Keyword Research: A Beginner’s Guide For Bloggers
Keyword research is, for a lack of a better word, the key
to monumental traffic to your blog.
It’s what helped me propel this blog to new and great
heights!
In this post, I’ll show you how to do keyword research so
you can also generate organic traffic to your blog.
Sounds good? Then let’s get into it!
The Ultimate Guide To Keyword Research
1. What is Keyword Research
2. Types of Keyword Research
2.1 Traditional
2.2 Competitor-based
3. Factors of Keyword Research
3.1 Search Intent
3.2 Informational
3.3 Commercial
3.4 Transactional
3.5 Search Volume
3.6 Keyword Difficult
4. How to Do Keyword Research: Two Types
What is Keyword Research?
Before we get into the meat of bones on how to do keyword
research, we need to know what it is first.
Keyword research is the pillar of a successful SEO
campaign.
Basically, the goal is for you to find keywords that lots
of people search on Google.
You also need to determine how easy it is to get your blog
on top of Google search for that keyword.
Once you find these keywords, use them to create content
that Google loves.
What I do mean here?
It means that you must observe the best on-page SEO
practices on your post in relation to your keyword.
Pretty cut and dry, right?
WRONG.
While keyword research is simple in theory, it is also
deceptively difficult.
Researching for the best keywords for your blog takes
time.
There’s more to keyword research than just finding search
terms that generate lots of searches from users every month.
We’ll get to these factors as we move forward in the
article.
But here’s one thing I’ve done over the years to grow my
blog traffic using keyword research:
I grouped similar keywords together to create content that
targets multiple keywords at once.
Doing so allowed me to rank for these search queries for
the same page.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a screenshot from Ahrefs of some
of my best-performing posts:
One of my posts is ranking for more than 1,600 keywords!
And everything is by design! I know that I’ll be ranking
for them because I optimized the post for these keywords.
This strategy of mine is what I am going to share with you
later on this post!
So here’s the key to attracting LOTS of visitors to your
blog:
It’s not about the number of blog posts you publish
regularly.
Also, it’s not just about the quality of your post and how
useful it is to your audience.
So what is it then?
It’s about how smart you approach keyword research!
If you want to smarten up about keyword research, then
keep reading!
Types of Keyword Research
Now, onto the meat and bones of this post!
There are two types of keyword research: traditional and
competitive.
Both follow different processes but can help you find the
good keywords for your blog.
 |
| Keyword Research: A Beginner’s Guide For Bloggers |
1. Traditional
With traditional keyword research, you generate keyword
ideas from a seed keyword.
The seed keyword, in this case, is your short-tail
keyword.
Basically, you want to extract long-tail and medium-tail
keyword ideas that contain your seed keyword.
More importantly, you want to find keywords that are easy
to rank for on organic search and have lots of monthly searches.
You will identify these keywords using different metrics
available on your chosen keyword tools.
Here’s an example on how to do traditional keyword
research on Ubersuggest:
On the left, you will see a list of keyword suggestions
for the seed keyword “content marketing.”
Clicking on each keyword will show you the Google SERP on
the right side of the screen.
View the pages ranking for each and determine whether or
not you can rank on the first page for this keyword with your content.
Traditional keyword research works best for newbie
bloggers. They haven’t published blog posts yet and want to find keywords they
can optimize for in their content.
On the downside, the traditional approach won’t provide
you information about your competitors.
And that’s why we have the second type of keyword
research.
2. Competitor-based
Unlike the traditional way, you will come up with ideas
from keywords your competitors are ranking for.
Normally, you type in the domain URL of your competitor on
your premium keyword tool.
It should then process the keywords that it is ranking for
on organic search. Also, you should see the position of each keyword on SERPs.
Once you have extracted their keywords, you can choose
which ones to optimize for your blog.
What makes competitor-based keyword research more potent
than the traditional method?
You gain access to proven keywords that you can target.
Think about it for a second:
If your competitors are ranking for them, then so should
you!
However, this keyword research type only works if you have
an established blog with pages ranking for certain search terms.
Also, you need to use premium keyword tools to conduct
competitor-based research.
And as you know, these tools cost a fortune.
Still, these drawbacks don’t take away the fact that
competitor-based keyword research is arguably the better approach in the long
run.
In the screenshot above, I’m using Ahrefs to find keywords
that contentmarketinginstitute.com is ranking for.
Not only do you see the volume and difficulty of each
keyword. You also see the position where the page on the site is ranking on
Google organic search.
Later, we’ll talk about how to effectively run a
competitor-based keyword research using Ahrefs and other tools.
For now, however, you need to know how to determine the
value of a keyword based on different variables. And we’ll discuss the most
crucial ones below.
Factors of Keyword Research
Want to know why keyword research is difficult? Here’s
why:
No keywords are ever the same.
Even if they share common words together, they are still
fundamentally unique from each other.
People search certain keywords more often than others.
Some are much easier to rank for on search results than
others.
Using this information, you can narrow down your keyword
list to ones that work to your advantage, namely:
Keywords with high search volume and low competition!
To do this, you must manually analyze each keyword in your
research using different factors.
They will help you determine which ones to optimize for.
Below are the factors I’m referring to:
1. Search Intent
To do keyword research effectively, you must find keywords
that you want your audience to use for finding your blog.
So how do you do that?
You need to understand search intent.
It explains why people typed in that phrase on search
engines.
By researching for keywords with the search intent that
fits your blog, you drive more qualified traffic to your pages.
As a result, you get to increase your sales, email
subscribers, and others!
Below are three types of search intent:
2. Informational
People search for informational keywords if they want to
know the answer to a question.
For example, “selling shoes” is a keyword phrases.
However, its intent is unclear at the moment.
To make a keyword’s intent informational, you need to
answer this question:
What do people want to learn about this topic?
In most cases, keywords that start with an interrogative
word or the 5 Ws: who, what, when, where, why (and 1 H: how) are prime examples
of informational keywords.
To find this using Ahrefs, type in the keyword in the
search bar of Keyword Explorer.
To filter the keywords with informational intent from the
results, click Questions from the left sidebar.
From here, you will see a list of keywords related to
selling shoes that begin with any of the 5 Ws and 1 H.
The search phrases come in the form of a question. This
means that the user wants to find out all there is to know about selling shoes.
Informational keywords are perfect for bloggers whose goal
is to share information.
They can build a content strategy revolving around these
keywords so they can grow their traffic.
But how about bloggers who want to earn money? Let’s say
they use their blog to sell products and services and to promote affiliate
programs.
Then they need to optimize for keywords with the next type
keyword intent.
3. Commercial
I’m pretty sure you used Google Search to compare products
and services before making a decision.
Whether you are aware of it or not, you used commercial
keywords in your buyer’s journey.
People use these keywords if they have plans on buying
something but are not sure which one yet.
An example would be “best professional drones.”
The user wants to know the top-of-the-line commercial
drones in the market.
Most of the results from Google SERPs are list posts from
e-commerce and review sites:
Usually, a keyword (usually a product or service) has
commercial intent if you add the following affixes to it:
As mentioned, e-commerce and review sites benefit the most
from optimizing for this keyword intent.
Most review site owners are affiliate marketers who
recommend affiliate products to buy for their target audience.
They help guide customers make the best decision based on
the available information.
In return, they earn a commission from every successful
transaction!
Let’s say your audience knows what to buy already. What’s
the next step?
That brings us to the third and last type of keyword
intent.
4. Transactional
Unlike commercial intent, keywords with transactional
intent point you to where and how you can buy the product you want.
For example, I want to buy a DJI Mavic 2 Pro as my
professional drone.
Here are affixes added to the keyword that changed its
intent into a transactional one:
·
Buy DJI Mavic 2 Pro
·
DJI Mavic 2 Pro deals
·
DJI Mavic 2 Pro discount codes
·
DJI Mavic 2 Pro shipping
As you can see, there is a clear intent from the user to
buy the drone judging from these keywords.
I mean, nobody would search for discount codes and deals
about the product unless they’re interested in buying it!
True enough, the results on Google SERPs show the
different discount codes you can use to buy this drone.
For bloggers with products to sell on their site, you need
to research for keywords with transaction intent.
They should help bring in more conversions to your blog if
you optimize them correctly.
Now that we’ve covered search intent in depth, let’s talk
about search volume.
5. Search Volume
Search volume refers to the number of times users searched
the keyword in a month.
Ideally, you want to target keywords with high search
volume for your blog.
Here’s the simple math:
More searches means more chances for people to find your
site on Google.
Of course, this is only possible if you rank on the first
page of search results for your keyword.
So you must be asking yourself:
How much traffic can I generate from a keyword based on
its search volume?
Let’s refer to Advanced Web Ranking’s CTR study, in which:
·
The top result garners approximately 30%
clicks of all users
·
The second result generate more or less 15% of
all clicks
·
The third result receives 10% clicks
Here’s a screenshot of the graph for your reference:
Let’s say your keyword has a search volume of 2,000 and
you rank second on organic search for it.
The 15% of 2,000 is equivalent to 300 clicks.
That’s how many visitors you can expect to receive in a
month.
And that’s quite a lot!
So does that mean you should always target keywords with
high search volume?
Not really.
There’s more to a keyword that the volume of searches
every month.
In fact, the factor below is arguably the most crucial one
in this list,
6. Keyword Difficulty
Keyword difficulty refers to the degree of competition you
must face in getting your blog to rank for a keyword.
Understanding how keyword difficulty works is crucial to
your keyword research.
As mentioned earlier, you shouldn’t just find keywords
that generate lots of monthly searches.
Here’s why:
They’re the most competitive to rank in organic search.
Keywords with high search volume promise the greatest
visibility for sites that rank on the top three spots in Google Search.
That’s why almost all sites want to get a piece of the
action and understandably so!
So instead of optimizing for a keyword that everybody
wants to rank for, why not travel the road less traveled instead?
In other words:
Why not target keywords with low competition?
The lack of competition gives your blog a much easier path
to rank on top on SERPs.
However, and here’s the kicker with keywords with low
competition:
There have abysmal search volumes.
We’re talking here of less than 100 searches in a month!
Obviously, that doesn’t discredit the value that keyword
difficulty brings to the table.
So here’s why ranking for keywords with low competition is
easy:
The sites that rank on the first page for the keyword
aren’t optimized.
Basically, the content in these pages don’t observe the
best on-page SEO practices.
Also, it’s possible that the keyword doesn’t have a
specific content ranking on SERPs.
These are huge opportunities for you to capitalize on!
Keywords with low competition is a prime characteristic of
long-tail keywords.
In a nutshell, these are search phrases that contain at
least four words.
These might have low search volumes. But long-tail
keywords usually come in question format.
All bloggers such as yourself need to do is provide the
best answer to these queries. Then, optimize the page so you can rank on top of
search results for the keyword!
The benefit of ranking on top of search results for a
long-tail keyword is you enjoy higher conversions.
Source:
SEMrush
The reason for the high conversion rates of long-tail
keywords is they answer a specific question.
By creating content that answers the needs of users, you
compel them to take action on your blog. It’s that simple!
Therefore, you need to find long-tail keywords to
complement your content creation.
Now, I know your chomping at the bit to start with the
actual process of keyword research.
Since we just wrapped up the crucial factors in
determining the best keywords for your research, let’s jump right into it then!
How to Do Keyword Research: Two Types
You can opt for free and paid ways to do keyword research.
If you don’t have a budget available for your keyword
research, then the free approach is for you.
The only drawback with the free method, which you will see
later, is you don’t have access to features that will speed up the research
process.
Therefore, it’s best to go the paid route by using any of
the best keyword research tools available.
They help you filter which among the keywords are the
easiest to rank and group similar keywords together to help facilitate you in
developing your blog’s content strategy.
So let’s begin with the free approach:
How to Use Google Keyword Planner For Free
Google Keyword Planner is totally free to use. You don’t
need to spend a single penny on AdWords ads to access it. All you need is to
have a Google account. Click here to get a free Google account if you don’t
have one already.
However, here’s what usually happens when you try to use
the tool:
You’ll
be required to create an AdWords campaign.
Google is very serious with this that it often seems like
you cannot possibly use the tool without first giving them some cash. Well,
there’s good news:
You can actually gain access to the tool even without
running an AdWords ad campaign. You simply need to bypass a few steps.
Click here to get started, then click on the bold “Go to
Keyword Planner” button as shown below:
NOTE.
They may ask you to re-enter your password for verification (which is normal).
Now here’s an important part:
You’ll see a page that reads “what’s your main advertising
goal?” You don’t want to select any of the three options provided.
Under the provided options, click the small “Switch to
Expert Mode” link instead.
On the next page, select the “Create an account without a
campaign” option, and click the “Continue” button to proceed.
Click the blue “Continue” button on the next screen. (No!
Google will not ask for your credit card details).
Then, this screen will show up (Congrats, you’re all
done):
Now, click on the “Explore your account” link to go to the
next page.
Here, click on the “Tools” tab on the upper right corner
of the menu bar and select “Keyword Planner.”
You now have full access to the wonderful Google Keyword
Planner! You don’t need to enter your billing information or run an AdWords ad.
How to Use Google Keyword Planner
To get started, Google Keyword Planner offers you two
options, which are:
Discover new keywords: This allows you to get new keyword
ideas that will help you get to the people interested in what you offer
Get search volume and forecasts: With this option, you’ll
be able to see search volume and other metrics for your keywords, and forecasts
on how their possible future performance
You can also click on the “How to Use Keyword Planner”
link under the two options to learn more about the tool, but I’m sure you won’t
be needing that after reading this article.
The two options will take you to the Keyword Planner;
however, what you’ll see will be a bit different depending on your choice.
When it comes to performing keyword research, these tools
are more than enough to give you thousands of potential keywords.
For clarity, this tool is specifically created with PPC
advertisers in mind. So the tool has lots of features (such as the keyword
bidding features) that you won’t need if you’re using the tool to find
keywords.
That said, it’s time to learn how to perform keyword
research using each of the tools in the Google Keyword Planner.
Let’s explore each in more detail.
1. Discover new keywords
You’ll want to start here if you want to discover new
keyword ideas.
Based on Google’s instructions, simply “Enter words,
phrases, or a URL related to your business,” as you can see on the screenshot
below, Google will then bring back some keyword suggestions.
It’s worth mentioning that the value you’ll get from the
tool is entirely based on the information that you put here. So you have to be
strategic about the keywords you enter into this field.
To help you get the most out of Google Keyword Planner,
let me break down each of the three options for you.
Enter Words: These are single words that are related to
your products or services (for example, “skin care” or “SEO”). This lets you
access Google’s database of keywords for different niches and industries.
Phrases: This is where you’ll enter your “seed keywords”
and get a list of related terms. It’s best to enter at least two keywords here.
For instance, if you operate an ecommerce website that sells bracelets, you’d
want to enter terms like “tiffany bead bracelet” and “pandora bracelet charms”
here.
A URL related to your business: This is specifically meant
for Adwords advertisers. However, you can sometimes find a few good keywords
here using your website’s homepage… or a blog post from your site.
Here are the keyword suggestions for “Skin Care”:
There are a total of 888 keyword ideas.
For each keyword suggestion, you will see:
·
Keyword
ideas
·
Average
monthly searches
·
Competition
·
Top
of page bid (low range)
·
Top
of page bid (high range)
The good thing is that you’re not limited to only single
or two words; phrases work as well. And you’re allowed to enter up to ten seed
keywords at a time.
They also have the option to use a website or URL as your
seed.
However, the bad thing is that whatever you do, Google
won’t show you more than a few thousand keyword suggestions per search.
Even when I entered up to ten seed keywords (which is the
maximum number of keywords you can enter) and a URL, I still only got 4,424
keyword suggestions.
2. Get search volume and forecasts
This is the perfect place to start if you already have a
list of keywords that you want to see metrics for.
Just copy and paste them in and click on the “Get started”
button:
You will be taken to the Forecasts section. Here, you’ll
still see the same “Keywords Results Page” you see when we used the “Discover
new keywords” option.
The little difference is that:
You get data only on the terms you searched for
Google will tell you how many impressions and clicks
you’re likely to get from the keywords you entered
The majority of this data is clearly meant for AdWords
advertisers.
But here’s a little trick:
Click on the “Historical Metrics” tab, and Google will
show you 12-month average search volumes for the keywords you entered:
These are the exact same ranges you see when you use the
“Discover new keywords” tool.
That’s it about using the Google Keyword Planner for
keyword research. Now, let’s quickly learn how to do the same using Neil
Patel’s Ubersuggest.
How to Use Ubersuggest for Keyword Research
Ubersuggest is a new keyword research tool launched by
Neil Patel, and I’ve got to admit, it’s a very wonderful tool for search engine
optimization.
In this section, we’re going to go through the step by
step process of performing keyword research with this powerful tool.
That said, let’s get started:
Keyword Overview
The keyword research process of Ubersuggest is broken down
into three sections:
·
Overview
·
Keyword ideas
·
SERP analysis
·
The overview looks like this for the keyword
“skin care.”
Save
On the first section, you’ll see a graph that breaks down
the keyword’s search volume over time.
It’ll show you the search volume for your chosen keyword
in any country and language for the last 12 months.
On the graph, you can see if the keyword is gaining in
popularity or declining or if it’s a seasonal keyword.
Aside from that, it also breaks down the cost per click
(CPC), the SEO difficulty (SD), as well as the paid difficulty.
The difficulty scores range from 1 to 100. In other words,
the higher the number, the more difficult it will be to compete for the
keyword, and vice versa.
Keyword Ideas
The second part of the Ubersuggest keyword research
process is the ideas section. Using our “skin care” keyword as an example
again, click on the “View all Keyword Ideas” button to view all the keyword
suggestions for your target keyword:
Here, you’ll see a list of related keyword ideas. On the
screenshot below, you can see we have 348 keywords to analyze:
The keywords are generated using both AdWords
recommendations, and Google Suggest. This way, you can get a complete list of
potential keywords you may want to target.
And just like the overview section, you can equally see
volume data for every keyword as well as its cost per click (CPC), SEO
difficulty (SD), and paid difficulty (PD) data.
Additionally, on the right side of the “keyword ideas
report” section, you will see all of the websites that are ranking in the top
100 of the search engine result pages (SERPs) for that keyword.
This is the keyword ideas report part that I love the most
as it also shows you the estimated visitor count based on ranks.
The metric checks whether a keyword is seasonal and if
there are any paid listings or rich snippets for the term.
Apart from showing you the estimated visits based on
ranking, you will equally see each URL’s domain score and how many social
shares it has.
As you might have known, domain score ranges between 1 and
100 – and the higher the number domain has, the more authoritative it is and
the tougher it will be to beat the website.
And for the social shares, this is an indicator of how
much people loved the particular web page. If it has more social shares, then
the website’s audience must have really enjoyed it.
Ubersuggest also gives you the ability to Export your
results to in CSV format:
The final feature in the keywords idea report is the
filtering:
Here, you can easily filter the keywords based on your
preferred data point. From limiting the results to just “keyword suggestions or
“related keywords” or by filtering keywords based on their competition and
popularity.
And if there are too many results, you can also include or
exclude certain phrases or terms. With this, you will be able to filter the
results even faster.
SERP Analysis
The next section is the SERP analysis, which basically
shows you a simple view of the top 100 websites that are ranking for any given
keyword.
Lots of people perform keyword research in different
regions and languages, and you can do that with all the reports, the SERP
analysis included.
How to do Keyword Research With SEMrush
SEMrush is one of the best and most popular search engine
optimizations tools on the internet, and in this section, you’re going to learn
how you can use SEMrush for conducting keyword research in any niche.
Before we start, you will need a SEMrush account – and if
you don’t have an account already, simply click here to get 30 days free trial
of SEMrush.
With that out of the way, let’s quickly jump to the
process of finding good keywords with SEMrush.
Visit the SEMrush dashboard, and click on the “Overview”
tab (on the left-hand sidebar) under keyword analytics options:
Here, you will find a search bar where you will be
required to enter your main topic from which you want to find good keywords to
target.
You can equally choose your desired/target country (which
is highly recommended) for which you prefer an audience of.
For this example, I’m still going to use our keyword “skin
care,” and below is the result you’ll see:
In the screenshot above, we have four different reports
for our chosen parent keyword “skin care.” Let’s quickly look at that:
1. Organic Search
This tells you how many people search for the keyword in
Google (49.5K in this example), and how many websites are ranking for that
keyword (3.1B). That’s pretty competitive as you can see.
2. Paid Search
This section tells you if any brands or websites are
bidding for that keyword via paid ads. It also shows you the average cost per
click of the term, in case you also want to bid for it.
3. CPC Distribution
This part shows the average CPC of the term based on your
chosen country.
4. Trend
This is actually one of the best key factors to look at
while performing keyword research. It typically shows you the monthly
distribution of the term, which will enable you to know if a keyword will drive
you traffic all the year round or if it’s seasonal.
These are important information that’ll give you an
insight into what you’re about to enter so you’ll know if you actually stand a
chance of ranking at all.
Phrase Match and Related Keywords
Right under the “keywords overview” section, you will find
the “phrase match and related keywords” option.
This is where significant keyword research happens.
What we did in the first part was just to find some parent
keywords which could eventually form the pillar for our content strategy.
It’s almost impossible to target them or any similar
parent keywords, especially if you’re just starting as such keywords are always
super competitive.
In that case, the idea is to find the low-hanging fruits
(less competitive keywords) and utilize them to build a strong ranking profile
for your website first.
How to Use SEMrush Phrase Match Option
Phrase match is an excellent option when you already know
what topic or product to target, but it’s too broad.
With the “phrase match” feature, you’ll be able to find
every possible keyword that is closely related to your parent keywords together
with alternative words.
Apart from that, you can equally use the phrase match
feature to discover a bunch of long-tail keywords and alternatives to product
names you can target on your blog posts.
In the screenshot above, you can see that we have a lot of
keywords to work on. You can also select different types of keywords, which
include:
Broad match: These are the broadest range of possible
keywords that are still somehow related to your searched keyword.
Phrase match: Keywords that include the exact phrase of
your searched keyword
Exact match: These are the exact keywords or close variants
of your seed keyword
Related keywords: As the name suggests, these are the
keywords that are highly related to your seed keyword
You also have the option to either see all the keyword
suggestions or to see only the “question related” keywords:
And then, there’s the “keyword magic tool” feature, which
basically lets you choose exactly what the suggested keywords should be about.
For example, in the screenshot below, I choose to see “products related”
keywords:
Then, if you notice any keyword you like from the
suggested list, you can just click on the little (+ sign) to add it among the
keywords you’ll properly analyze later. From the image above, you can see the
pointer on the keyword “facial skin care products list.”
Finally, on each of the SEMrush keyword suggestions,
you’ll be able to see the:
·
Keyword
volume
·
Keyword
trend
·
Keyword
difficulty (KD)
·
Cost
per click (CPC)
·
Competition
·
SERP
feature
·
Results
in SERP
The keyword difficulty calculator is a handy tool which
tells you how challenging to rank each keyword is.
Basically, it measures between 1 and 100. The higher the
KD, the more difficult it’ll be to compete for the keyword, and vice versa, and
this makes the process of finding good keywords much faster.
That’s it about keyword research.
Why You Need to Start Using SEMrush Today
SEMrush is undoubtedly one of the best SEO tools out
there, and it’s used by lots of SEO enthusiasts and bloggers all over the
world. The tool combines a bunch of databases data to offer you accurate
keyword research details.
At the moment, SEMrush is used by more than 1 million
people, and it has more than 800 million keywords data, which are generated
from 30 geodatabases with the details of more than 130 million domains
worldwide.
Even if you are a newbie, SEMrush can turn you into an SEO
expert within the shortest possible time (not exaggerating).
To put succinctly, it’s the best tool for all your SEO
tasks, and it can help you with the following:
·
Keyword
research
·
Content
research
·
Backlink
analysis
·
Competitor’s
research
·
Find
out the traffic of any website
·
Domain
comparison
Detailed website audit to know if your website issues and
how to fix it
If you’re really serious with SEO, then I’d suggest you
get SEMrush today. The good thing is that you can actually use it for 30 days
without paying a dime.
Welcome to our blog “CYBER SUGGEST“. Debmalya Datta is a professional Blogger, Developer, Social Media Influencer, Digital Marketer and Entrepreneur. He loves doing work which makes him happy, that’s why he choose Blogging and Educate people. You will love exploring educational stuff on our blog. Live your dreams as much as you can. Be a SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTER
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