Whether you are new to SEO or you’ve been dipping your toes in the weird and wonderful world of digital marketing for quite some time, you’ll hear a number of experts banging on about the immense importance of ‘keyword research’. Is it really that important?

In this article, we’ll share a quick and easy guide on how to get started!

What is keyword research and is it as important as they say it is?

What is keyword research? In the simplest of terms: it’s the process of identifying which keyword search terms your ideal customers are typing into Google – so you can target them and attempt to put your website in front of them for maximum exposure and conversions.

Is it as important as they say it is? Absolutely. Think of your keywords like shop signage. If you walk past a shop on the high-street with a sign that only has the name of the store with no additional information either on the sign or in the windows, how likely are you to walk in?

Sure, in this scenario you might stick your head in out of pure curiosity, but in the online marketplace, when there are thousands and thousands of websites competing for people to ‘stick their heads in’, the websites without proper keyword research and placement will be lost like needles in a haystack.

A bite-size guide for fast and effective keyword research

1.           Know your brand and audience and define your goals: the first step is very easy; you need to figure out exactly who you are, what your goals are with online marketing, and who you want to attract to your website. Are there specific products and/or services you wish to promote? Establish this first and you will be better positioned to conduct meaningful keyword research.

2.           Start with a competitor analysis: next, begin your keyword research with competitor analysis. There are a number of different tools out there that can be used to identify which keywords your competitors are working on. This is incredibly powerful research as it can help you to effectively find ‘gaps’ in their online marketing and focus on less competitive keywords with higher conversions.

3.           Find valuable keywords using a keyword generation tool: next, using a keyword generation tool you want to find dozens of keyword ideas, synonyms, and suggestions. How is your ideal target audience searching for the products/services that you offer? Compile a list and break those main categories into subcategories, and then break them down further into even more detailed subcategories.

4.           Consolidate your data: if you find yourself buried in tonnes of keyword lists, don’t panic, because it means you are being thorough in your research. The next step is to consolidate all of this data, including search volumes and trends, and your main competitor’s respective rankings for those keywords. This will help you determine the following:

1. Which keyword search terms do you already have pages for?

2. Which ones do you need to produce content / create pages for?

5.           Categorise your keyword lists even further with user intent: next, compile your lists into smaller groups with user intent and semantic search in mind. For example:

1. Informational

2. Commercial investigation

3. Transactional

4. Navigational

6.           Search for and analyse long-tail Vs. short-tail keywords: this is the big one – especially when in a competitive marketplace. You want a healthy mix of both long-tail and short-tail keywords. For example, which of the following two keywords do you suppose would be easier to rank for?

1. Water bottles

2. Customised reusable water bottles

7.           Focus on a balanced mix of keywords for your SEO strategy: after conducting thorough and extensive keyword research, you need to start putting a balanced mix of focus keywords into your SEO strategy, including:

1. High & low search volumes (long-tail keywords tend to have lower search volumes but can yield higher conversions)

2. Organic click-through rates (a metric that measures how likely people are to click through on content with said keywords)

3. Keyword search trends (trending keywords are, by definition, forever changing; be sure to stay on top of them)

4. Competitor keywords (always know where your competitors are ranking in relation to you)

5. Long-tail & short-tail

Conclusion: Put them to work

And that about sums it up! Remember, this is a bite-size approach; there is far more complexity to proper keyword research and it isn’t a quick & easy process. However, if you do feel overwhelmed by the amount of work involved, we highly recommend that you outsource your digital marketing needs to a reputable SEO agency.

You may think that as a small business owner, you can save money by doing your own keyword research, however, the time it takes to conduct proper and meaningful keyword research – and then putting it into practice is significant.

Leave it to the experts so you can focus on growing your business and looking after your customers.