7 Tips to Do Effective Keyword Research for Content Marketing

In the business world, creating content just for the sake of creating content is a bad strategy. Many organizations recognize the need to create content so they begin creating content out of obligation instead of building a strategy. Nonstrategic content serves little to no purpose for organizations, it can actually be a waste of time and money. Keyword research is the foundation of great content strategy. It’s not the most glamorous of tasks but it represents the difference between excellence and average in the marketing world. We all know that there is a sea of content out there, and for that reason, blending in is a death sentence. It’s important to do what it takes to rise above!

Identify key business drivers

Content should always link back to your organization’s purpose in one way or another. The first step when beginning to do keyword research is to decide on which goals of the business you will work towards with your content. Content can be powerful when focused and well thought out but a disconnected, disorganized content plan will accomplish little to nothing in the grand scheme of things. So step one should always be to ask yourself, “why are we creating this?” and make sure it agrees with the vision that’s been set for the organization. Content planning can lead to bigger discussions among business leaders in some cases. Sometimes the hustle of growing a business can pull people away from setting the course for their marketing. Content planning can force the team to set a strategy that other initiatives can fall under and work towards.              

Talk with the sales team & SME’s

To discover the keywords that will make the biggest impact on your business you have to be in tune with the common language your target audience uses. One of the easiest ways to hear how your target audience is speaking about the industry and what questions they are asking is to talk with the sales team. The sales team is most likely spending the most time interacting with your target audience of anyone in the company. Asking them to update the marketing team on what they are hearing from your audience will keep the keywords and the content hyper-relevant! In some very technical businesses the best thing to do is have conversations with the subject matter experts who work directly in the field. It can be a daunting task to research keywords and create content for businesses that work on things that the average person doesn’t even understand. The marketing team should understand the ins and outs of the products or services they are representing so that they can effectively apply their creativity to the keyword research process and content creation without depending on the time of the subject matter experts.

When talking to either the sales team or the subject matter experts, what you’re looking for is the common language for how your audience is asking or searching for your business. These insights will influence the keywords that could be the center of your content...so listen close!

List the problems your solving

A lot of the time people are very aware of their problems but they aren’t as aware of the best solution. In most cases, the leader in the market is the one who is clearly defining their audience’s problem and leading them to their effective solution. A great way to get down to your most effective keywords is to list all the problems your business solves. Many people search for their problem while they’re looking for their solution so adding keywords for them can be an effective way to capture your audience early on in their search. 

Google some keywords

To get a base level understanding of what keywords to begin researching simply Google some broad industry terms. When you do this you’ll see what ads your competitors are running to rank for that search query as well as the different content that is ranking on the page one. Seeing these results will help guide you in keyword and content planning. Pull out some things you like that you could replicate and point out the things you can do better to outrank your competition. It’s possible that when you Google some popular keywords you’ll discover that you won’t be able to compete at the same level that your competition is. That’s actually a good thing! Knowing where you can and cannot compete will save your organization time and money. Most of the time the solution to high competition is to target more long-tail keywords that are less expensive and have fewer competitors trying to rank for them. 

Use a tool 

There are many tools out there that will give you information on the keywords you’re interested in. My personal favorite is called “KWfinder” this is part of the ‘Mongools” suite of tools. All five products cost $29.99/mo which is very reasonable considering what it can do for you. This tool (and others like it) allow you to type in the keywords you’re interested in and where in the world you’d like to target for these keywords. Once you enter in that information it will pull up information for the specific keyword you entered as well as other similar keywords. Beside each keyword you will see its cost per click, search volume, competition score, and organic ranking difficulty. If you click on a keyword on the list it will even tell you what websites are ranking the highest for it. This tool will help you take your broad list of keywords that you gathered in your research and verify if they are in your “wheelhouse”.  

What are your competitors doing?

Keeping up with the Joneses is not a good thing, and I certainly don’t recommend it. Having a pulse on where your competitors are going from a content perspective is a great way to “skate where the puck is going” instead of living in a reactive state. Your most formidable competitors will value content and keyword research so keeping an eye on them is only the responsible thing to do. Some places to watch them are, Google, their blog, their primary social media channels, and their newsletters. Remember, you’re not watching them to copy them, you’re watching them to dissect their strategy so you have an idea where they are heading. 

Build an adjacent keyword list

A lot of people leave this step out and it’s super important! Your audience is interested in more than just your products and services. In all the research you’ll do and time you’ve spent learning about your audience you can likely list some of the common interests, For example, people that might be interested in a top of the line knife set likely enjoy cooking. Creating content around cooking interesting dishes can lure that audience to your site where you can then share with them the value of your high quality knife set. This list is excellent for developing content offers that entice your audience into your circle where you can qualify them along over time. 

Alright, wrap it up…

Keyword research is an effective and affordable way to guide your content marketing to excellence! A little extra effort makes all the difference in the content marketing world. There are a lot of resources that exist around this topic so don’t be afraid to Google “keyword research for content marketing” and read to your hearts contempt. 

If you have any questions you can always reach out to me as well! I love talking marketing and I’m happy to help anyway I can. Send me a direct message on Linkedin and I’ll get right back to you.