If you want to know what keyword research is and how it can help your online business, this post is for you.
When I first started out, I had no idea what keywords were and why they were so important. After learning what they were and how I could implement them in the blogs I was writing, I now know that keywords play a big role in the promotion and traffic to your website.
In this post I will give an overview of what keyword research is, why it is important, the qualities of keywords and how you can use them for your own business.
Using keywords in your website is important for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). SEO is the process of improving your website or webpage so it will rank higher in search engines such as Google. Ranking higher in search engines will increase the amount of traffic to your website.
SEO also improves the quality of traffic coming to your website. In other words, you will reach a more targeted audience and they will be more likely to interact with your website such as read a blog, comment, or even buy something.
Topics I cover in this post:
- What is keyword research?
- Why is keyword research important?
- Keywords qualities
- How to find specific keywords using longtail keywords
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research involves researching search terms that your target audience is typing into search engines such as Google and finding the ones most used.
Finding the most popular keywords (search terms) and implementing them into your webpage content helps with search engine optimization (SEO) and can improve traffic to your website.
Keywords are not usually one word but a phrase. They are phrases that are typed into search engines by users. For example, if someone was looking for a new pair of jeans, they might search “Light blue jeans for women” or “Levi’s light blue jeans”. These are keywords or “search queries”.
Why is keyword research important?
Finding keywords for SEO is important as it can help with your ranking on the Google Result page as well as bring you targeted traffic. Knowing this information can help you grow your business online by understanding what people are searching for and optimizing your site for users.
For someone who has a website whether it be a blog or a business, the main goal is to make it to the first position on Google. This position is the first webpage/website that pops up after searching a term.
It is important to win the first position in Google as this is where most of the search traffic goes.
According to www.searchenginewatch.com the 1st ranked position on Google gets 32.5% of the traffic, 2nd is 17.6% and 3rd 11.4%. This means around 60% of the search traffic goes to the top 3 ranked webpages in the Google results page.
It is important to note that you can rank for more than a single keyword phrase. Therefore, you should use multiple keywords in your content as it increases your chance of gaining a good position in the Google results page for at least one of the keywords.
How to find keywords with the use of Keywords Everywhere
Keywords Everywhere is a browser add on that is used as a keyword search tool in Google chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Firefox. Our team highly recommends this add on to do keyword research for SEO.
We have added it to our Google Chrome browser and have been using it religiously. It has saved us so much time and money instead of doing the keyword research ourselves.
Keywords everywhere allows you to easily see the search volume, Cost per click (CPC) and competition of keywords. These qualities are outlined below in The qualities of keywords.
Using the Keywords Everywhere Chrome Extension
You can install Keywords everywhere from their home page. The beauty about Keywords everywhere is that there are no monthly subscriptions. Once you have downloaded Keywords everywhere to your browser, you pay as you go.
You can find out more about their pricing here.
The qualities of Keywords
Keyword search volume
Search volume for a keyword is the average total of times that keyword has been searched in the search engine (Google or Firefox) each month over the last 12 months. So, keywords with a high search volume have been searched for the most by users and are the most popular search terms.
The search volume gives you an estimate of the potential traffic you may get to your site if you rank for that specific keyword.
For example, if the keyword “Light blue jeans for women” has a search volume of 6,600, then around 6,600 people are searching for this specific keyword per month.
If you were to rank at the first position on the Google result page, there is the potential of this amount of traffic coming to your webpage per month.
However, keywords with the most search volume tend to have more competition and therefore, can be harder to rank for.
Competition of a keyword (high and low difficulty keywords)
You will most likely be competing with numerous people to try to rank for these keywords in Google.
Keywords that have low competition and are considered less effort to rank for and are known as low difficulty keywords. Keywords with high competition are considered more effort to rank for and are known as high difficulty keywords.
Keywords that are high difficulty tend to have higher search volumes. The reason why they are high difficulty is because they are highly sort after due to their high search volume (i.e there is more competition).
Keyword difficulty is measured on a scale of 0 to 100. A score of 100 means that the keyword is very difficult to rank for and a score of 0 means that it is extremely easy to rank for.
Keywords become difficult to rank for if they have a score of around 50 and over. While these keywords tend to have higher search volumes, if you’re just starting out it would be wise for you to start with keywords that have a lower score.
If you are completely new, I would recommend starting with keywords that have a difficulty ranking of 30 and below as these are the easiest keywords to rank for as they have less competition.
When your site becomes more developed and stronger you can then use the higher searched for terms with higher competition and try to rank for them. This is because your website would then be a strong competitor for those keywords, and you will be more likely end up on the first page of google.
The SEO difficulty ranking will be shown on the right of the screen when searching a keyword in Chrome.
In the example below, the keyword ‘light blue jeans for women’ has a difficulty of 54/100.
The score of 54 is termed a difficult keyword to rank for. It is the perfect example of the type of keywords you should be using if your site is more developed as it will become a strong competitor for that keyword.
Cost per click (CPC)
CPC tells you how much an advertiser pays for a single click for the keyword in Google Ads. For example, if the keyword “light blue jeans for women” had a CPC of $0.79, it would cost the advertiser $0.79 each time a user searches “light blue jeans for women” and clicks on their ad.
This means if 100 people clicked on the ad, it would cost the advertiser $79.
The more popular the keyword is, the higher the CPC will be. This is because more people will be bidding on that popular search term.
For example, “blue jeans” has a CPC of $1.50 and “light blue jeans” has a CPC of $0.71. This means that “blue jeans” is most likely a more popular search term than “light blue jeans” and that is why people are bidding more on that keyword.
Finding keywords for SEO using longtail keywords
When coming up with a keyword, you want it to be as specific as possible to reach your target audience better.
The more specific your keyword is, the higher quality your search traffic will be.
The best way to make the keyword more specific is to use long tail keywords instead of short tail keywords.
Long tail keywords consist of 4 or more words and short tail keywords only consist of 1 or 2 words. The idea of using long tail keywords is that you will generate more targeted traffic to your site. This is because the longer the keyword, the more specific it is to the user.
While long tail keywords have lower search volume than short tail keywords, they also have lower SEO competition and therefore have lower difficulty to rank for.
For example, if you were writing a blog post on outfits with blue jeans.
The keyword ‘blue jeans’ is a short tail keyword that has a search volume of 165,000 and an SEO difficulty of 68/100.
Since ‘blue jeans’ is such a board search term, it can be related to so many topics and therefore becomes a very popular search term. Its high search volume will mean it is a popular keyword and it will have more competition to rank for it. This is proven by its high difficulty at 68.
This search term could potentially be too hard to rank for and your website most likely won’t appear on the first page of Google search.
The keyword ‘what matches with light blue jeans’ is a longtail keyword which is more specific. It has a much lower search volume of 260 and a difficulty of 45.
While this keyword has far less traffic, it has a way lower difficulty meaning you are more likely to end up on the top positions on the Google search page. It will also generate more targeted traffic that will more likely be interested in what you have written about.
Trying to rank for these lower searched for keywords will make it more likely that your blog isn’t lost in the Google search results and getting no traffic at all.
To Sum up
Keywords play a massive role in the SEO of your site. Implementing keywords research into your business can help generate you more targeted traffic and improve your site.
Using the search volume, competition and CPC of a keyword can help you decide if it is worth using in your site.
I hope this post helped you in understanding what keywords are and how they are helpful as well as how to use them to benefit your website.
