Keyword Research in SEO: a Beginner’s Guide

Keywords are essential for SEO. That much is clear. But it’s not as simple as throwing a handful of keywords onto some website pages and using that as your SEO strategy.?

How do you identify precisely what people are searching Google for? What’s more, do you know for sure those terms will drive organic traffic through to your site??

You can get an idea of similar types of searches that people perform on Google by looking at the ‘People Also Ask’ panel on Page 1. However, this is by no means an exhaustive list of what people are actively looking for in your industry.

A mixture of deep, organic keyword research tools, software and consultancy, is the only way you’re going to have any hope of finding the true value of each organic search term. At totalsurf, we’re here to help answer questions about?keyword research?and how you can utilise them to not only put on your site (more on that later) but also stay ahead of your competitors.

What is Keyword Research?

Firstly it’s important to understand exactly what we mean by?SEO keyword research. It’s the process of understanding what specific keywords and search terms people are looking for in your industry.?

Keyword research?is the process of understanding what words and phrases you should be considering if you want to target potential customers in your industry. Behind every search is a real person looking for a product, service or solution, and if they come across your website, you want to make their visit count. This cannot be done without deep keyword research.

Whether you are B2C or B2B, how can you sell to your target audience if you aren’t demonstrating your business as a viable option to them? If you aren’t answering their questions and presenting yourself as their perfect solution, how will you reach these people? What’s more, how can you reach them if your website isn’t showing up on search results pages?

It all begins with?keyword research. As far as we’re concerned, keyword research is more than simply finding out a bucket list of keywords; it involves deep analysis of these searches, comparing and prioritising the most valuable, relevant ones, which are likely to present you with good ranking opportunities.

Why is Keyword Research Important?

By?conducting in-depth keyword research, you can understand what people are searching for and how many, on average, search those terms. You also get a clear picture of how competitive the market is for each individual search term, as well as how likely someone would be to click a potential search term.

You will benefit massively from this complex data – helping you to avoid the issue of creating content that’s either A) utterly irrelevant to your business or consumer, or B) pointless as nobody is searching for it.?

Many site owners make one or both of these mistakes, and for what it’s worth, it’s not necessarily always a reflection of their site being ‘poor’. It could be designed and coded well, but if their content isn’t delivering what it’s supposed to be, or if it just isn’t serving the business or its customers any purpose, there’s always room for improvement. Keyword research helps alleviate this and get the ball rolling to?create content?that’s relevant and engaging, and will therefore drive organic traffic to your site.

Take a client of ours, for example, where?our keyword research?proved invaluable. London Wellness Centre was ranking reasonably well for keywords such as “chiropractor in London”, which is, by all means, a relevant keyword. However, after we performed deep research into their industry and competitors, we found that far more people searched for the types of issues they were having and whether a chiropractor could help with these problems.?

For example, “sciatica”, a keyword that carried upwards of 200,000 searches per month, not to mention the long-tail keywords around sciatica, carried far more weight and presented more ranking opportunities than “chiropractor in London”.?

This data allowed us to restructure the site plan and content strategy for this client and create dedicated pages around these problems. They each presented unique and more significant ranking opportunities. LWC achieved a 51% increase in organic traffic over 6 months when compared with the previous year.

What to Consider With Keyword Research

Keyword research?helps you to answer common questions, such as:

• How hard will it be to rank for this particular keyword?
• How much traffic should I expect?
• What kind of content can I create around this keyword?
• Are people searching for this likely to convert?

Finding the correct answers to these questions while thinking carefully about how your business can present logical, engaging and informative content around search terms in your industry takes time. But Rome wasn’t built in a day. Good things come to those who take their time. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. You get the idea.

The point we’re making is that if you’re willing to give the keyword research process plenty of time – or, more specifically, allow us to find the relevant keywords and?competitor research?in your industry – you are on the right track.?

The keyword research process is a two-way street; we’ll take care of the hard legwork and deep time-consuming data collation and input, but we will need you to review what we find and make decisions. This isn’t as daunting as it sounds! We’ll help you through the process, and make it as easy as possible for you. We’ll primarily need your verdict on a few things, to guide us in the right direction:

• Identifying seed keywords – for example, if you sell kitchen appliances, you need to look at keywords around fridge-freezers, ovens, microwaves, blenders and so on.??
• Looking at what your competitors are ranking for – your business competitors might not be exactly the same as your ‘SEO competitors’. You may find your competitors rank more for terms like “fridge-freezer suppliers” or “oven suppliers”, as opposed to “fridge-freezers” or “ovens”.

Seed keyword ideas are vital, but how do you know which ones are the absolute best for you? Using keyword research tools will allow us to narrow things down and separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

One of our biggest USPs is that?competitor analysis?– which we do before we begin the keyword research – allows us to find gaps in the market and opportunities you may not have considered. Our tools pull in data of each organic keyword that your competitors rank for, which we will then go through, sanitise and consult with you on.?

From then on, we dedicate a significant amount of time to conduct the keyword research in full, compiling all of our findings into a massive spreadsheet with up-to-date metrics. This data is then sanitised, and we’d then work with you to go through and identify the most relevant ones (as well as the specific ones you want to track as part of your SEO campaign).?

By sanitising this keyword data, it allows us to conduct further research if needed. Once we’ve determined the correct keywords for your campaign, with your approval, we then develop a?content strategy?and site plan based on the keywords that are going to drive that winning traffic.

Keyword Research Should be Your #1 Priority with Web Design & Development

Without?deep keyword research?underpinning your?content strategy?and site plan, you’re missing out on chances to stand out from your competitors.

You may well end up ranking for some keywords, but some websites – depending on their setup, complexity and functionality – don’t even get that far. Sometimes the platform or CMS you’re running your site on isn’t SEO-friendly, and you may not even be aware of it. You could be putting all this effort into researching relevant keywords and search terms, only to find out your platform just isn’t built to accommodate your needs.

How would you know that without the expert help of an?SEO agency? You wouldn’t, to be frank.

Keywords are the single most crucial element in the creation of a website that?converts. Yes, they’re essential for traffic, but it’s how you structure your site that makes it an easy, hassle-free experience for your visitors that helps those conversions. At totalsurf, we specialise in?creating websites around keywords?– we like to call it our ‘websites in reverse’ approach!

Many site owners design and build a visually impressive site; subsequently, they write content for the site, launch it and wait patiently for the enquiries to come in. They then wonder why there’s no increase in booking form submissions, calls, emails or visitors, and the site has a high bounce rate. They then reach out to an SEO agency to help them drive organic traffic, and primarily the agency says the content doesn’t match what people search for, or the site design doesn’t connect with – or match – the goals. Then it’s a case of?rebuilding the site,?rewriting the content?and getting the results you expected after having spent more than you intended and lost potential leads.?

At totalsurf, with a combination of?expert keyword research?and?onsite technical optimisation, we will help Google recognise you for the valuable keywords that will bring traffic to your site.?Our SEO executives and content writers?can help curate that?SEO-rich copy, backed up by?excellent coding and techniques.?

If you’d like to find out more, we offer a?free, no-obligation SEO audit?where you can find out what you’re ranking for currently and how we’d be able to help further.