If you’re like most business owners, you’ve probably heard that keyword research is an important step in creating a successful online marketing campaign. What does that actually mean? How do you go about doing it correctly? In this post, we’ll walk you through the basics of keyword research and show you how to find the right keywords for your business. So let’s get started!

Why Research Keywords?

Each page of a website should be considered a landing page for a keyword. Keywords make up the foundation of each website page. For example, if you offer multiple products or services, you most likely will not be able to rank for all the keywords you need on your homepage alone. You will need to have a focus keyword for each separate page on your website. However, the highest ranking keywords are not always as straightforward as your brand name or product name. This is where keyword research comes in. Researching helps you see what keywords people are searching for, their search volume, and that you have a chance to rank for the words that you want. 

Research is also important because it helps you rank for the right keywords that are in line with the goals and value of your website. For example, if a company is ranking 3rd for a specific keyword, but is still not seeing the desired amount of traffic, it might be because there are other keywords related to it that have a much higher search volume. If you are ranking highly for a keyword term that only has an average of 10 searches per month, you might be better off using a different term that has 1,300 searches a month. You can compare the search volume of keywords using different tools such as Google Keyword Planner, or others found in our article, 4 Best Keyword Tools to Use.

How to Research Keywords 

In order to find the best keywords to use on your website you want to:

• Identify the keywords that are relevant to your company, product or service 
• Make sure those keywords have a high search volume 
• Find keywords for which you have a chance to rank

Google used to have a keyword meta-tag, however it is not helpful for ranking higher with your keywords now as it was determined to not be a relevant indicator of keyword quality and is no longer analyzed by Google. Now, it is our job to research and choose which keywords we think will generate the most traffic for our website. The first main aspect you want to focus on is the difference between broad keywords and long-tail keywords.

For example, if you are a marketing firm you might be considering using the word “marketing” as a keyword. However, this is what we would consider a broad keyword, meaning there are most likely millions of searches per day that contain that word. Because of this, there is no way to determine the intent of someone who is searching “marketing.” 

This is where long-tail keywords come into the picture. Long-tail keywords are generally 2-3 keywords used in a phrase that are more specific as to what the potential customer is searching for. With our marketing example, a long-tail keyword that might be searched would be something like, “Inbound Marketing Software.” With these keywords, we know exactly what the person is searching for. There may not be millions of searches a day for these words, however, they are specific to your business, have little competition, and are easy to rank for and retain traffic that turns into leads.

At the end of the day, it might be more beneficial to receive half of the visits from a keyword that only gets searched around 50 times a day versus 0% of the traffic from a keyword that is searched millions of times. 

I Know What Keywords are, Now What do I do With Them?

It can often be a struggle to come up with an initial list of keywords that you want to pursue using. One way to help come up with a base set of keywords is to ask yourself a few questions:

• What products or services do you offer?
• What problems do your customers have that your company can help solve? 
• How would you describe your business to someone who has never heard of your company? 
• Ask someone not connected to the industry how they would search for your product or service. 

Once you have an initial list of potential keywords, do a few more searches on Google to see if there are any that you may have missed. You can then break down your similar keywords into main words and description words to find the most searched version of the word.

In the example below, on the left side there are words that describe the service, and on the right there are words that further describe the words on the left. Testing these different combinations of words will help you find which keyword variation is the best option. 

You want to constantly revisit your chosen keywords and run them through different keyword tools as well as Google searches to ensure that they are always relevant to your product or service. Once you have your primary keywords chosen, you then want to make sure the page they are on are optimized and use them. If you have more than one product or service, you will need to repeat this process for each one, as they will all have different keywords on their individual pages of the website. 

Now that you know how to do keyword research and why it’s important, you’re well on your way to driving traffic to your website. Following the steps in this guide can ensure that you’re choosing keywords that will help potential customers find your site. Once you’ve found the right keywords, don’t forget to put them to good use!

If you want help with marketing your business and finding the right keywords, check out our list of services to see how Renegades Media can help!