Keyword research is an integral part of SEO strategy. No matter how well-written your content pieces are, it’s hardly possible to gain organic traffic if you’re not using the terms or phrases that people are searching for.
Even if you believe you already know which phrases are common in your industry, it’s easy to be mistaken. Not every term related to your business will drive traffic. This is where keyword research provides a measurable approach to targeting the right terms.
The process of researching relevant SEO keywords for your website is further categorised into 3 main steps, including:
- Finding SEO keyword ideas
- Analysing the list of keyword ideas
- Targeting keywords
We’ll discuss more below.
Introduction to Keyword Research
If you’re new to SEO, keyword research might seem unfamiliar. You may also be wondering why you should do it in the first place. Here, we’ll give you a further explanation of what keyword research is as well as its importance.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process of identifying phrases or terms that your target audiences type into search engines like Google. You can use the data to create content that answers certain queries and rank for them.
Why is Keyword Research Important?
Keyword research is important because this process uncovers the phrases or terms that your target audience is actively searching for. This way, you’ll know beforehand if there’s a demand for the topic you want to write about.
In turn, your efforts and time won’t be wasted, as you’ll be focusing on keywords that aren’t just relevant but also have search volume. Targeting the right keywords also increases your chances of ranking well on search engines like Google.
Benefits of Keyword Research
Keyword research is about uncovering search terms that drive traffic to your website. Implementing these phrases on your pages can bring multiple benefits, maximising your organic search marketing strategies in the long run. And these include:
Growth in Traffic
By targeting the right SEO keywords, your chances of ranking well in search engines will increase, growing the number of traffic as well.
Insights to the Latest Market Trends
Conducting keyword research helps you tap into the latest market trends. You can use the insights to keep up and create content that resonates with your target audience’s evolving needs and interests.
Customer Acquisition
By researching the queries your target audience is searching for, you can gain a better understanding of what they expect your content to address. As you align your content with their intent, adding a strong call-to-action will help drive customer acquisition.
How To Do SEO Keyword Research: The Four Main Steps
Keyword research isn’t just about targeting as many high-volume, low-competition keywords as possible. Instead, it’s about finding the right balance that will drive relevant traffic to your website.
To do this successfully there are steps to follow. Here’s how to find SEO keywords for your website:
Finding SEO Keyword Ideas
To come up with relevant keywords, you must first put yourself in your target audience’s shoes. Think of: what problems are they facing? What solutions are they expecting? And what terms are they likely to use to browse in search engines?
To answer these questions, here are what you need to do:
- Brainstorm Seed Keywords
Seed keywords, or short-tail keywords, are phrases that represent the main topic of your website. They are the starting point of keyword research, helping to uncover a huge list of other terms related to your business niche.
Brainstorming seed keywords involves identifying what products or services your business offers. Then think of what search terms your target audiences are likely to use to find the products or services.
As an example, if you’re running an activewear retail store, your seed keywords may include:
- Activewear
- Sportswear
- Exercise
- Leggings
- Sports bra
- Shoes
- Etc.
Don’t worry yet about the search demand for each seed keyword. Instead, focus on gathering a broad list of ideas relevant to your niche. This list will form a strong foundation for the next steps in keyword research.
- Look at Your Competitors’ Keywords
Seeing keywords your competitors rank for opens up a lot more search term ideas. And these keywords have successfully driven traffic to your competitors’ websites, which you may want to leverage as well.
To do this, you must first identify who your competitors are. You can try searching for seed keywords you’ve previously gathered, and the pages showing on the first page are your search competitors.
After you’re clear about who your competitors are, you can enter their domains into a research tool, like Semrush’s Organic Research tool. It will display lists of top-performing keywords, the ranking positions, and the number of traffic gained.
Repeat this process on multiple competitors. In this stage, you’re yet to think about the keywords’ search intents; whether they’re informational, navigational, or transactional. We’ll further categorise them in the next stage of keyword research.
- Explore Search Suggestions
Search suggestions on platforms like Google are great for generating additional keyword ideas. Start by typing your seed keywords into the search bar, and Google will show autocomplete predictions based on popular searches.
For example, if your seed keyword is ‘activewear’, Google will show autocomplete predictions that indicate people have searched in the past—including ‘activewear Singapore,’ ‘activewear brands,’ ‘activewear meaning,’ and more.
You can also explore the “People also search for” section to find related keywords and broaden your options.
Another useful area is the “People also ask” section. Here, you’ll find related questions that reveal the search intent behind common queries, helping you understand what users are looking to discover from keywords similar to yours.
- Study Your Niche in Online Forums
Brainstorming seed keywords, looking at competitors’ keywords, and exploring search suggestions can give you a bunch of keyword ideas. However, relying solely on these methods limits your understanding of what your target audience actually cares about.
Delving into online forums, such as Reddit and Quora can be beneficial. Pay attention to popular topics or questions, the language they use, and the pain points they share.
As an example, here’s a discussion found in Quora. Someone is expressing their discomfort with tight-fitting women’s workout clothes, and wishing for more comfortable options made of breathable materials.
A quick look into SE Ranking’s keyword research tool reveals that the ‘breathable workout clothes’ keyword has a low difficulty score and 10 searches per month.
However, the fact that the discussion is quite popular, with 26 upvotes, suggests people’s interest in this topic—you can use this idea for your next content creation.
Analysing and Choosing SEO Keywords For Your Website
Having a huge list of keyword ideas is a great kickstart of your keyword research process. But how do you know which SEO keywords to implement on your website?
In this case, you need to analyse your keyword ideas using several metrics. These metrics help you determine relevant traffic to drive traffic to your website.
Here’s how to do keyword analysis:
- Look at The Search Volume
Search volumes refer to the number of searches a keyword gets in a month–on average.
The higher the search volume, the greater the potential for websites ranking well with that keyword to attract significant traffic.
Does it mean you should always target keywords with high search volume? Not necessarily. For example, a popular keyword like ‘exercise’ has a search volume of 6.6K. But this also means that top-performing pages are targeting that keyword, indicating high competition.
If your website is still small, targeting the same keyword will be challenging. Websites with high authority scores have secured their place in the eye of search engines, making it easier for them to rank well on the search engine results page (SERP).
To solve this, you can focus on long-tail keywords instead. Though long-tail keywords have lower search volume, the competitiveness is lower as well, allowing you to secure traffic more effectively,
For example, you can instead target the ‘dumbbell exercises for legs’ keyword with a 390 search volume. Though fewer people search for this term, the competition is also lower, increasing your chances of driving targeted traffic to your site.
The key is to never ignore long-tail keywords. They can be continuous sources of traffic that gradually build your site’s visibility over time.
- Consider Keyword Difficulty
Keyword Difficulty (KD) indicates how challenging it is to rank for a keyword. A higher score means ranking for that keyword will require more intensive SEO efforts, such as creating high-quality content, enhancing on-page optimisations, and building authoritative backlinks.
This is why domains with high authority scores, indicated by a huge number of authoritative backlinks, have an easier time ranking for high-difficulty keywords. Google regards these sites as trustworthy sources, rewarding them with higher positions on the SERP.
For example, search results for the keyword ‘exercise’, shows well-known websites such as Healthline, Harvard, and Medical News Today in the top positions. These websites are long-established and deemed trustworthy for the given topic.
On the other hand, websites with lower authority scores may have a hard time ranking well for the same keyword. They need to build a comparable number of authoritative backlinks to compete with established websites.
This being said, you may need to carefully consider whether to target keywords with high or low difficulty scores. If your website has a high authority score, going for keywords with a high difficulty score is fine.
However, if your website is still new or has low traffic, you may benefit from targeting keywords with low difficulty scores. And as your backlinks grow, you may begin gradually targeting keywords with high difficulty scores.
- Check The Cost Per Click (CPC)
Cost per click (CPC) reflects the commercial value of a keyword. In other words, it’s how much advertisers are willing to spend on targeting a particular keyword.
While CPC is more commonly used in paid advertising strategies, using this metric for your organic optimisation can be as valuable.
For example, the keyword ‘home insurance’ has $2.35 CPC, indicating a commercial value Targeting this keyword may increase your chance of attracting conversions from organic traffic.
Targeting Keywords
Once you have determined a list of keywords to implement, the next thing to do is target them. Targeting these keywords means strategically placing them into different parts of your website, allowing it to rank in search engines and attract visitors searching for related topics.
Here’s how to do it:
- Map Keywords Based on Topic and Intent
Similar keywords don’t always fall under the same topic and intent categories. For example, you may have the following keywords in your list:
- Gym clothes
- Gym clothes materials
- Gym clothes singapore
These keywords seem to be discussing the same topic. You may also guess they have the same intent. Does it mean you can target them on a single page?
Don’t be too quick to assume. After a quick look into Google’s search results, the keywords ‘gym clothes’ and ‘gym clothes materials’ turned out to be on different topics and intent groups.
The keyword ‘gym clothes’ shows a list of product pages. This means that people searching for this keyword have the intention to make purchases.
On the other hand, the keyword ‘gym clothes material’ shows informational results. Websites that rank for this keyword aim to raise awareness among the audiences about common materials used in gym clothes with no intention to hard-sell the product itself.
Based on this insight, it’s best to create separate pages for ‘gym clothes’ and ‘gym clothes materials.’ This allows you to meet distinct user intents, presenting relevant content that answers what each audience is specifically looking for.
- Focus on Content Quality
Keyword research helps identify the most relevant keywords for your website and clarifies the user search intent behind each keyword. Use these insights to create high-quality content pieces that contain the right keywords and effectively address search intent.
Additionally, no SEO content strategy is complete without internal linking. Make sure to include internal links throughout your content, using target keywords and their variations as anchor texts where appropriate.
This will signal to search engines that your content is comprehensive and relevant to various related terms. It helps to improve your rankings for those keyword variations and boost a higher number of organic traffic to your website.
- Avoid Keyword Stuffing
While targeting relevant keywords is necessary to help search engines understand your content better, keyword stuffing is something you must avoid. Forcing keywords unnaturally can harm your SEO performance and may even reduce your chances of ranking well for those terms.
This happens because search engines interpret keyword stuffing as an attempt to manipulate their algorithms. And, as search engines continue to evolve, they can understand context and keyword variations, eliminating the need for repetitive keyword uses.
Instead, what you need to do is focus on creating high-quality content that satisfies user search intent. Add the target keywords as naturally as possible, including in the title, headings, and body text.
Keyword Research Tools
It’s nearly impossible to gather keyword insights manually. That’s why you need keyword research tools, as they help collect the necessary insights automatically, and even provide a lot more keyword ideas.
Here are the list of keyword research tools you can use:
- Semrush’s Organic Research tool: You can use this tool to view competitors’ top-performing keywords, including the average monthly traffic.
- Google Search Console: It’s one of the free keyword research tools that helps identify your keyword rankings and how many clicks you get from each keyword.
- Google Keyword Planner: While it’s commonly used for paid search campaigns, you may also use it to find valuable keywords for SEO.
- SE Ranking’s Keyword Research tool: You can brainstorm seed keywords using this tool, which will generate other variations that are relevant to the main search intent and industry trends.
- Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: Gain similar insights to what Google Search Console provides, with the addition of keyword difficulty scores.
Final Thoughts
Keyword research is not as simple as targeting terms with high search volume. Focusing only on a single factor, without considering factors like the size of your website, the number of referring domains, and authority score, may lose your potential to drive organic traffic.
This is where strategic keyword research is needed. As a part of our SEO Services, our keyword strategy involves gauging the levels of search competitiveness and keyword difficulty, along with the cost per click (CPC) of each keyword.
All of these while keeping clients’ industry niches and trends in mind—resulting in a targeted keyword strategy that maximises visibility, attracts high-quality traffic, and supports long-term organic growth.
Should you need a helping hand, we’re ready to help. Contact us today!
FAQs
How to choose SEO keywords?
To choose SEO keywords, you need to do thorough keyword research. This involves generating keyword ideas and analysing the most suitable keywords, all the way to strategically targeting the keywords throughout the pages.
How long should keyword research take?
That depends. For a small website, keyword research usually takes 1-2 days. Where bigger websites, with more keywords to target, this can take longer, or up to 7 days.
Which tool is best for keyword research?
If you’re just starting out, using free keyword research tools like Google Search Console and Google Keyword Planner is enough. Otherwise, if you need more advanced insights, opting for paid options like Semrush, Ahrefs, or SE Ranking may be worth the investment.
