A Beginner’s Guide to Keyword Research: Get the Basics of Keyword Research to Improve Your SEO

If you are writing content for your business blog or website, it’s important to understand how to perform keyword research to target potential customers and let search engines know what your content is about.

Keyword research is an important tool in your search engine optimization (SEO) toolbox. Researching the best keywords to use for your topic will help you understand what your target audience is searching for online.

This, in turn, helps you craft your business blog posts that will show up higher in search results and be seen by more of your target audience.

If you’re just cutting your teeth in the world of SEO and digital marketing, this blogger beginners guide to keyword research is for you.

We’ll walk you through the keyword research basics and suggest some tools to make the process easier.

Whether you are blogging for your business, writing content for a new website, or want to up your marketing game, we’ve got some tips to help! Read on to get started.

Keyword research is a search engine optimization technique used to identify search terms that people type in to locate information for a given topic. This can be done through a variety of different methods. By finding popular search terms and including them in your content, you can be sure that you are providing content that readers are actively looking for.

Researching keywords is one of the single most important things you can do to improve your search marketing. Tracking and incorporating popular keywords offer the following benefits:

Here are some basic ways to do keyword research for free for your blog or website content for free:

See what your competitors are ranking for. Go to the major search engines and type your term of choice into the search box. Take note of the paid ads you see displayed above the organic search results. They usually indicate keywords that are high in value.

You can also gain valuable insight into what your competition is ranking for and how difficult it will be to rank using those same terms. Make note of keywords that others are using on page one of the search results.

Use your search engine search box for clues. When you go to a search engine and type your term into the search box, you may have noticed that related keywords will pop below the box. These are gold, as they provide you with keyword phrases related to your search that are very popular with searchers. Jot these down as you go to use as keywords and/or topics for your blog posts!

Free Keyword Research Tools

In addition to the methods above, you can leverage these free internet keyword research tools for keyword topics and ideas:

Google Keyword Planner Tool. Google has around an 84% share of the market right now, so there is no better source to find great keywords than to tap into the data base of the great and powerful Google. Google Ads offers a great tool called Keyword Planner. You will need to set yourself up in Google Ads to access this tool, which is pretty quick and easy.

Once you are logged into Google Ads, you can navigate to “Tools and Settings,” then click on keyword planner from the menu dropdown.

This great free keyword research tool gives you a couple of options. First, click “Discover new keywords.” Then, you can plug in a word, phrase or category to find keyword ideas and see how many people are searching globally and locally certain terms. (It is not exact, but it is a good representation.)

Alternately, you can spy on the competition by typing their web address into the website box. Google Keyword Planner will give you a list of hundreds of keywords from their website. Simply plug in your competitor’s web address and see what their keywords are, the average monthly searches for those keywords, and other valuable metrics.

From there you can choose the keywords that apply to your business and optimize your content around them to outrank your competitors.

Ubersuggest. Ubersuggest is a very effective (and free) tool that you can use to up your SEO game. Simply go to the Ubersuggest website, type in a keyword or domain into the search box, and click “search.” You will instantly see keyword overview data for the term or site you selected, followed by keyword ideas around your search.

A Note About Long-Tail Keywords

When you look at a tool like Ubersuggest, you will see that keyword terms have many metrics, one of which is volume.

Be aware that high volume keywords are more popular search terms and are usually very generic. While they have the highest searches per month, they only amount to about 30% of the searches performed.

The remaining search terms are referred to as mid-tail and long-tail keywords. Long tail keyword phrases are generally low search volume words that are not as competitive and are typically 3-5 words long. Many people overlook these longer, more detailed phrases, but by doing that, they miss out on some valuable opportunities.

Long-tail keywords are important for several reasons. While they have a lower search volume, they often result in better customer conversion rates. Why? Long-tail keyword phrases are longer and more specific. Usually, potential customers will type in these specific terms because they are further along in the conversion or buying cycle and are ready to take action. They may show up as medium or low competition terms on your keyword research tool, but they are very valuable in your content.

So let’s say my business is a website design company (which it is), and I want to find keywords to optimize my web design services page. In the example below, I searched for the keyword phrase “website design.” Notice that the term website design gets an impressive 90,500 monthly searches on average. Although a popular search topic, it is quite generic, and most of the searchers typing in this term probably aren’t looking for web design services.

If you look down the list, you will notice some long-tail keyword phrases including website designer near me. While this keyword phrase only has 8,100 searches per month, a web searcher that types this specific term into the search box is likely looking to hire a web designer in their area to help them design a killer website for their business. That’s what we want! Therefore, that will be a term included on my service page, along with other long-tail keywords I find in my research.

Bottom Line: Choose a main keyword and a list of long-tail keywords for a given website page or blog post.

Google Trends – With this free tool, you can plug in terms to see what is hot and how the topic you have chosen is trending. This helps you find out what your audience is interested in. You can even break your analysis down by region. Google Trends also shows you related terms and terms that are rising in popularity.

Answer The Public. This nifty tool, owned by the same company that brought you Ubersuggest, offers a broad array of suggestions based on your search. Simply type in a topic, brand or product, hit the “search” button, and voila– an instant breakdown of the most highly searched questions around your topic. These results are valuable for long-tail keywords and blog topics.

There are a wide variety of keyword tools out there to help you create content that grabs the attention of your readers and converts them into dedicated patrons of your site. In addition to the free keyword tools listed above, there are some more in-depth paid tools, including SEMRush and Ahrefs, that offer a deeper dive into keywords, allow for tracking, and contain invaluable information to help you optimize your blog or website for SEO.

Once you have compiled a list of keywords, here’s how you can utilize them on your website for the best possible results.

• Website page titles and meta descriptions
• Blog post titles and meta descriptions
• Headings and subheadings (H1, H2, H3, H4…)
• File names and image alt tags
• Throughout body text and content
• Anchor text (text used in links)
• Within the URL

By utilizing these tools, taking cues from the competition, and providing your visitors with valuable information, you will be well on your way to creating copy that increases web traffic.

No time for internet keyword research? No problem. Our copywriting team and search engine optimization experts in Boston have the tools and the expertise to create website content that will get the results you are looking for. Contact us today to find out how we can provide keyword research services to help you grow your business.