Keyword Research is the Key to Successful SEO
Keywords are the words people use when searching for a particular item or website on popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. These keywords form the backbone of the strategy known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and are critical when it comes to where and how a website is positioned on search engine results pages (SERPs). Having these important keywords in a website’s content is vital, but one must first identify which keywords to use. How can a company optimize their website for search?
The answer lies in keyword research, a series of steps that SEO professionals like Swell Marketing, Inc., uses to target the best keywords for inclusion in website content. By identifying the most competitive keywords and including them in page content, search engines will be more efficient in indexing the content available on a site and rank it higher in search results than a website without those keywords in place. A step-by-step keyword research method includes:
Step 1: Make a list of topics that relate to your business.
What does your business do? Does it produce products or offer services? What sort of topics would a potential customer want to know about? Keeping these questions in mind, create a list of topics surrounding what you do as a company. This could be anything ranging from product categories, manufacturing processes, industry news or developments, or other topics that interested site visitors might want to learn about. Try to develop a list of 5 to 10 topics.
Step 2: Identify keywords related to the topic list developed in Step 1.
Here’s where the real research begins. Off the top of your head, list the keywords you think will be important for each of the topics you listed in the earlier step. Also think about “long tail” keywords, which are multi-word strings or phrases. Brainstorming with your employee team is a good way to get a list of potential keywords. Think about the types of terms a potential customer would search for on the Web when looking for the product or service you offer. For example, if you are a manufacturer of children’s playground equipment, your keyword list might include:
Children swingsets
Playground equipment
Swings
Monkey Bars
Child play equipment
Best playground toys and equipment
Affordable playground sets
Child climbing wall
Children’s slides
Don’t be afraid to come up with a long list of potential keywords and keyphrases; some of these will be thrown out in later steps.
Step 3: Narrow the field.
In this step, it’s time to take that big list and start to reduce it. There are several useful online tools companies can use to identify targeted keywords. Google Analytics is one of the best, allowing companies to see exactly which terms are being used by site visitors to arrive at your website. The goal of this step is to come up with a more final list of keywords, leaving only the ones that people are most likely to use.
Step 4: Do research on related terms.
You just reduced your potential keyword list…now it’s time to add to it again. This time, think about similar words or phrases that people might use when searching for information about your company’s product or service. A good (and free) way to do this research is to use Google’s “Related Terms” feature, found at the bottom of every search page. Type in the keywords you think will work, and see what Google suggests as well. You can drill further down by typing in some of those suggestions and seeing what the related terms for them are. Again, there are readily-available tools online to identify related terms.
Step 5: Shoot for a mix of keywords and key phrases.
Remember “long tail” search terms? Be sure that in your final keyword list for each topic you developed in step 1, you are including them along with the one- or two-word keywords you researched. This gives your site a great balance for performance in the short term as well as over time. Remember that long tail search strings may not be something that the average site visitor is using when arriving at your site, but for those that are looking for specific information, you’ll be targeting them directly if you use logical search phrases.
Step 6: Take a look at the competition.
When doing keyword research, it’s important to take a look at what your competitors are doing. Try doing some searches and see where your competition winds up on search results pages. Visit the competitors’ websites and see if you can identify recurring words they use and how they relate to search placement. Even type in the company’s name in a search box and looking at related search suggestions.
Remember that just because your competitor is using particular keywords, you don’t necessarily have to. With your exhaustive research, you’ve identified the words that work for YOUR company. Several online tools like SEMRush are available to report on the top keywords for any given domain entered. Using these tools is a great way to identify what your competitors are doing.
Step 7: Understand that your work is never done.
Ok, you’ve developed a keyword list and are ready to add them to your website content. Fantastic job! There’s something to keep in mind, however. Google and the other search engines are constantly tweaking their search algorithms, so the keywords that work today may not be the ones boosting traffic in a few months. It’s important for companies to understand that keyword research needs to be a periodic process, such as a quarterly or biannually. Getting a grasp on the keywords that perform in the current search space gives you many advantages over your competitors, and are easy to incorporate into website content.
Using this step-by-step keyword research method, Swell Marketing, Inc. in Huntington Beach and SEO professionals all over the world can help companies remain competitive, boosting website traffic and improving revenue streams as a result. Keywords are the centerpiece to any robust SEO strategy, and it’s a valuable effort to identify the words that your customers are using to find information about you.
