What is SEO Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process by which you research popular search terms people type into search engines like Google. They get included strategically in your content so that your content appears higher on a search engine results page (SERP). Keyword research is a fundamental practice in search engine optimization (SEO). The power of keyword research lies in better understanding your target market and how they are searching for your content, services, or products.
Why is Keyword Research Important?
Keyword research provides valuable insight into the questions, problems, and solutions your target audience is searching for. This analysis should be the basis of your SEO efforts. The insight that you can get into these actual search terms can help inform content strategy as well as your larger marketing strategy. Additionally, targeting the right keywords with effective research is the first step to successful SEO. Driving organic traffic that is representative of your ideal customer is achieved by optimizing your website and creating content for the right keywords.
Keyword Discovery
You likely have a few keywords in mind that you would like to rank for. These will be things like your products, services, or other topics your website addresses. You can enter those keywords into a keyword research tool which will produce similar keywords. Once you enter in your seed keywords into a keyword research tool, you will begin to discover other keywords, common questions, and topics for your content that you might have otherwise missed. Once you enter in your seed keywords into a keyword research tool, you will begin to discover other keywords, common questions, and topics for your content that you might have otherwise missed.
In the process of discovering relevant keywords for your content, you will likely notice that the search volume of those keywords varies greatly. While you definitely want to target terms that your audience is searching for, in some cases, it may be more advantageous to target terms with lower search volume because they’re far less competitive.
