Keyword research isn’t the be-all, end-all strategy when it comes to content marketing and SEO. There is one thing aspiring digital marketers need to know – your audience matters the most.
It would serve you better if you thought about your audience first and foremost because they’re the ones you are writing content for in the first place.
So, naturally, you would want to create content that leaves an ever-lasting positive impact on their minds.
Enter the world of keyword research. If done appropriately, it has the potential of helping you reach your target audience and stand out amongst the crowd in your particular industry. Proper keyword research will allow you to increase your visibility in front of potential customers.
It improves your online traffic while also increasing your legitimacy in the eyes of Google. After all, Google will ultimately decide where your page ranks on its search results. While keyword research advantages are endless, the process itself requires that you follow specific steps to do it the right way.
Today, in this article, we will share these steps with you. Keep on reading till the very end to learn how to conduct keyword research properly and improve your content marketing in the process.
Identify Core Topics
It might not be enough to write about a specific topic that we think holds value for our website visitors. You have to take three steps back before you can take two steps forward.
Look at the bigger picture about what you want your business to be known for? What is its area of expertise? For example, B2B companies can focus on creating content around topics such as digital transformation, digital storage solutions, quality assurance, so on and so forth.
So, start by identifying the things your business does the best. For example, your business can rank for digital marketing services while also ranking for website design or lead generation.
Yes, you can have more than one core topic as well.
Understand What Good and Bad Keywords Are
Before you conduct adequate keyword research, you need to know which keywords relate to your core topics and which ones do not. Ideally, you should choose long-tail keywords instead of short-tailed ones. They typically contain more than two or three words. They are perfect because they are less competitive, easier to rank for, and more search-specific.
Digital marketers usually get caught up with short-tail keywords that have high search volumes. However, these high search volumes are not indicative of the searcher’s intent.
In short, it won’t be easy to rank for such short keywords. Imagine ‘cute dress’ compared to ‘designs for a cute summer dress.’ To know which keywords will be the best choice for your business, you can choose from a plethora of free keyword research tools online.
They will let you see a keyword’s popularity, search volumes, and much more. You can then incorporate these keywords in specific areas of your content to increase your relevance and increase your rankings on all SERPs.
Figure Out What Your Target Audience Wants
Keyword optimization is not the only thing you need to do to earn the top spot on Google search results or increase your online traffic. If you want your content to impact your audience positively, you need to know their demands and requirements. There are many online keyword software that enables you to understand these demands.
By running various keywords through this software, you can find tons of related topics from multiple search forums across the internet. For example, you can search for a keyword such as ‘yoga mats’ to find its search volumes, engagement rates, topics, and much more.
Keep Track Of the Content Your Audience Has Already Consumed
Nobody wants to be the one telling other people the things they already know. A vital part of an effective keyword research strategy is choosing suitable topics and adding nuances to them. To add these nuances, you firstly need to figure out the content your target audience has already consumed. You can again use a keyword analyzer to out such a thing.
Take the example of the keyword’ yoga mats’ again. You can use the keyword analyzer to find the most popular posts which contain this keyword. Of course, you’ll have to read these posts, articles, and blogs yourself to get a better idea of the content.
Analyze Top Ranking Searches on Google
Undoubtedly, you won’t be able to achieve the top spot on Google’s search engine results overnight. Google’s SEO algorithms scan millions of posts throughout the internet to display the best content for every keyword out there. These top-ranking posts have some things in common. Some of these commonalities are;
- They are usually two thousand to three thousand words long articles.
- Contain comprehensive and well-researched content.
- Include up-to-date statistics about the topic.
It is always an intelligent decision to conduct an online search for your target keywords and view the top-ranking search engine results.
Ask yourself what these articles lack? What can you do to improve them? Are the statistics included in them up-to-date? Follow for more content writing tips, if you want to outrank these top pages, it is a no-brainer to create better content. It’s a fact!
Check Google Related Snippets and Searches
A vital part of your keyword research strategy will be to perform a Google search and analyze the search engine page results. Firstly, scroll down to the bottom of the search results page and look at the related search strings. Would it be better to assess these keywords individually? Should you incorporate them into your content?
Also, take a glance at the ‘people also ask’ section of the search results page. It will provide you valuable insights into your audience’s search intent. When you know what your audience is asking for, you can create content that answers these questions.
Track Your Competition
Last but not least, try to find out the keywords your competitors are using. Most of the time, you will not have to do anything, as your competitors end up doing everything for you. You can copy these keywords straight from them, of course, if they are relevant to the services or products you offer.
Another method is to track their links. Content marketing also requires effective link building. Your competitors will have blogs and articles in which they usually incorporate these links. You can follow these links like a trail of breadcrumbs to know your competitor’s keyword strategy.
Conclusion
While keyword research is one of SEO’s main aspects, it has been drastically evolving over the last decade. Fortunately, digital marketers who focus on low-competition phrases and keywords, density measurements, and relevance will develop a viable and profitable keyword strategy.
It will help them create content that is high-quality and improves their ranking on SERPs tenfold.
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