If you’re a blogger looking for the best way how to do keyword research for blogging, then you’re at the right place.
Keywords are the foundation of SEO. While Keyword research is an important step that can affect the SEO process of getting your website to the top.
If no one cares what you’re writing, you won’t get any traffic from Google.
The power of keyword research is that it allows you to have a better understanding of your target market and how users search for content, services, or products.
If you want to learn how to do keyword research properly or aren’t sure how to find the best keywords to target for your blog.
This article will help you learn the foundations of keyword research and how to prioritize keywords to increase traffic and improve conversion rates, which any SEO Manager needs to do when starting a project.
Let’s get started!
Before we move into practice, we need to clarify a few essentials to discuss the same topics. Because if you undertake keyword research, you will come across these keywords quickly.
See also: How to optimize your website for search engines.
What Is A Keyword?
A keyword is a search query a user submits to a search engine. SEO strives to attain the greatest possible rank for this term.
What Is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the search and study of terms that people regularly use to discover online information.
In other words, keyword research is about learning the language of your target consumers and applying it to improve your content.
What Does Search Volume Mean?
The search volume (“SV”) displays how many people search for a search phrase on average each month.
The bigger the search volume, the more visitors you may reach. Since practically all users in the state search using Google, the search volume mainly refers to Google searches.
What Is The Search Intent?
Search intent is what people truly want to discover. Understanding what visitors want to discover when they search is key to high rankings.
These may be quite different things:
- The user wants to learn something (“informational keywords” like “pepper differences”)
- Or he wants to purchase or close something (“transactional keywords” like “buy pepper”)
- Or he wants to bring up a particular result (“navigational keywords” like “pepper wiki”)
Keyword Categorization
1. Keyword by length
There are 2 types of keywords that depend on the length of the keyword:
- Short tail keywords
- Long tail keywords
What are short tail Keywords?
Short-tail keywords are short keywords, sometimes only a word or two, with generic search intent, not particular, strong competition, and poor conversion rate.
At the same time, they are quite competitive. Example short keywords: “Motorcycle”, “car”,…
What are long tail keywords?
Long-tail keywords are 3 or more words conveying distinct meanings, low competition, and a high conversion rate.
For example, long-tail keywords: “Place for selling motorbikes in Los Angeles” and “Honda motorcycle warranty place in Dallas”.
People who are new to keyword research and SEO should start with long-tail keywords initially since they are simpler than short keywords.
2. Keyword based on the term
There are also 2 types of keywords based on the term.
- Primary term
- LSI term
What are primary term keywords?
The primary term keywords are words you want to rank for, representing an industry or service that generally has a large search volume.
Example: “Travel”.
What are LSI terms keywords?
LSI term keywords are related terms used in a context.
For example: With the primary keyword “travel”, potential LSI keywords include: “booking air tickets”, “booking hotels”,…
Google Algorithms That Affect Keyword Research (Google Keyword Research)
Besides personal experiences or keyword research tools, SEOers must regularly update Google’s algorithm adjustments to maintain and boost article ranks on Google.
Here are the 4 primary Google algorithms that SEOers should know:
Google Panda
This Google algorithm detects poor-quality material and duplicates content on other sites.
Google Penguin
This is a Google algorithm that punishes artificial keyword insertion postings.
Google Hummingbird
This Google algorithm enhances search results semantically and focuses on what keyword searchers want to accomplish.
Google RankBrain algorithm
This algorithm helps to categorize search results to learn how people interact with search results on Google.
Nowadays, keyword research is more than just selecting and arranging keywords in the proper locations in the content.
Google knows what people are searching for each term and prioritizes content fulfilling their wants and expectations.
How To Do Keyword Research For Blogging
Now we’ll show you how to find suitable keywords step by step. To add some spice to the reading, we set up an example for our keyword analysis:
See also: How to turn blogging into a profitable business.
Step 1: Make a list of major topics ( Parent Topic )
Topics people search for are related to your business. You should come up with roughly 5-10 subject categories and then utilize them to generate a list of some particular keywords
Examples of various topics connected to communication services:
- Social media
- Email Marketing
- SEO Content Marketing
- Blogging PPC
Usually, they are seed keywords – the cornerstone of the keyword research process.
Every keyword research tool requires a root keyword to generate a list of keyword ideas.
Step 2. Determine the user’s search intent
User intent is now one of the essential variables to help you rank effectively on search engines like Google. They influence the content format that Google picks to show search results.
Types of search intent
- Information query: The user needs to discover certain information. Content should be optimized around the phrase.
- Navigational query: The user wishes to travel to a certain website/landing page on the Internet, such as Facebook,… You should avoid such a phrase even if it has high CPC and monthly search traffic.
- Transactional query: The user wishes to buy a certain product or service.
- Commercial Queries: Users investigate, compare goods, and pick the best one for their individual requirements.
To check user intent in a term, you can put this query into a search engine and watch what results emerge.
Make sure that Google’s content search intent type is closely connected to what you want to generate for the term.
From here, you can examine the 3Cs of search intent to identify the best method to target keywords:
Search intent content
- Content type: Content kinds often fall into one of five groups: blog post, product, category, landing page, or video.
- Content format: The content format is usually used for informative material. Good examples include tutorials, articles, articles, opinions, and reviews.
- Content angle: The content angle is the major interest of the material. For example, “How to make coffee without a machine” – targets those searching for “how to make coffee” who could want to know how to do it without a machine or any special equipment.
Step 3. Build a keyword list
The objective of this phase is not to develop a final list of keyword phrases. You need to determine what keywords prospective consumers could use to search for material relevant to that specific category of topic.
How to find keyword ideas
Google the keyword
The first step is to google your keyword yourself. Why? Because you could be using the incorrect keyword.
The search results offer you a sense of what the searchers wish to locate. If there is an entirely different material than yours, it is the incorrect keyword for you.
Wikipedia’s Table of Contents
Go to Wikipedia and input a wide term. The “Content” section outlines the subtopics discussed. These are helpful keywords for your article.
You may also click on the internal links on the page to discover additional relevant terms.
Google related search
Simple keyword search with “Related Search” at the bottom of Google search results.
You’ll see a list of 8 keywords closely linked to the search query as you go to the bottom of the page.
You don’t have to guess whether they are popular or not. These keywords are the phrases that consumers seek surrounding the issue.
Find ideas from Keyword Planner.
The next step is to utilize Google’s free keyword planner to acquire additional suggestions. To achieve this, first, click on “Discover new keywords”:
There you put up to 10 of your studied keywords and let yourself get inspired by the other ideas.
Use tools aside from Google.
In addition to the data from Google, a range of paid programs give you extra terms. You can also utilize these tools to research the competition.
Pick one of the top-ranking URLs and input them in a keyword tool to check for the keywords it ranks for.
For example, SEMrush includes the Keyword Magic Tool. The advantage: the program arranges the terms thematically and allows you to filter them.
There are so many tools; these are supposed to be just a few samples. At the conclusion of the post, you will discover even more tools, including free ones.
Keyword research tool
Keyword research and SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Ubersuggest,… will assist you in coming up with new keyword suggestions based on exact match keywords and concept-based phrase match keywords. You produced.
Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is the most dependable online source of keyword information since you will obtain the data straight from Google. It delivers a list of keyword suggestions as well as the most common search queries. The main problem is that it’s meant to aid individuals with Google ad campaigns, not SEO.
What alternatives to the keyword planner are there?
Unfortunately, the keyword planner only gives appropriate data for marketers. But there are several options, as you may find out without the keyword planner search volume & Co.
Which paid keyword tools are there?
A few premium solutions additionally supply you with highly detailed and particular statistics on the search volume. For example:
SEMrush
You can also submit a list here – it works extremely well, and there is an XLSX export:
Cost: Starting at $120/month.
KeywordTool.io
The program promotes itself as an alternative to the Keyword Planner. Cost Point: Starting at $69/month.
Ahrefs
Lists may also be kept here, and many more practical SEO evaluations can be carried out. Cost: Starting at $99/month.
https://ahrefs.com/keywords-explorer
KWFinder
The simplest plan from KWFinder gives at least 100 keyword inquiries each month. Cost: Starting at $30/month
What free keyword tools are there?
If you merely want to think about SEO as a sideline, you may not want to afford a tool at all – or your company will not pay for it. There are remedies for this too.
Keyword-Tools.org
This tool gives you the search volume for a certain term and also offers you a few similar keyword ideas:
The searches are restricted, but the data is highly useful.
https://www.keyword-tools.org/
Seobility
Keyword-Tools.org utilizes Seobility data. There is also a free tool there that can perform a lot more – but sadly, only three inquiries each day:
https://www.seobility.net/en/keywordcheck/
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest offers you the search volume for Google search recommendations (Autosuggest) from a search query and allows you to filter by questions:
https://app.neilpatel.com/ubersuggest
Google Trends
Google also has some aid on its sleeve. It does not give you a search volume but the evolution over time and relative demand.
This helps when comparing fewer terms. And it demonstrates that the term is being searched:
https://trends.google.com/trends/
Google Search Console
The greatest data is still that from the genuine search. And you receive it for free for your page via the Google Search Console.
However, only if you already have ranking content on a subject. Then you can check how many impressions you had for the different search queries.
If you are already in the top 10 for a search keyword, you will not obtain better statistics than here. The amount of impressions each month correlates to the search volume:
It is thus important examining for current keyword rankings throughout your investigation.
https://search.google.com/search-console/performance/search-analytics
How To Prioritize Keywords
No tool can declare exactly the best keyword on your list. So you will need to pick based on some of the following criteria:
- Search volume
- Organic Click-Through-Rate
- The amount of competitiveness of the keyword
- CPC (Cost Per Click)
- Keyword Trends
- Assess business prospects
1. Search Volume
The more people search for a term, the more traffic you may obtain from it.
The “good” search volume depends on the niche in which you operate on.
For example, a term in the realm of fitness (Best ab workout) generates 10k-100k searches each month. Meanwhile, a term in the area of digital marketing (Best Seo Software) only generates 100-1 thousand monthly searches.
Typically, the bigger the search volume, the more competition and work necessary to achieve organic ranking success.
However, too low search traffic may prohibit you from attracting searchers to your site.
Picking less competitive and more precise search phrases might be more useful in many circumstances.
2. Organic Click-Through-Rate
To obtain a thorough estimate of how many clicks you’ll receive from ranking on the first page of Google, in addition, to search traffic figures, you’ll also need an organic CTR estimate.
Check the Google results page for keywords: If you notice a lot of content on the first page, like Featured Snippets and Google Ads, chances are you will receive few hits, even if you reach the Top 1 position.
Consider the Paid Click Only metric: For the example below, 28% of clicks go to paid advertisements. Therefore, that term could be a better target for PPC.
Additionally, Ahrefs and Moz pro both estimate Organic CTR. However, you should only partially reject low CTR keywords since they are still relevant if a lot of people search for that phrase.
3. Keyword competition
SEO specialists typically manually estimate the ranking difficulty of a term by looking at the top-ranking sites for their target keyword.
They take into consideration a range of elements to judge whether a rating is tough or easy:
- Quantity and quality of backlinks
- Domain Rating (DR)
- The content length, relevancy, freshness
- Use target keywords, synonyms, entities
- Search intent
- Branding
You can assess the competitiveness or difficulty of keywords with tools like Moz, Ahrefs, and SEMrush,…
Usually, users would select keywords with medium or low KD to boost their ranking potential.
SEO professionals classify keywords into three primary categories: head, body, and long tail.
Here is a breakdown of the competition and conversions of these three keywords:
- First part: Single keywords have high search volume, strong competitiveness, and typically don’t convert effectively. Examples include terms like “insurance” or “son”. Such keywords might imply imprecise purpose, which puts you in danger of luring people to your site if their aims don’t match the material you present.
- Body: Keywords with reasonable search traffic (at least 2,000 searches per month) are specific and nearly usually have less competition than the head. For example, “life insurance”, “lip balm”, …
- Long-tail: Long-tail keywords are phrases that are longer than 4 words and are frequently quite particular. These phrases don’t receive much individual search traffic (typically about 10-200 searches per month). Hence they’re less competitive. They may bring numerous conversions from precise, targeted visitors if paired with them in the keyword list.
4. CPC (Cost Per Click)
CPC – Cost Per Click is more of a number for advertisers than SEOs, showing how much advertisers are ready to spend per click on an ad from a term.
In many circumstances, you may receive a solid ROI with a low search volume term if the CPC is high enough.
5. Keyword Trends
Use Google Trends to discover whether a keyword is increasing quickly or decreasing. From there, you can anticipate if the traffic to the content for that term will rise or decrease over time.
Tips For Choosing And Using Keywords Effectively In A Blog
When identifying and employing keywords for your website, consider the following:
- Choose keywords with a medium to high amount of searches – larger than 1000 per month – that you can still compete on.
- If your market is worldwide, utilize terms that are regularly used internationally. If your market is local, utilize keywords often used on a certain region or place, like military name or city – this will minimize the number of rivals fighting for the cluster.
- Use keywords on web pages in the title, content and behind pages in HTML meta tags.
- Make sure the titles on the web page are pure text and not included in pictures – search engines cannot understand the text integrated into graphics.
- Use the primary term in the Title, Description, URL, H1 tag, and ALT tag of the picture,…
- Use secondary keywords in H2, H3, Anchor text, and Strong/Bold highlights,…
- Don’t overwhelm the site with too many keywords; it might lead to search engines disregarding your site.
- Ensure your website’s coding is designed appropriately and utilizes standard HTML – obsolete HTML or plug-in technologies might influence how search engines interpret your website.
Importance Of Keyword Research Process For Blogging SEO
Keyword research influences every other SEO activity you conduct, including selecting content themes, on-page SEO, email outreach, and content marketing.
Keyword research is frequently the initial phase of any SEO strategy, helping you better understand your target audience and offering information about what consumers are looking for and the particular terms and phrases they are searching for. They utilize.
Keyword research helps improve website traffic.
There are several variables that make a website effective with SEO, including content, on-page optimization, link development, and technical SEO.
However, these efforts might be futile if you ignore the keyword research step.
It is apparent that when employing keywords with high search traffic, low competition will make content quicker and simpler to reach people.
From there, the site may draw in hundreds of visits from Google per month.
Keyword research helps develop helpful content.
According to research by Ahrefs, 90.63% of sites receive no traffic from Google, mostly because site owners generate material on subjects no one searches for.
Keyword research helps you avoid this error by highlighting themes people are interested in. Besides, one can obtain a feeling of the topic’s popularity using some of the correct SEO tools.
By examining the keywords generating a large number of searches each month, you may select and arrange your material according to certain subjects that address user inquiries.
Conclusion
This article is all about how to do keyword research for blogging effectively.
Keyword research can seem daunting, but it’s the foundation for the next content strategy phase.
By producing content that connects with your audience and reaching them at the right time, you’ll be able to improve traffic and conversion rates and even increase your site’s authority in the SERPs.
Prioritize a list of keywords with relevance, high search volume, and medium difficulty. Also, make sure to re-evaluate these keywords every few months or every quarter.
Good luck with your keyword research!
