Introduction
When creating content for your niche or the service you provide, it’s important to focus on what your audience wants, rather than what you want to tell them. Your audience is looking to you for solutions to their problems, so it’s crucial to present them with useful information.
The first step in achieving this is conducting thorough keyword research. Brian Dean once said, “Keyword research is market research for the 21st century.”
The main objective of keyword research is to attract potential customers who can become leads and ultimately your customers.
In this article, you will learn the following:
1. Keyword discovery
2. Searcher’s intent and how to use the modifiers
3. Keyword metrics
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process of analyzing search terms, specific words, and phrases that people enter into search engines. The goal of this process is to obtain data that can be used for search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing purposes.
The process of keyword discovery involves;
(I) Creating a list of words associated with your business or the services you offer.
(II) Identifying phrases that your potential customers frequently use in search engines.
(II) By discovering these phrases, you can identify topics and terms that are relevant to your business. This will help you to identify relevant keywords and add them to your list.
Here are some steps to achieve this;
Use Google Suggest
Choose a word related to your business, for example, “Pringles’ and enter it into Google search. As you type, Google will suggest related search terms. This will give you an idea of what people usually search for.
Use “Searches related to”
After you have searched for a topic related to your business e.g “Pringles”, scroll down to the bottom of the search results page. You will find a list of related keywords that are commonly searched for. This is a great way to find additional keywords that are relevant to your topic.
You can equally use, what People also ask to know which keywords to go for,
The next point to consider is,
Searcher’s intent
It is the reason behind the searcher’s query while Modifiers are short words that you can add to your keywords based on the searcher’s intent.
There are four categories of searcher’s intent;
i) Informational Search: This type of search is done to get answers to questions or to gain knowledge about something. The modifiers you can use for this are how, what, why, help, ideas, guide, learn, resource, and tutorial.
II) Navigational Search: This type of search is used to locate a specific item. You can use brand names, product names, or names of services as keywords to aid in your search.
Example: You are a fan of Pringles and are searching for a company that sells them. You enter the word “Pringles” in the search query.
III) Commercial Search: This type of search is done to prepare for a transaction. Modifiers that can be used include “best,” “top,” “price tags,” “reviews,” “comparison,” “affordable,” and “attributes of a product.”
Example: You are planning to buy Pringles, you can perform a commercial search like “Best Pringles” to help you make an informed decision. It may also include comparing products or services to make an informed decision about which one to buy.
iv)Transactional search: refers to searches that are done to buy something. Modifiers that you can use to refine your search include buy, deal, coupon, cheap, purchase, order, free shipping, and X% off (for example, 25% off).
KEYWORD METRICS
It involves analyzing the popularity and ranking of keywords based on factors such as search volume, competition, and relevance. If you’re new to SEO, it’s a good idea to focus on keywords that have a decent search volume and less competition (medium competition). Some tools that you can use to analyze keyword metrics include Ahrefs, SEMrush, Google Keyword Planner, AnswerThePublic, and Moz.
We’ll be discussing three tools in this context, namely Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends and AnswerThePublic.
Google Keyword Planner allows you to obtain the search volume and competition scores of the keywords you’re interested in. Remember not to focus on keywords with high search volume and competition as it will be difficult for you to rank high in comparison to other websites that already have high domain ratings and authority.
Google Trends is also a helpful tool that you can use to check the trend history and projections of keywords. It can help you determine whether investing in low search volume keywords is something that you should do now and benefit from later as the search demand increases.
AnswerThePublic is a tool that helps you discover the most frequently asked questions on the internet. By simply entering a keyword, you will receive a list of questions, prepositions, comparisons, and related keywords related to your search term. This information can be used to create content that answers common questions that people have, helping you to better meet their needs.
Much more….
Choosing a keyword/topic based on metrics can generate good traffic, but having keywords with business potential is even more important if your aim is not only to provide information but also to attract customers.
The business potential of a keyword refers to the value it holds for your business. This value is determined by your niche and business model.
For instance, if you sell shoes, your target should be keywords or topics that you can use to recommend shoes to your visitors. This will give you the highest value.
A topic like “affordable unisex shoes” may attract visitors, but they may not know where to purchase them. Therefore, you can have a link on your website that directs them to your blog or website where they can make a purchase.
On the other hand, topics like “types or examples of unisex shoes” may not have any business potential, but they can be useful in attracting traffic to your site.
FREE SEO TOOLS
We will explore best free SEO tools that can be incredibly useful for your online business. These tools can help you increase your visibility, drive traffic, and ultimately convert visitors into customers. The tools we will discuss cover various aspects of SEO, such as keyword research, domain analysis, backlinks, page insights, site audits, social media, and advertising. We’ll omit the three keyword research tools discussed before now which are Google keyword planner, Google Trends and Anwerthepublic.
Let’s take a look at them.
1. UBERSUGGEST
Ubersuggest is a free SEO tool owned by NP Digital, the same company that owns Answerthepublic. It provides numerous insights and is easy to use. You can use Ubersuggest to search your competitor’s website rankings, check backlinks, conduct keyword research, and perform other tasks. Like Answerthepublic, Ubersuggest allows three free searches per day.
2. SEMRUSH KEYWORD MAGICAL TOOL
Semrush’s tool provides ample data on a query. It offers a wide range of task insights such as traffic analysis, keyword research, backlinks building and analysis, site audits, social media, advertising, trends, and more.
3. AHREFS KEYWORD GENERATOR
A free keyword research tool owned by AHREFS that shows keyword ideas. It also gives keyword search volume and keyword difficulty. It equally shows questions asked relative to the keywords.
4. SITELINER
Siteliner is a helpful SEO tool that is free to use. It can help you identify duplicate content and broken links and provide a list of all pages on your website URL along with their power rankings. Additionally, you can compare your website with other websites.
5.SIMILARWEB
Similarweb is a free website traffic checker tool used for checking website analysis. Once you go to www.similarweb.com and type in the website URL, it will analyze the traffic for you.
6. GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Google Analytics is a tool that helps you improve your website’s performance. With this free tool, you can submit sitemaps, track website traffic, analyze your website, and fix technical errors. One of its features is the URL Inspection tool, which provides information about how Google indexes a webpage.
7. SHORTPIXEL
Shortpixel is a tool that can help your website load faster by making your images smaller. You can upload images in JPG, GIF, or PNG formats, but they can’t be larger than 10MB, unless you sign up for a free account. To use Shortpixel, you just need to choose how much you want to compress your images, and then upload them. Shortpixel will automatically make your images smaller without making them look worse. Shortpixel is an easy way to make your website faster, and it won’t take you long to use it.
8. KEYWORDSPEOPLEUSE
KeywordPeopleUse provides an excellent solution for discovering the questions people ask. It includes options such as the “People also ask” section of Google search results, Semantic keywords, Google Autocomplete, Reddit and Quora, etc. It gives a map of the questions people ask, keyword clusters, data, and related searches. These features require upgrading to a paid plan to use. The downside is that it only allows one task for free, as it provides only one credit.
9. PAGESPEED INSIGHTS
Page speed insights developed by Google give you insights into your pages for Core Web Vitalis such as Performance score, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO. It equally shows the Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative layout Shift, Speed Index, and others. Enter your URL and the tool will show you the assessment score
As we conclude, with these free SEO tools, you can kickstart a great online journey that can fetch you great results. While these tools offer free plans, their paid plans come with additional benefits.