Keyword research is a fundamental initial step in any SEO campaign. In fact, we can even go so far as to say that most SEO endeavors are bound to fail without proper execution of keyword research. After all, no matter how less reliant Google would appear to be on keywords when determining the place of a website on its SERPs, it still can’t be denied that every webmaster needs keywords to target to not only choose a concrete niche to focus on but to also be able to give direction to his future marketing efforts.
Underscoring the Importance of Correct Keyword Research
Keyword research that is masterfully done almost always guarantee that a website would enjoy more organic traffic from search engines, besides serving as a well of analytical knowledge that would reveal important bits of information about your users. This is why keyword research would also largely aid you in the content creation process.
In the past, webmasters usually had to rely on their instincts (and largely on Google Keyword Planner) to find out what keywords to target. Nowadays, though, there are now actually step-by-step procedures that help you identify the keywords that would best suit your marketing style and SEO strategies. Some keyword tools are even able to suggest to you invaluable keyword ideas based on your initial query. The value, of course, that we are talking about hinges on its profitability based on your selected market or niche.
Niche Topics and Their Importance to Keyword Research
One basic step that should always be involved in any keyword research you do is the finding of profitable niche topics. These are basically topics that your intended audience is engaged and interested in It’s not yet obviously a targeted topic as most niche topics are very broad. Your goal is to find the searches which are potentially very lucrative in a given niche topic.
For example, you intend to target people who are interested in buying a cast-iron grill. People who are looking to buy this item are probably also looking for topics that are related to it such as healthy recipes, maintenance of kitchen utensils, grilling techniques, and even enrolling in a cooking class. Niche topics are basically composed of the said interrelated searches called niche markets.
These niche markets, in turn, would be able to provide you with a number of potential keywords. However, it has to be stressed from the outset that not all keywords in a niche market have a readily large audience nor are they automatically profitable.
Ways to Identify Lucrative Niche Topics
One good way to do this is to research about buyer personas in your industry. Who are the people who are most likely to buy your product? This is what pinpointing buyer personas are essentially all about. Finding out the right buyer persona would allow you to narrow down the list of niche topics you have to the ones that are very profitable. When identifying buyer persona you have to pay attention to factors such as their potential gender, age, interests, income, goals, and problems that they need to solve.
Another platform worth using is Wikipedia’s table of contents. They’re extremely valuable as topics listed in them come directly from experts in a given industry. Since most of them are presented in sub-categories, these would undoubtedly be able to aid you greatly in your brainstorming efforts. Lastly, forums could also prove to be a gold mine of information as they host a plethora of topics that are being discussed by your target audience on a wholly direct and personal level. You can look for forums related to your niche easier by typing your primary keyword and adding forums to it when doing a Google search.
When choosing the right keywords to target, you should know beforehand that studies have revealed that body keywords (keywords with 2-3 word phrases) and long-tail keywords (keyword phrases with more than 4 words) are the best ones to choose. Being able to rank for the former is particularly more preferable as these have greater search volume and great buyer intent; additionally, most websites that do rank for body keywords almost always rank for related long-tail keywords as well.
Proper Prediction of Conversion Value of Your Chosen Keywords
Of course, achieving the right keywords does not only entail having a sizable search volume. Making sure that they are highly-converting keywords should be a webmaster’s number-one priority as well After all, all your efforts are only bound to go to waste if the keywords you arrive at don’t convert well. When taking into consideration the keywords from your narrowed down list, it’s important to start paying attention to metrics such as number of monthly searches, suggested bid, difficulty index, and current position of your website for each keyword.
Most webmasters also opt to do their tests with PPC (pay-per-click) ads as these tools are really effective at driving that initial traffic to your website. Most ad campaigns involve appointing ads to every potential keyword that you want to test out It’s also advised to make sure that the ads would only appear for exact match searches of the said keywords, and it’s important to use the target search page location’ option to increase the probability of the said ads to appear on top of search or on the first page of results. It’s also important to make sure that your conversions and events would always be tracked.
The results of such a PPC setup would undoubtedly give you a great overview of the potential conversion rate of all the keywords you’ve chosen to include in it, besides other important metrics such as the total number of conversions, web traffic, and CTR (click-through-rate). What’s good is that the results, even though they are still essentially just predictions, are actually supported by mathematical and statistical data This is why you can rest assured that you would get no less than the most accurate data when using the said test for the probable conversion value of a set of keywords. This also effectively dispels any reservations you might have about embarking on a full-pledged campaign focused on a specific keyword.