Keyword research
Keyword research is a practice used by search engine optimization professionals to find and research actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting a search. Search engine optimization professionals research keywords in order to achieve better rankings in search engines. Once a niche keyword is found, it is expanded upon to find similar keywords. The process is usually aided by keyword suggestion tools, like the Google Adwords Keyword Planner, which offer thesaurus and alternate keyword suggestion functionality. Most of the time the various search engines provide their own keyword suggestion tools as well which also include the number of searches made for each of those keywords. This information is then used in order to select the correct keyword depending on the SEO goals of the website. Around 20-25% of searches are of very specific long tail keywords entered into Google every single day it’s easy to rank said keywords, so long as you have a good amount of content and backlinks to match. Keyword research is a valuable and high return activity in the search marketing field. .[1]
Importance of Research
Keyword research
The objective of keyword research is to generate, with good precision and recall, large number of terms that are highly relevant yet non obvious to the given input keyword.[2] Process of keyword research involves brainstorming and the use of keyword research tools. In order to achieve best results with SEO, it is important to pick the most relevant keywords. It is a good practice to pick keywords that have little competition and high amount of searches. Little competition will make it easier to achieve higher rank in search engines and high amount of searches will guarantee that the keyword attracts web traffic. The downside of this practice is that usually keywords that have very little competition get less searches while those who get millions of searches per month are very difficult to rank for.[3] There are three important concepts to consider when conducting a keyword research. Good keywords are related to the theme of the website. search engine algorithm has the right to ban or exclude from search results websites whose content is not relevant to the keyword.[4] Good Keyword that are highly competitive are less likely to rank in the top. Keywords that have no monthly searches will not generate any traffic therefore rendered useless for SEO.
Research Examples
A very popular and highly competitive keyword on Google search engine is "making money". It has 2 890 000 000 search results, meaning that millions of websites are competing for that keyword. Keyword research starts with finding all possible word combinations that are relevant to the "making money" keyword. For example, a keyword "acquiring money" has significantly less search results, only 47 900 000, but it has the same meaning as "making money". Another way is to be more specific about a keyword by adding additional filters. Keyword "making money online from home in Canada" is less competitive on a global scale and therefore easier to rank for. Multiple tools are available (both free and commercial) to find keywords and analyze them.
Keyword Research Tools
Google AdWords Keyword planner
Google offers free tools to do some basic keyword analysis. All the results are relevant only for Google search engines. Features of AdWords Keyword planner:
- Get traffic estimates for the keyword.
- Generate new keywords by combining different keyword lists.
- Create new keyword variations based on initial keyword.
Additional Tools
- Google traffic estimator,[5][unreliable source?] Webmaster Tools; Google Suggest and Google Trends
- MSN Keyword Forecast
- Hitwise
References
- ^ "Kris Reid – The Coolest Guy in SEO". 3 July 2015. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
- ^ Joshi, A; Motwani, R (2006). "Keyword Generation for Search Engine Advertising". Data Mining Workshops: 493. doi:10.1109/ICDMW.2006.104. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
- ^ Jerkovic, John (2009). SEO Warrior. O'Reilly Media. pp. 213–236. ISBN 978-0596157074.
- ^ Ross, A. Malaga (2008). "Worst Practices in Search Engine Optimization". Commun.ACM. 51. doi:10.1145/1409360.1409388. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
- ^ Patricia, Redsicker. "Findable Content Marketing: 3 Google Keyword Tool Tips". Retrieved 13 February 2013.