Keyword research is one of the most important facets of search engine optimisation, along with content marketing and link building. It is the process of researching the most appropriate words or phrases used by the consumers looking for a particular business, product or service. Simply put, it is all about targeting the words typed by the users into the search engine entry box.
Why keyword research is important?
It is absolutely critical to know the relevant and important keywords related to your business as it assists your customers to find your website, thus driving traffic to it. If you target the wrong set of keywords that are rarely used by the consumers or do not directly relate to your services, your webpages would be optimised for the wrong keywords and you may attract unqualified traffic which would not convert into your leads. In addition to this, the content strategy adopted by you would prove futile as it may not incorporate the ‘right’ keywords. While trying to analyse important keywords to target, as per the market and user demand, you not only learn which terms and phrases to target with SEO, but also have a better understanding about your customers as a whole.
How to carry out keyword research?
Step into your customers shoes and think about the words you would use to search for a particular service or product for your business. Brainstorm with your team and prepare a list of the keywords that best described your service/product with emphasis on regional and geographic elements. Then ask yourself will the searchers find what they are looking for on your website when they search using those keywords? Be more specific while targetting keywords as it influences where your website is ranked on search engine results. After selecting the list of keywords, determine the amount of competition for each of them. If you are a novice with a new website, you should target keywords with medium to low competition levels as the keywords with higher levels of competition are very difficult to target at the initial stage.
There are several tools available to assist you in the keyword research process. Some of the more popular ones include:
Google Adwords Keyword Tool –This is a powerful and most importantly free keyword research tool that helps you to research keywords that best suits your business. It helps you to determine related keywords, competition, number of global monthly searches and local monthly searches too which helps you to analyse the potential of each keyword in enhancing your website visibility on search engines.
Market Samurai –This is one of the most widely used paid for SEO tools used for keyword research with emphasis on what keywords to target, ranking and competition of the keyword,how to purchase domains for them, promotion of your keyword etc.
Long Tail Pro- Long Tail Pro is an easy-to-use, paid keyword research tool which is most preferrable for key phrase generation, site visitors and competitive analysis.
Besides these, there are other keyword research tools such as SEMRush, Wordtracker, SEOmoz, Woorank Website Review tool that helps in keyword research process. Keyword reserch is actually a critical link between users search and your website. Keyword research not only helps to get higher rankings in the searches but also helps you to understand the market trends and produce products and content that consumers are already seeking on the internet. This is why is it a vital and important ingredient for your website success.
At eTrack Media, a leading SEO company in the UK, we conduct an extensive research about our clients’ business and services offered by them and then prepare a list of most relevant and effective keywords. We also use Keyword Research tool such as Google Adwords to search vital keywords based on the search volume, intent and competition.
