A lot of new bloggers don’t even consider doing keyword research, and because of this, they struggle to get visitors to their blog, Others simply go after keywords that are the most popular but also very competitive and end up failing to rank well in Search Engines. 

The foundation of SEO is keywords. If nobody is searching for what you’re writing about, you won’t get traffic from Google.

But from today you will learn something new and improved your brand recognition…

What is Keyword Research and Why You Need it?

According to Wikipedia ↱, Keyword research is a practice search engine optimization (SEO) professionals use to find and research search terms that users enter into search engines when looking for products, services or general information.

According to me, Keyword research is a research technique used by content creators and SEO experts to discover words users enter into search engines to find content, products, and services.

Why you need keyword research as a blogger, SEO expert or content creator;

Keyword research helps you to answer questions like:

• How hard will it be to rank for a particular keyword?
• How much traffic you will likely to get if I rank for this keyword?
• What kind of content should I create to rank for this keyword?
• Are people searching for this keyword likely to become my customers? (Search intent) (also called user intent) is known as the main goal users have when typing a query in search engines. 

There are 4 main types of searcher intents: 

1. Navigational – people search for a specific page or website. 
2. Informational – people search for specific information such as definitions.  
3. Transactional – people search for something when they are ready to make a purchase. 
4. Commercial investigation – people search for the comparison of products or reviews.

Now that you know what is keyword research and it’s benefits. How then can you find this keywords?

How to find keyword ideas

Note: If you are familiar with your niche you can skip this step and go right into finding keywords process.

Keyword research starts with brainstorming to find niche topics (find seed keywords).

What is “seed keywords” anyway?

Seed keywords are the foundation of the keyword research process. They define your niche and help you identify your competitors.

Picking a niche or the right seed keywords is a challenging process. But, during this exercise, you will get a better sense for the topics that you love. The ones that you are most passionate about are the best people (customers) for your niche blog.

For example, let’s say you are starting a blog about entertainment. The first keywords that come to your mind are ones that you would use in a Google search:

1. celebrity news
2. entertainment news
3. entertainment book
4. entertain
5. Latest movies

These would be your seed keywords and broad topic ideas. Next, you will have to find out the keywords that your competitors are ranking for;

What keywords are your competitors ranking for?

Looking at which keywords already send traffic to your competitors is usually the best way to start keyword research.

First, you need to identify those competitors. That’s where your list of keywords above comes in handy. Just search Google for one of your seed keywords and see who ranks on the front page, specifically top 5 result.

Once you have identify your competitors you can now use keyword research tools to expand on those ideas you just discovered.

For you to use keyword research tools, You need to understand how keyword research tools work and how to get the most out of them.

Using keyword research tools for keyword research

Keyword research tools all work the same way so you can use anyone you know and familiar with.

How a keyword tool works: You enter a seed keyword, and they pull keyword ideas from their database based on that keyword then you get to see million ideas of keywords with a lot of opportunities. That is pretty simple and straight forward.

Google Keyword Planner is perhaps the most well-known keyword tool. It’s free to use, and although it’s mainly for advertisers, you can also use it to find keywords for blog.

If you’re serious about keyword research, you may as well skip the free stuff and use a ‘professional’ tool like Ubersuggest ↱.

Keyword research: Using Ubersuggest tool

Note: This is a free and premium tool for SEO.

To get started, simply enter the keyword or phrase in the tool.

Let’s say we’re researching celebrity news.

We are going to explore four keyword metrics in Ubersuggest.

Search volume:

This is the number of searches the keyword has during a month: For example, “celebrity news” has a monthly search volume of 2,400 in Nigeria alone.

If your blog is new, you should probably find uncompetitive, low-volume keywords where you can easily suck up additional traffic with short articles. These are known as long-tail keywords.

SEO difficulty:

This is estimated competition in organic search. The difficulties of a particular keyword depends on so many factors such as;

• Number (and quality) of backlinks;
• Domain Rating (DR);
• Content length, relevance, freshness;
• Use of the target keyword, synonyms, entities;
• Search intent;
• Branding;
• etc.

Paid difficulty:

This is the estimated competition in paid search. The higher the number, the more difficult it will be to rank for that particular keyword.

Cost per click:

This the average cost per click for a Google Ad.

Cost Per Click (CPC) shows how much advertisers are willing to pay for each ad click from a keyword. It’s more a metric for advertisers than SEOs, but it can serve as a useful proxy for a keyword’s value.

CPC of the keyword celebrity news is N45.02

Now that you have a basic idea of how to do keyword research.

Another amazing feature of Ubersuggest you should consider looking at;

Ubersuggest Search Suggestions

The are five keyword idea variables in Ubersuggest:

• Suggestions
• Related
• Questions
• Prepositions
• Comparisons

In the screenshot above, “suggestions” is highlighted by default.

if you are searching for the largest list of keywords that contain your phrase, click “Related”

Every keyword on the list above now includes your seed keyword, “celebrity news.”

From there, you can experiment with the other search types.

More Keyword research tools

1. Ahrefs keywords explorer ↱

Ahrefs is a refined SEO tool that comes with a state-of-the-art web crawler. The company’s crawler is optimized for speed, and it ranks just behind Google’s crawler. Thanks to this tool, Ahrefs can deliver detailed analysis reports in a matter of minutes.

2. SEMrush keyword search ↱

When it comes to the best SEO tools out there, SemRUSH definitely deserves a spot at the very top of our list. Its applicable use list is vast and ranges from analyzing content and discovering niche keywords to examining and understanding the competition’s SEO strategy.

3. Moz explorer ↱

Moz PRO is another all-rounder on our list. It is a great tool to help you boost your search engine visibility and rank. Moz PRO is advertised as a complete SEO toolset. We have to agree that this is an accurate statement. Moz PRO is all about crawling the web, gathering data, and compiling it into actionable reports.

4. KWFinder ↱

KWFinder, the SEO software by Mangools, is your go-to keyword research tool. It is one of the easiest SEO tools to use on the market. Comprehensive software solutions can be hard to use when it comes to finding high volume and low, competitive keywords. With Mangools KWFinder, it’s easy to do.

conclusion

Everything above should be enough to understand the basic concepts of keyword research and plan your content strategy. 

If you want to learn more and dig deeper into keyword research. Visit speedyminds weekly or subscribe to get the latest stuff.

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