywords based on your goals and strategy. You can group your keywords into categories or themes that correspond to your website's structure, content, and offers. For example, you can create categories such as organic coffee types, organic coffee benefits, organic coffee reviews, etc. You can also prioritize your keywords based on their importance, urgency, and feasibility. You can use a keyword matrix to rank your keywords according to their search volume, difficulty, intent, and value. You can then focus on the keywords that have the highest potential and impact for your website.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?