10 Timeless Keyword Research Tips

10 Timeless Keyword Research Tips

By Digital Journal Blog

Keyword Research

Finding and analyzing search phrases that people type into search engines is the practice of conducting keyword research. This is done with the intention of utilizing the information for a specific purpose, frequently for search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing.

Keyword research can reveal target queries, their popularity, the difficulty of ranking for these queries, and more.

These tips are based on proven strategies, best practices, and real-world examples from successful SEO experts and marketers. Here are the article’s key recommendations:

Table of Contents

1: Identify Your Niche’s and Your Competitors’ Defining Keywords Via Brainstorming
2: To Come Up with New Keyword Suggestions, Use Keyword Research Tools
3: Consider Examining the Keyword Difficulty and Search Volume for Your Keyword
4: Recognize The User Behavior and Searches Underlying Your Terms
5: Your Keywords Should Be Grouped into Pertinent Subjects and Subtopics
6: To Find New Keyword Chances, Do Competitive Analysis
7: Use Google Trends to Find Seasonal and Popular Search Terms
8: To Identify Your Website’s Top-Performing Keywords, Use Google Analytics
9: Refresh and Update Your Outdated Material with New Keywords
10: Based On Keyword Opportunities and Gaps, Create Fresh Content

Let’s dive into each tip in more detail.

Why It’s Important?

Researching keywords is crucial since it enables you to choose the ideal ones to target and offers insightful information about the Google searches that your target market is actually making. You may use the knowledge you gain about these actual search phrases to inform both your smaller-scale marketing plan and your content strategy.

However, keyword research is not a one-time task that you can do once and forget about. It is a continuous process that needs continued observation, research, and improvement. Your keyword research may be hampered or ineffective due to a variety of issues and errors, including:

• Choosing keywords that are too broad or too specific
• Ignoring the search intent and user behavior behind the keywords
• Focusing only on high-volume or low-competition keywords
• Neglecting long-tail keywords and semantic variations
• Relying on outdated or inaccurate data sources
• Not tracking and measuring the performance of your keywords

We have prepared 10 tried-and-true suggestions that will assist you in locating and focusing on the ideal keywords for your website in order to help you get beyond these obstacles and master the skill of keyword research.

Tip 1: Identify Your Niche’s and Your Competitors’ Defining Keywords Via Brainstorming

Your keyword research method begins with a set of seed keywords. They assist you in determining your competition and defining your specialty. Every tool for keyword research requests a seed keyword, which it utilizes to build a sizable list of keyword suggestions (more on that in the following tip).

Finding seed keywords is simple if you already have a service or business that you want to market online. Just consider the search terms consumers would use to find what you have to offer.

For instance, your seed keywords can be: If you offer coffee and coffee-making equipment,

• coffee beans
• coffee grinder
• coffee maker
• espresso machine

You can also use your brand name or product name as a seed keyword, especially if you have a unique or distinctive name that people might search for. For example, if you sell a coffee subscription service called Bean Box, then your seed keyword might be a bean box.

Brainstorm Seed Keywords

However, if you don’t have a product or business yet, or if you want to explore a new niche or market, then brainstorming seed keywords can be more challenging.  In that situation, you must conduct some investigation and analysis to learn about people’s interests and issues. Here are some ways to brainstorm seed keywords for a new niche or market:

• Use online forums, communities, social media platforms, Q&A sites, etc. to find out what topics and questions are popular among your target audience. For example homebrewtalk.com, reddit.com/r/homebrewing, etc.

• Use online tools like Google Trends, BuzzSumo, AnswerThePublic, etc. to find out what trends and content are popular in your niche or industry. Such as Google Trends (home brewing), BuzzSumo (home brewing), AnswerThePublic (home brewing), etc.

• Use internet shops like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and other similar sites to find out what products and categories are popular and profitable in your niche or industry.

• Use online magazines, blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, etc. to find out what influencers and experts are talking about and recommending in your niche or industry.

Based on these sources, some possible seed keywords for the home brewing niche are:

• home brewing
• home brew kit
• home brew supplies
• home brew recipes

Tip 2: To Come Up with New Keyword Suggestions, Use Keyword Research Tools

These are online tools that can help you discover new keyword opportunities, analyze the competition, and evaluate the potential of each keyword.  Several of the most well-liked keyword research instruments are:

Google Keyword Planner:

This is a free tool from Google that enables you to locate keywords associated with your good or service, see how frequently people are searching for them, and receive recommendations for related phrases.

You can also see the estimated bid and competition level for each keyword, which can help you plan your budget and strategy for paid advertising.

SEMrush:

This is a paid tool that offers a comprehensive suite of features for keyword research and analysis. You can use it to find keywords for any niche or industry, see the search volume and trend for each keyword, and get insights into the difficulty and opportunity of ranking for them.

You can also see the top-ranking pages for each keyword, analyze their backlinks and content, and spy on your competitors’ strategies.

Ahrefs:

This is another paid tool that provides a wealth of data and insights for keyword research and optimization. You can use it to find thousands of relevant keywords for any topic or domain, see the search volume and difficulty for each keyword, and get suggestions for long-tail keywords and questions that people ask related to your topic.

You can also see the top-ranking pages for each keyword, analyze their authority and traffic, and identify content gaps and opportunities.

Tip 3: Consider Examining the Keyword Difficulty and Search Volume for Your Keywords

You must further study your list of prospective keywords for your content to decide which ones are worthwhile to target. The two most important factors to keep in mind are as follows:

Keyword Difficulty:

This is a measure of how hard it is to rank for a given keyword on search engines. It depends on various factors, such as the number and quality of competing pages, the authority and relevance of the domain, and the user behavior and preferences. Generally, the higher the keyword difficulty, the more effort and resources you need to invest to rank for it.

Search Volume:

This is a measure of how many times a given keyword is searched for on search engines per month. It indicates the popularity and demand of the keyword among users. Generally, the higher the search volume, the more potential traffic you can get from ranking for it.

You can use keyword research tools to find out the keyword difficulty and search volume of your keywords. These measurements, however, can differ based on the instrument and the data source and are not absolute. Therefore, you should use them as guidelines rather than rules when choosing your keywords.

A good practice is to balance between keyword difficulty and search volume when selecting your keywords. You want to target keywords that have a high enough search volume to attract traffic, but not too high that they are too competitive and hard to rank for. You also want to target keywords that have a low enough difficulty level that you can rank for them with reasonable effort and resources, but not too low that they are irrelevant or insignificant.

Best Practices

A common mistake that many beginners make is to target only high-volume keywords that are very competitive or only low-difficulty keywords that have little or no traffic potential. This can result in wasting time and money on ineffective strategies that do not bring any results.

Instead, you should aim for a mix of different types of keywords that match your goals and capabilities. For example, you can target:

Head Keywords:

These are broad and generic keywords that consist of one or two words, such as “shoes” or “digital marketing”. They have a very high search volume but also a very high difficulty level.

Head keywords are usually very competitive and hard to rank for unless you have a very authoritative and well-established website.

They are also not very specific or relevant to your niche or audience. However, they can help you attract a large amount of traffic if you manage to rank for them.

Body Keywords:

These are more specific and descriptive keywords that consist of two or three words, such as “running shoes” or “digital marketing strategies”.

They have a moderate search volume and difficulty level. These are usually less competitive and easier to rank for than head keywords, but still require some effort and resources.

They are also more relevant and targeted to your niche or audience. They can help you attract a decent amount of traffic and conversions if you rank for them.

Long-Tail Keywords:

These are very specific and narrow keywords that consist of four or more words, such as “best running shoes for flat feet” or “digital marketing strategies for small businesses”.

They have a low search volume but also a low difficulty level. Long-tail keywords are usually not very competitive and easy to rank for with minimal effort and resources.

They are also very relevant and targeted to your niche or audience. They can help you attract a small but highly qualified and engaged traffic that is more likely to convert.

Tip 4: Recognize The User Behavior and Searches Underlying Your Terms

Understanding what your intended market is looking for and how they behave when using search engines is one of the most crucial elements of SEO. The most important aspects that affect how relevant and helpful your material is for your potential clients are search intent and user behavior. Search intent refers to the goal or purpose of a user’s query.

As an illustration, some users may have informational intent (want to learn more about a topic), navigational intent (want to compare options or solutions), transactional intent (want to make a purchase) or brand intent (want to visit a specific website or page).

User behavior refers to how users interact with the search results and your website. For example, some users may click on the first result they see (click-through rate), some may spend a lot of time reading your content or browsing your site (dwell time), some may return to the search results and click on another result (pogo-sticking), and some may share your content on social media or other platforms (social signals).

Understanding the search intent and user behavior behind your keywords can help you create content that matches their needs and expectations, and thus improve your SEO performance.

Tip 5: Your Keywords Should Be Grouped into Pertinent Subjects and Subtopics

A best way to optimize your content for SEO is to group your keywords into relevant topics and subtopics. You may use this to organize your blog post clearly and make it simpler for visitors and search engines to comprehend what your content is about.

Why Is This Important?

Because search engines use topics and subtopics to determine the relevance and quality of your content. They also use them to create rich snippets, featured snippets, and other types of results that can boost your visibility and click-through rate.

How Do You Group Your Keywords into Topics and Subtopics?

Here are some steps you can follow:

Start with your main keyword and use keyword research tools to find related keywords. Analyze the search intent of each keyword. Categorize your keywords into subtopics based on their search intent.

Write your blog post using your topics and subtopics as headings and subheadings. Use your keywords naturally and strategically throughout your content. Provide valuable and relevant information for each subtopic and answer the user’s query in a clear and concise way.

Tip 6: To Find New Keyword Chances, Do Competitive Analysis

Competitor analysis involves locating and assessing the advantages and disadvantages of your online competitors. You may learn how they draw in and keep their target audience by looking at the type of material they provide and the key phrases they use.

There are many tools that can help you perform a competitor analysis, such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz, and Ubersuggest. These tools can provide a range of metrics, including:

• The organic search terms that your rivals are placing for
• The estimated organic traffic that they are getting from those keywords
• The difficulty and popularity of those keywords
• The pages that are ranking for those keywords
• The links linking back to those pages.

You can gain a better understanding of the kinds of keywords you should focus on for your own website by reviewing these statistics.

How to Use Competitor Analysis to Discover More Keyword

You can also find gaps and opportunities where you can outrank your competitors by creating better content or building more links. Here are some tips on how to use competitor analysis to discover more keyword opportunities:

• Start with a list of your main competitors. You can use tools like SimilarWeb or Alexa to find out who are the most popular websites in your niche or industry.
• Enter their domain names into a keyword research tool and see what keywords they are ranking for. You can filter the results by various criteria, such as search volume, keyword difficulty, position, and country.
• Look for keywords that are relevant to your website, have high search volume and low competition, and match the search intent of your target audience. You can also look for long-tail keywords that are more specific and less competitive.
• Evaluate the content and backlinks of the pages that are ranking for those keywords. See what kind of value they are providing to the users, how they are optimizing their pages for SEO, and what kind of sources are linking to them. They can help you create timely, relevant content that appeals to your audience. You can use tools like Google Sheets or Excel to organize your keywords by categories, topics, or subtopics.
• Create high-quality content that covers those keywords in depth and provides more value than your competitors. You can use tools like Yoast SEO or Rank Math to optimize your content for SEO and readability.
• Promote your content and build links from relevant and authoritative websites. You can use tools like BuzzSumo or Mailshake to find influencers and bloggers who might be interested in your content and reach out to them.

Tip 7: Use Google Trends to Find Seasonal and Popular Search Terms

What Are Seasonal and Trending Keywords?

Seasonal keywords are keywords that have a predictable pattern of demand throughout the year. For example, keywords related to holidays, events, seasons, sports, etc. These keywords usually have a peak of interest during a specific time period, and then drop off until the next cycle.

Trending keywords are keywords that have a sudden spike of interest due to some external factor, such as news, viral content, social media buzz, etc. These keywords are usually unpredictable and short-lived, but they can also generate a lot of traffic and attention if you catch them early enough.

Why Use Seasonal and Trending Keywords for Your Blog Posts?

Using seasonal and trending keywords for your blog posts can have several benefits for your SEO strategy:

They can help you target high-volume keywords that have low competition. Since seasonal and trending keywords are time-sensitive, they may not be as saturated as evergreen keywords that are always in demand. This means you have a better chance of ranking higher and getting more clicks.

They can assist you in producing timely and pertinent material that appeals to your audience. By using seasonal and trending keywords, you can show that you are aware of what’s happening in your industry and in the world, and that you can provide valuable information or insights on current topics.

By doing this, you can win over your readers’ respect and authority and entice them to spread the word about your material. They can help you diversify your content strategy and avoid keyword cannibalization.

You may avoid utilizing the same keywords again in your blog entries, which can harm your SEO performance, by choosing seasonal and trending keywords. Instead, you can create fresh and unique content that covers different aspects of your niche and attracts different segments of your audience.

How to Use Google Trends To Identify Seasonal And Trending Keywords?

Google Trends is a powerful tool that can help you discover seasonal and trending keywords for your blog posts. Here are some actions you can do to get the most of Google Trends:

Step-1

Enter a keyword or topic associated with your niche in the search box at https://trends.google.com/trends. To limit your results, you may also select a region, a time period, a category, and a search type (web, image, news, etc.).

Step-2

You will see a graph that shows the interest over time for your keyword or topic. The precise numbers for each point in time can be seen by hovering your cursor over the graph. You can also change the view from line chart to bar chart or map chart to see different perspectives.

Step-3

Below the graph, you will see some tabs that show related topics and related queries for your keyword or topic. These are terms that people also searched for when they searched for your keyword or topic. You can sort them by relevance or by rising popularity (top or rising). Each term has a link that you may click to view more information about it.

Step-4

To compare different keywords or topics, you can enter up to five terms in the search box separated by commas. You will see a table with the average interest for each word across different locations, as well as a graph that displays the interest over time for each term.

Step-5

To identify seasonal keywords, look for patterns in the graph that show peaks and valleys of interest over time. For example, if you search for “Halloween costumes”, you will see that the interest spikes every October. You can also use the date range filter to see how the interest changes over different years or months.

Step-6

To identify trending keywords, look for spikes in the graph that show sudden increases of interest over time. For example, if you search for “NBA Finals”, you will see that the interest spikes every June. The real-time filter can also be used to view the most recent trends from the previous 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days.

How to Use Seasonal and Trending Keywords for Your Blog Posts?

Once you have identified some seasonal and trending keywords for your blog posts, you can use them to create engaging and relevant content. Here are some tips to use seasonal and trending keywords effectively:

Use seasonal and trending keywords in your titles, headings, and meta tags to help search engines and users understand what your blog post is about and increase your chances of ranking higher and getting more clicks.

Don’t overuse or force them into your content, as this can hurt your readability and user experience. Use seasonal and trending keywords to answer questions, provide solutions, or offer insights.

Create different types of content that can attract more traffic and engagement. Use hashtags, mentions, or tags to increase visibility and reach more potential readers.

Tip 8: To Identify Your Website’s Top-Performing Keywords, Use Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free tool that monitors and examines the traffic to your website. It can assist you in comprehending how visitors arrive at your website, the pages they view, how long they remain, and the steps they take. This information can help you enhance the functionality and user experience of your website.

Knowing what search terms visitors use to locate your website is one benefit of Google Analytics. You can access this information by going to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels > Organic Search. Here you will see a list of keywords that brought visitors to your website from search engines. You can use this list of keywords to optimize your website in several ways:

• Identify the keywords that bring the most traffic and conversions to your website. These are your top-performing keywords and you should focus on maintaining or improving their rankings.
• Identify the keywords that have a high click-through rate (CTR) but a low conversion rate. These are the keywords that attract visitors but fail to convert them into customers. You should analyze why these keywords are not converting and try to improve their landing pages or offers.
• Identify the keywords that have a low CTR but a high conversion rate. These are the keywords that have a high potential but are not getting enough exposure. You should try to increase their rankings by creating more relevant and engaging content around them.
• Identify the keywords that have a low CTR and a low conversion rate. These are the keywords that are not performing well and you should consider removing them from your website or replacing them with better ones.

Tip 9: Refresh and Update Your Outdated Material with New Keywords

Add new keywords to your outdated material to update and renew it. The words and phrases individuals employ when searching for information online are known as keywords. By using the right keywords in your content, you can match the search intent of your potential customers and attract them to your website.

But how do you update and refresh your old content with new keywords? Here are some tips to help you out:

• Keyword research tools are online platforms that help you discover what keywords your audience is searching for and how competitive they are.
• Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions to tell Google what your content is about and how relevant it is for a given query.
• Use keyword-rich tags to categorize it and make it easier to find. Tip 14.4: Optimize your images to make your content more engaging and appealing.

Updating and refreshing old content with new keywords is an ongoing process. To optimize images for SEO, you should use descriptive file names, alt text, and compress them.

Internal links are links that point to other pages on your website and help Google crawl and index your website better. External links are links that point to other websites or sources outside of your website and help Google evaluate the credibility and authority of your content.

Monitor and measure your results to see if it improves rankings, traffic, conversions, etc.

Tip 10: Based On Keyword Opportunities and Gaps, Create Fresh Content

Keyword gaps are the terms and phrases that your competitors are ranking for, but you are not. Keyword opportunities are the terms and phrases that have high search volume and low competition, and are relevant to your niche and goals.

How Do You Find Keyword Gaps and Opportunities?

You can follow the instructions listed below:

1. Identify your main competitors: These are the websites that rank well for the keywords you want to target, and offer similar products or services as you do. You can use tools like Moz or SEMrush to find out who your competitors are.
2. Analyze their keyword profile: Using the same tools, you can see what keywords your competitors are ranking for, and how much traffic they get from them. You can also see their keyword difficulty, which is a measure of how hard it is to rank for a given keyword.
3. Compare their keywords with yours: You can use tools like Ahrefs or Ubersuggest to compare your keyword profile with your competitors’. You can see which keywords you have in common, which keywords they have but you don’t, and which keywords you have but they don’t.
4. Find the keyword gaps and opportunities: Based on the comparison, you can identify the keyword gaps and opportunities for your website. Keyword gaps are the keywords that your competitors rank for, but you don’t. These are the keywords you should target to close the gap and gain more visibility. Keyword opportunities are the keywords that have high search volume and low competition, and are relevant to your niche and goals. These are the keywords you should target to capture more traffic and leads.
5. Create new content based on these keywords: Once you have a list of keyword gaps and opportunities, you can create new content that targets these keywords and provides value to your audience. You can write blog posts, guides, ebooks, infographics, videos, podcasts, or any other type of content that suits your niche and goals. Make sure your content is well-written, informative, engaging, and optimized for SEO.

Conclusion

In conclusion, keyword research is a vital skill for any content marketer or SEO professional. It helps you understand what your audience is looking for, how to optimize your content for search engines, and how to measure your performance. The process of conducting keyword research is continual, requiring constant improvement and adaptability. By following these 10 timeless keyword research tips, you can improve your content strategy and reach more potential customers online.

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