A Simple Guide on How to Do Keyword Research

Intro

Keyword research is the foundation of any content marketing strategy. It informs everything from your topic clusters and pillar content to your content calendar and promotion efforts.

Conducting thorough keyword research gives valuable insights into the specific terms your target audience is searching for. It also helps in identifying opportunities to improve your search engine rankings.

However, it's often unclear where to start or how to approach the process effectively.

While you could make assumptions about what your customers might be searching for or rely solely on your website analytics, these approaches are insufficient for developing a comprehensive strategy. Analytics will only provide part of the picture as it lacks insights into specific keywords your competitors are targeting to rank highly.

To conduct keyword research effectively, you need a systematic approach that combines various data sources and analytical tools. This holistic approach helps to uncover valuable keyword opportunities and position your content for better search performance.

Why keyword research is important

The two primary goals of keyword research are:

1. Identifying gaps in your market to outperform competitors.
2. Discovering relevant, customer-focused keywords to enhance search engine visibility.

How to do keyword research in 4 steps

You may think you know what your audience wants, but making assumptions about the keywords they use can be detrimental to your content strategy.

Keyword research is crucial because it provides concrete evidence of the exact terms your target audience makes use of to search for information, products, or services related to your business.

Conducting thorough keyword research is important because:

1. It gives you a much deeper understanding of the search terms driving traffic to your competitors, allowing you to identify gaps and opportunities to outrank them.
2. It allows you to map out measurable KPIs based on search volume data for relevant keywords.
3. It aids you in the discovery of a wide range of relevant keywords that can guide your content marketing efforts.
4. It provides more insights into the specific phrases customers use at different stages of the buyer's journey, enabling you to create content tailored to their needs.

Effective keyword research removes the guesswork and provides insights backed by data — to ensure your content resonates with readers and position your business for improved search engine visibility and organic growth.

Step 1: Research competitor’s keywords

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The first step in effective keyword research is to analyze your competition. You need to understand where your business stands in relation to your competitors and identify the specific keywords and phrases they are ranking for successfully.

Ask yourself:

Which competitors are performing well organically and dominating the top search results for your industry's most valuable keywords?

What high-value, industry-relevant phrases are your top competitors ranking for at the top of Google's search engine results pages (SERPs)?

Research competitor’s sites for keywords

Begin by compiling a comprehensive list of both your direct and indirect competitors within your industry niche. Direct competitors are businesses that offer similar core products or services as yours.

Indirect competitors, on the other hand, are companies that may not be direct rivals, but still compete for a portion of your target audience or traffic due to overlapping offerings.

The key is to cast a wide net and account for any businesses, even those only partially related to your core offering, that could potentially be vying for the same pool of customers or search traffic as you. These companies will often have valuable insights or content strategies worth examining and learning from.

Once you've exhaustively listed out all direct and indirect competitors, investigate each one using comprehensive SEO research tools like Ranktracker and Ahrefs. Analyze the specific keywords and phrases for which each of your competitors is currently ranking highest in search engine results pages (SERPs). This competitive analysis will help you discover content and keyword opportunities to prioritize.

Analyze top publications in your industry

Examining relevant industry publications and media outlets can yield valuable keyword insights as your target customer personas are most likely to consume content from authoritative sources within your niche space.

Compile a list of highly relevant online publications, blogs, and news sites that your ideal customers frequent for information related to your products or services. Then, analyze each of these domains using comprehensive SEO tools like Ranktracker to uncover the specific keywords and topics for which they are achieving high search visibility and rankings.

This process reveals commonly explored themes, frequently asked questions, and in-demand topics within your niche that resonate strongly with your audience.

Understanding the top-performing content and keywords that respected media sources in your space are ranking for will allow you to strategically align your content efforts.

Check for keyword gaps

As you analyze direct and indirect competitors, as well as relevant industry publications using a keyword research tool, patterns will begin to emerge.

Carefully identify the specific keywords and phrases that these competitors and authoritative sources are achieving high rankings for in search engine results pages (SERPs). Then contrast your keyword rankings against those of key competitors and publications to pinpoint evident gaps and content opportunities. You'll quickly uncover specific high-value keywords and topics that their sites are successfully targeting and ranking for, but your website is currently missing out on.

These gaps represent prime areas of opportunity to create new, targeted content pieces optimized for the valuable keywords your competitors are winning at.

Step 2: The keyword research

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The second step in the keyword research process is to methodically build out a comprehensive pool of relevant keywords and phrases related to your business and target audience. This can be achieved through a combination of Google's auto-suggestions and using keyword research tools like Ranktracker.

To begin, enter your core terms and topics into Google's search bar. Examine the related keyword variations and queries that populate in Google's auto-suggested results and sidebar. These provide valuable insight into how your potential customers phrase their searches around those initial seed terms.

Keep iterating through this process across all your core topics, pushing new keyword ideas back through Google's search to exhaust all relevant variations. While some overlapping terms may occur, it's beneficial to capture as many potentially applicable keywords as possible to leave no stone unturned.

Persist with this systematic research approach until you have built out an expansive pool of keywords that comprehensively cover your business's products, services, solutions, pain points, and any other topics of value to your target audience.

Combining Google keyword discovery with supplementary data from keyword research tools helps in developing a keyword repository to inform your content strategy.

Step 3: Combine keywords from previous steps

With your competitor research and an expansive list of potential keywords in hand, the next step is to combine these data and analyze the full keyword pool using a robust SEO tool like Ranktracker or Ahrefs.

The more keywords you research, the more patterns will emerge - revealing phrases with substantial organic search volume that are prime for pursuing and achieving visibility. Group these high-potential keywords into cohesive topical clusters that align with your products/services and your audience's interests.

However, ensure to eliminate irrelevant keywords that don't fit your business goals or provide actionable opportunities.

During this analysis, you may notice areas where competitors are firmly fixed in the top rankings for certain keywords. It's important to understand that it’s not necessary to challenge them for those exact terms.

The purpose of competitor research is to identify what your target audience is actively searching for, understand content gaps, and gain inspiration for parallel topics/keywords where you can create content.

Additionally, if you have access to a Google Ads account for your business, you can uncover further keywords by analyzing search terms with high purchase or transactional intent. This data can better your content strategy by highlighting lucrative keyword opportunities for sales/conversion-focused content.

Step 4: Bonus tips for keyword research

While the initial phase lays the groundwork, there are additional steps you can take to ensure your content resonates with your audience and effectively targets their most common queries:

• Research popular questions and discussions on forums like Quora and Reddit related to your topics. This provides direct insights into how your customers phrase their queries.
• Examine the "People Also Ask" sections in Google's search results for your keywords to uncover prevalent questions and sub-topics of interest.
• Note the autofill suggestions that appear as you type keywords into Google's search bar.
• Use tools like AnswerThePublic that aggregate the most frequently asked questions around a given topic or keyword.
• Interview and survey existing customers to capture the exact phrasing and long-tail keywords they use when searching.

These extra steps expand your keyword repository with relevant long-tail phrases and sub-topics that directly reflect your audience's needs.

The result is an optimized content strategy that’s primed to rank highly and drive qualified traffic. Sometimes, the entire keyword research process and execution can be outsourced to an agency, like a managed service provider marketing agency, for example.

Top recommendations for keyword research tools

Effective keyword research is impossible without using keyword research tools. These platforms provide invaluable data on search volumes, competition levels, and the specific terms your rivals are targeting successfully. Having the right tools is crucial for making data-driven decisions.

There are several free and paid keyword research tool options available:

Paid Tools:

• Ranktracker - Wouldn’t be complete without mentioning our tool. Ranktraker is a platform that offers a variety of SEO tools, including competitor analysis, backlink monitoring, web audits, and keyword identification. The tool enables users to gain a competitive edge while their website generates results.
• Ahrefs - Widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive solutions. In addition to search volumes, it provides granular competitive metrics like a breakdown of ranking difficulty and click-through rates for keywords.
• Moz Keyword Explorer - Known for surfacing lateral, outside-the-box keyword suggestions in addition to closely related terms. Valuable for discovering untapped opportunities.
• SEMrush - Offers keyword difficulty scores, trend data on rising/declining keywords, and search volume insights to inform prioritization.

Free Tools:

• Keywords Everywhere (Browser Extension) - Conveniently surfaces search volumes and metric data for any keyword directly in Google's search results.
• Ubersuggest - Provides 3 free searches daily, revealing keyword ideas, topics, and search volumes related to seed terms.
• Google Keyword Planner - Google's native tool shows search volumes, related keywords, and other planners for researching paid ad campaigns.
• Keywordtool.io - Pulls keyword suggestions from Google Autocomplete and delivers expansive lists of potential terms with volumes.

While paid tools offer more robust functionality, free options allow you to get started with basic keyword research on a budget. The ideal approach is to use both free tools for initial ideation, and paid solutions for in-depth analysis.

Wrapping up

Comprehensive keyword research is the foundational element of any effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. The primary objectives are two-fold:

• Identify gaps and opportunities in your market by analyzing the specific keywords your competitors are winning at.
• Discover the precise terms and queries your target audience actively uses when searching for solutions related to your products or services.

By methodically researching keywords, you gain an in-depth understanding of your audience's needs, interests, and search behaviours.