What is keyword research and How to do it for free?
Google's search algorithm uses over 200 factors to rank websites. To give your website the best chance of standing out from the crowd, it's essential to conduct thorough, high-quality keyword research.
Finding the right keywords that attract your target audience will allow you to develop and execute a keyword strategy, elevate your pages in search engine rankings, and generate reliable organic traffic.
Keyword research is very important for SEO in blogging.
If no one is searching for what you are writing, then no matter how hard you try, you will not get any traffic from Google.
That's why mastering the art of keyword research is so important to your success in SEO.
The cost of making a mistake is too high. By choosing the wrong keywords, you run the risk of wasting a lot of your time and resources.
And I don't mean to scare you.
Keyword research is not a rocket science. In fact, you'll learn most of it in about 10 minutes.
But there are some important things that you need to be aware of in order to make better SEO decisions.
This post explains what keyword research is, why it is important and how to do keyword research to get traffic from Google, Bing and other search engines.
Recommended: SEO for beginners
Table of Contents
What are keywords?
Keywords, sometimes called SEO keywords, are words and phrases used to establish and develop online content.
From a potential user's point of view, they are the words entered into the search box that best describe the products or services they are looking for or the question they want answered.
For marketers, the keywords you carefully choose to include in your content directly inform search engines about the information on your webpages, giving them a way to rank and recommend your website.
What is keyword research?
“Keyword research is the process of finding words, queries and phrases that users are searching for, with the help of which we will be able to drive traffic to our website.”
Keyword research involves comparing the relevance of keywords on a website and its various pages in order to find the page best suited to answer a user's query, known as search intent.
Keyword research also involves classifying search queries at different stages of the user journey and into different categories of search, such as transactional, navigational, and informational.
Why is keyword research important?
Keyword research helps you make sure there is a search demand for what you want to write or create about.
Thus, if your page gets a good ranking in Google for your target keywords, you will get consistent traffic for a long period of time.
If you publish a page on a topic that no one is searching for, that article will not receive any traffic from Google and other search engines.
According to our study, many website owners make this mistake and it is the reason why 90% of the pages on the internet do not get any traffic from Google.
That is why keyword research is very important in SEO to get high quality traffic from search engines.
Important terms in keyword research
Keep these things in mind while doing keyword research.
1. Seed keyword (main keyword)
The first thing you need to do is find the main keywords you want to write about.
2. Search Volume
Volume is measured by MSV (monthly search volume), which means the number of times a keyword is searched per month across all audiences.
3. Keyword Difficulty
Keyword difficulty is a metric that measures the effort it takes to rank your content on the first page of Google for a certain keyword.
4. Keyword intent
The keyword intent refers to the intent of the user. Is he going to buy a product or download a file or just read information etc.
5. Domain Authority
Domain Authority is a search engine ranking score that measures how successful a site is in terms of search engine results.
This much information is enough to know about keyword research.
Now let's see how to actually do keyword research to get traffic from Google and other search engines.
How to do keyword research?
Keyword research is actually very easy I mean the process is easy but choosing which keywords to target is little bit hard.
Choose the wrong keyword and get a zero traffic.
Anyway, that's why I'm here to help you to get rid of this question how to do keyword research.
I'll tell you in a very simple language so you won't feel like a rocket science or something super duper logically hardest thing.
Ok, enough chitchat, let's dive into how to do keyword research for free.
1. Find Keyword Ideas
First of all, you should have some words (we call seed keyword in SEO) of what you're going to write about.
Seed keyword is the main keyword with the help of which we'll find all the other related keywords.
If you're still not sure about what's this about then just write down about your topic.
For example: cars, dog food, gaming, computers, etc.
All you have to do is enter your main keyword in the keyword research tool and then you will get lots of related keywords.
I have given some methods keyword research tools below. You can choose any of these and get keyword ideas.
Free Keyword Research Tools:
You will find many free keyword research tools online and you can use any of them.
It really doesn't matter which tool you use.
All you have to do is enter your main keyword in this tool and then you will get many good keywords, with the help of which you can get a lot of traffic.
I am going to tell you the tool which I personally use.
I personally use Google Auto Suggest. It is a bit tricky, but once you learn it, you can easily target good and profitable keywords.
2. Use the LSI keyword (Use the LSI keyword)
LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords are conceptually related terms that search engines use to deeply understand the content on a webpage.
This is a free tool that you can use to find related keywords that will help you make your keyword research more successful.
Google uses LSI keywords as a way of identifying the context of your content.
Different keywords can obviously have different meanings, Google uses LSI to identify the meaning of the keywords you are using and return relevant content to the user's search query.
Keywords that are similar in nature and context to the main keywords you are targeting in your content.
Without getting too technical, LSI keywords are words or keyword phrases that Google associates with your main keyword.
It is important to understand that LSI keywords are not synonymous with your keywords. Instead, they are words that help search engines determine the context of the content you produce.
3. Find Keyword Intent
Search intent (also known as searcher intent or keyword intent) is the reason a user types a particular query into a search engine.
Let's say someone searches "best dog food" on Google.
They are not trying to navigate to a specific page. And they don't even want to buy a specific product. (at least not yet)
They want to do their research before making a purchase.
This means that the keyword has a business purpose. And we can use this knowledge to adjust our content to better target this keyword.
There are four basic types of search queries:
1. Informational - searches done to answer questions or learn something
2. Commercial - Searches done in preparation for the transaction
3. Transactional - Searches made to buy something
4. Navigational - Searches done to locate a specific website
The top goal of search engines (such as Google) is to provide relevant results to users. So understanding search intent can affect your ability to rank in search results.
Google has put a lot of effort into explaining the intent behind the search queries used in search.
So if you want to rank in Google, you need to make sure that your pages fulfill the search intent behind the keywords they are targeting.
4. Find out the search volume and keyword difficulty
Search volume refers to the number of search queries for a specific keyword in a search engine such as Google.
Search volume indicates the number of search queries for a specific search term in a search engine such as Google within a given time frame. The number of search queries is approximate and may be subject to seasonal, regional and thematic fluctuations.
You have to find keywords in such a way that their search volume is as high as possible. Because if you target keywords with low search volume, then less traffic will come to your website.
Think for yourself that if the volume of a keyword is only 1000 then what will be the benefit and how much will you earn in 1000 traffic?
It is easy to find keywords that can drive a lot of traffic to your website. It is difficult for them to estimate their ranking prospects.
To help solve this problem, SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, etc. assign keywords a "difficulty" score from 0 to 100. But the truth is that these scores are not foolproof.
If you check the keyword difficulty of the same keyword in different SEO tools, the numbers will be very different:
The table showing the KD scores for different keywords is different for each tool.
That's why it's important to understand how ranking difficulty is calculated by your SEO tool of choice. Only then can you take an informed decision based on this.
Simply put, you have to find keywords that have high search volume, but low keyword difficulty.
If you target such keywords, then there are high chances that you will be able to drive good traffic to your website.
5. Write a high quality blog post using that keyword
After doing keyword research, you have to write a good high quality article, otherwise that keyword research will be of no use.
You have to write a blog post in such a way that maximum keywords have to be inserted in it. Whatever user is reading. He shouldn't be worried.
Don't stuff your keywords. You have to put keywords in your blog post in a very natural way.
Think for yourself, you are reading a blog post and the same keyword is coming again and again, then what will you enjoy reading.
On the contrary, if you go for keyword stuffing then Google will not consider your website at all. Your website will already go to spam website. Forget ranking, Google won't even index your website.
The monthly traffic of my website is around 70,000. Many blog posts are ranked on the top position of Google.
So I can tell you where to enter those keywords in the blog post after doing keyword research.
All you have to do is enter a keyword in the space below.
-blog post url
-title and description
-H1, H2, H3, H4, etc. Tags
-first and second paragraphs
-at least 5 times in between blog posts
-last paragraph
Google doesn't care how many times you put keywords in your blog posts. That doesn't mean you can flood keywords everywhere in your blogpost. It will obviously look like a spam and unprofessional.
I just told what I do personally.
You can learn more about SEO from Google.
Google only needs high quality articles and nothing else.
So you have to write a SEO friendly high quality block post and then wait for the blog post to rank.
Quick Tips for a Successful Keyword Research
-Use keyword research tools to your advantage
-Don't blindly trust keyword research tools
-Use long tail keywords
- Use low difficulty keywords
-Don't compete with big websites
-Compete with similar websites or websites with lower domain authority
- After checking everything, decide which keyword is the best
Summary
You will learn keyword research gradually and it is very important to do good research to know whether the chosen keywords can be ranked or not.
If you have chosen the wrong keywords then no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to rank on that keyword.
All your hard work and time will be wasted. I am not trying to make you feel guilty or scary, just stating actual facts.
Ultimately, your website's expertise, authenticity and trust can only take you so far.
Simply put, your blogging success depends on how much quality content you write and which keywords you target.
