You’ve probably heard that keywords are the cornerstone behind your success. However, this is an understatement. Without proper keyword research, you are doomed to pay for all your leads. This will not only steal funds that could be allocated in more cost-efficient directions but will also put your entire business under financial strain. Moreover, it could be detrimental for young companies that haven’t yet established a baseline income.

With over 5.9 million Google searches per minute, the only way to get a significant organic traffic boost these days is to make sure Google lists you on their first page.

Recent statistics have shown that the top-ranking Google search result receives a 22.4% click-through rate. Combined with the 66% of traffic that comes directly from the Search engine giant, it’s evident that any small business owner should know the first thing about keyword research. Of course, you can always outsource this task to a third party. Still, it’s essential to have a general understanding of how keyword research is done and what metrics you should look for when analyzing the results.

Naturally, we are here to help. We’ve created a short and comprehensive guide to your first keyword research. But before we get to the how, let’s discuss the what and why.

What Is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is a pivotal process in search engine optimization (SEO) that involves identifying and analyzing the search terms people use in search engines like Google. The primary aim of keyword research is to gather insights that help create content optimized to rank highly in search results, thereby driving organic traffic to your website.

In practice, keyword research is much like customer behavior research, as you are practically guessing how your potential customers would search for your product or service. For example, if you are a car parts shop, you have a vast array of potential keywords to choose from. Not all of them, however, will bring you the expected results due to various complications we will talk about later.

Still, you need to guess what your potential customer will write in the search bar. For instance – “carburetor”. Still, as you’re not the only car parts retailer on the internet, you should narrow down your outreach. This usually happens by adding more words to your keyword—for example, the car model + the part. Finally, you can also go for an entire sentence. In this scenario, this may be “How to change [car model] carburetor. This shows that the person already has the need for the carburetor. But it also indicates that they might already have one. So, this is where the research part comes into play.

Why Is Keyword Research Important?

Keyword research is the cornerstone of your SEO efforts. It shows how your audience thinks, what they want to see, and what their pain points are. This research will help you produce content that brings value to your audience and help them convert from audience to active customer.

Furthermore, keyword researching helps you focus not on what you want to tell your customer. Instead, it aligns with what they want to hear.

If you conduct proper keyword research, you will get a lot of insights into the marketing trends of your industry. This will help you address your customers’ needs more efficiently. But even more, it will assist you in your efforts to better your product and even develop new ones.

Of course, all of this will lead to higher organic traffic, better results, higher revenues, and greater satisfaction from your audience.

So, as you can see, conducting proper keyword research can bring you a lot of benefits. Thus, let’s get right into how to do it.

Finding Relevant Keywords

Your first job during your keyword research is the brain-storming part. This is the time when you can get all sorts of keywords, regardless of their relevance and usage. Later, you will have time to refine your findings and choose the keywords that will make the biggest impact. However, for now, you need to get a list of keywords that are relevant to your business. There are several ways to get these keywords.

Check Your Existing Ranking.

The first place to check is within your website. Check Google Search Console to find out your current rankings and under which keywords you are most commonly listed by the search engines. Make a note of which keywords put you in the front positions. For example, if the keyword “carburetor” lists you on page 350, while “[car model] carburetor” lists you on page 35, then obviously, the second one is a bit better. Regardless, make sure to put both on your list, at least for now.

You might be wondering how you can have keywords when you haven’t optimized your website yet. Well, optimizing your website means you actively show Google where and how to list you. That doesn’t mean that the search engine crawlers won’t scrape your website (if you haven’t forbidden them) and show it to the world.

So, while gathering ideas, ensure you’re not listing under something that would harm your business.

Study Your Niche

Next, you should turn to researching your niche. Getting some industry-related keywords is fine, but the real gold is within your niche. These keywords will be most closely related to your business and are most likely to bring you the best results. Furthermore, they can give you some specific ideas that only apply to your business rather than the entire industry.

The first step is to talk to your existing customers (if you have such). Ask them how they will describe your business, brand, service, products, and website. Ask them how they would search for you on the internet. This can give you a clearer idea of how your clients will find you. Naturally, this information will have to be analyzed, but for now, you’re just gathering information.

Another great idea is to get involved in niche-specific social media groups and forums. By scraping the headlines and comments, you can find many keywords that can elevate your website in the Google rankings.

Get Inspiration From Google

Speaking of Google, you can use some of its tools to get inspiration. Using the auto-suggest function will give you a great way to find relevant geo-specific, long tail keywords. The same goes for the “People also ask” section, which enlarges any time you click on one of the suggestions. Still, make sure you won’t wander too far off your niche.

Finally, at the bottom of the first page, there is the “People also search” section, where you can go through various related suggestions. You can click on one and repeat the keyword gathering from the auto-suggest and “People also ask” sections. Usually, going three levels down is quite enough to gather a significant number of keyword suggestions.

Check Competitors

Next on your list are your competitors. Make sure to check the topics they are discussing, what their primary keywords are, and how they are performing. Most of this can be done through some keyword research tools, which will give you a significant boost in your efforts.

Use Keyword Research Tools

There are plenty of free and paid research tools out there that can give you a significant boost in your productivity. Whether you prefer Semrush, Ahrefs Webmaster Tool, SE Ranking, Ubersuggest, Google Keyword Planner, or Keywords Everywhere, it’s up to you. They are all good and will make a significant difference. We won’t discuss which one is the best today, as this is not quite so important at this stage. In general, these keyword software are the tools you will need to refine your keywords and find the ones that will give you the most value.

Essential Factors You Need to Know

Refining your keywords and finding the one that will help you gather goes through several steps. However, first and foremost, you need to understand the different metrics and factors that affect your overall SERP position. You may have found the perfect keyword but still lack the ability to outperform your competitors. That’s where these elements come into play.

Relevance

Relevance is the cornerstone behind Google’s successful redirection. It’s also the concept behind the search intent metric, which you will find in some keyword tools. For example, a person looking for a carburetor may want to learn what this part is used for. Or they might want to learn how much it costs.

Not everyone can write an entire sentence on the first try, so intent is essential when choosing keywords.

You need to address the user’s intent, not just their wording, to rank for a specific keyword. But even more importantly, if you want to get to the top spot, you have to provide them with the best value. After all, Google is in the same boat as you are. They are trying to satisfy a customer, so they won’t go to the competitors.

Authority

To make Google more inclined to share your link with others, you need to build up your authority. This is not that easy to achieve, as you have to establish yourself as a credible and authoritative figure on the market. Now, Google is not a conscious machine (at least not yet) that can determine whether you are authoritative, so they use a different strategy. The more people get to your website; the more authority websites share your content, and the higher your authority rate is. For example, if Forbs quotes you in an article regarding your industry, this is a good enough sign for Google that your business and website are legit.

Volume

Finally, there is the volume. You may rank at the top spot on a specific keyword, but you won’t get any traffic if no one is searching for this keyword. This is the volume of a keyword, which is the primary metric you will use to assess and choose the best keywords for your website.

Choosing keywords

Using Google Keyword Planner or another tool, you will be able to see all your keyword volumes. Now, there are usually keywords with thousands of searches per month. However, the higher the search volume, the higher the competition.

For example, if you target the keyword “BMW,” you will get hundreds of thousands of visits monthly. However, good luck competing with the manufacturer, the local representatives, and dealerships. Usually, they will spend millions to establish SEO dominance, so you have little to no chance of beating them. Furthermore, what’s more authoritative than the manufacturers themselves?

So, when you are a small business, it’s better to concentrate on keywords with a smaller volume. Getting to the top spot for a keyword that receives 1000 visits monthly is far better than being on the second page or even second place for a keyword with 10,000 visits.

Keyword Difficulty

Based on these factors, many keyword tools estimate keyword difficulty. Essentially, it shows percentage-wise how difficult it is to get in the top 10 Google results for a specific word. The higher the percentage, the more difficult the task. We recommend starting with a difficulty level below 25%. This way, you will feel the competition, but it will be easy enough to get in the top 10.

On the other hand, anything above 75% is utterly useless to try.

CPC

Most keyword tools will show you the CPC that is currently enough to list your website at the top spot. Naturally, this refers to the paid results, so they have their own downsides. However, the higher the CPC, the better the value of the keyword. For example, why would anyone pay 10 dollars for a click if it wouldn’t bring them returns? In time, you will notice that the higher the Keyword Difficulty, the higher the CPC. There are some exceptions, of course, and if you find those, you should definitely consider trying.

Prioritize the easy over the lucrative

Before choosing your keyword, you need to understand that gaining the top spot or even a top 10 spot on Google is a lot of work. You must build the proper content to create stunning and lucrative meta descriptions and headlines. You also need to maintain its relevancy and build up your authority. If you are an owner of a small-time business and you will be dealing with the SEO of your brand for now, this can be overwhelming.

So, instead of trying to beat giant corporations for keywords with massive volume, consider prioritizing keywords with 1000-10,000 monthly searches with lower competition. These will allow you to access a small but significant chunk of the market while avoiding confrontation with the giants.

There Are No “Best” Keywords

As you can see, there is hardly a definition for “best keywords. Each keyword that can bring you value is good enough. However, you need to consider how much effort you will have to put into building your content, authority, and relevancy regarding this keyword.

Furthermore, your SEO score is more than just finding a relevant keyword. The user experience can make or break your entire SEO. For example, if a person clicks on a Google link but it takes ages (or more than 3 seconds) to load, it will instantly raise some red flags for the customer and, even worse, for Google. A slow or unreliable website will instantly lose the competition for any keyword simply because people want the information immediately.

The first step toward finding a winning keyword is finding a winning hosting service that will allow you to build up your authority without hiccups.

Thankfully, HostArmada is here to answer your prayers. We offer lightning-fast website loading speed, top-notch security, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. This will ensure your audience will have instant and guaranteed access to any content they find through Google. So, while we are taking care of your website’s infrastructure behind the scenes, you can focus on building up your authority, user experience, and SEO.

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