There are many ways to do SEO keyword research, but we’re going to go through how we do it here at MeanDigital.
In summary:
- Brain dump/storm session
- Current rankings
- Competitor rankings
- Keyword data
- What’s the search intent?
- Track the keywords
- Continuous Review and Update
Brain dump/storm session
Understand your topic or niche
Identify core topics: Start with a clear understanding of your main subject area. What is your website, blog, product, or service about?
Understand your audience: Consider what your target audience might be searching for. What are their needs, questions, or pain points related to your topic?
Initial Brainstorming
List Basic keywords: Begin by jotting down all the basic keywords that directly relate to your topic. For a fitness blog, this might include terms like “fitness,” “exercise,” “workout routines,” etc.
Think like a user: Put yourself in the shoes of someone searching for information or services in your niche. What might they type into a search engine?
Current rankings
Use keyword tools: Utilise tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz Keyword Explorer to find related keywords. These tools can suggest variations and related terms you might not have thought of.
Include long-tail keywords: Long-tail keywords (longer, more specific phrases) are less competitive and often have higher conversion rates. For instance, “best cardio exercises for beginners” instead of just “exercises.”
Competitor rankings
Identify your competitors
Who are direct and who are indirect? Who offers the same or similar products and services? Who compete for the same keywords even though they don’t sell the same products or services as you?
Use SEO tools
You can use tools like ahrefs or SEMrush to give you insights into competitors’ strategies and what they rank for. But, they can also use it to research you.
Look at their website
Use keywords you think they rank for and then look and read their websites. Look at and understand their content. What are they focusing on? What are they looking to tell people?
Keyword data
Create a keyword database: Organise your keywords into a spreadsheet or database. You can categorise them by topic, search intent, difficulty, or any other parameter that suits your strategy. Tools like those mentioned above can give you very rough ideas of monthly search volumes – just take them with a pinch of salt!
What’s the search intent?
Categorise by intent: Group your keywords by the user’s intent – informational (looking for information), navigational (looking for a specific website or page), transactional (ready to buy), or commercial investigation (comparing products or services).
Match content to intent: Ensure that the content you plan to create aligns with the user intent of your chosen keywords.
Track the keywords
List your ‘best’ and most valuable keywords in a spreadsheet so you know what you are looking at. You can monitor the pages that rank for this keyword and their position in the search engine results pages (SERPS).
You can do this daily (a lot of work) weekly (less work) or monthly. And over time it will give you an understanding of how these keywords and associated pages change and fluctuate. It might also help you understand why another site is beating you and give you ideas as to what you can change or add to your site.
Continuous Review and Update
Regularly update your list: SEO is dynamic. Regularly review and update your keyword list to include new search trends, eliminate underperforming keywords, and refine your strategy based on performance data.
So, now it’s down to you. Go out there are see what’s available, see how your site already performs and make changes based on keywords or phrases that you think are relevant to real people. Remember, Google is trying to stay relevant to people, so if you do the same that’s a good part of the battle.