Keyword research is essential to your overall SEO game plan. Keywords make your pages more discoverable on Google and draw more of the right traffic to your website. This increases clicks, conversions — and possibly even sales.
When it comes to keyword research, however, there is no one set strategy that you should rely on. Instead, it’s important to spread your wings and try things your rivals aren’t. Here are the top 5 brilliant keyword research strategies you should try out:
When it comes to keyword research, however, there is no one set strategy that you should rely on. Instead, it’s important to spread your wings and try things your rivals aren’t. Here are the top 5 brilliant keyword research strategies you should try out:
1- Concentrate On Your Niche
Take a look at your audience and what interests them the most. What are they searching for?
Then, take a look at your products and identify the keywords your customers are using to find your brand.
Perform a search of the most obvious terms in your niche, and then use an SEO tool to find derivative keywords. While high-value keywords are important, it’s also a good idea to use derivative keywords, too. These can help you to distinguish yourself from your rivals.
Here is a nice video that properly explains how to carry out niche keyword research:
Here is a nice video that properly explains how to carry out niche keyword research:
2- Take a Look at the Competition
What is your competition up to? What keywords are they ranking for that you aren’t?
All is fair in love and war. If your rivals have found well-performing keywords that you haven’t spotted yet, use your SEO tools to “spy” on them — and then reverse-engineer their methods.
If there is a keyword that your rivals are ranking in the top 10 for but you aren’t, add it to your own keyword strategy to ensure that you don’t miss out anymore. Then, produce content that is better than your rivals, and which plugs the gaps they’ve missed.
3- Base Your Research Off Financial Return
If you’re focusing on keywords that offer barely any financial return, while at the same time ignoring those that provide lots of financial return, you’re losing.
Conversion rate matters a lot, but just as important is how much high-quality traffic a keyword generates. To find this out, you need to assess the value of your keywords.
Spend some time working out the ROI of each keyword. For example, if you run an ad in which keyword A costs $0.70 while delivering 50 visitors and keyword B costs $0.20 while delivering 400 visitors, you’ll know that keyword B is providing more value.
Additionally, take things further and check what happens after a customer has reached your site. Which keywords are delivering visitors and leads, sales and so on?
4- Find Upward-Relevant Keywords
SEO is an ongoing process. To stay ahead of the curve, you have to identify trends before your competitors.
If you can discover upward-relevant keywords before your rivals, you’re winning.
The idea here is that you spot a trending keyword before anyone else, and then repackage it so that it makes sense to your target audience.
Trending topics attract a lot of attention. When you jump on trends, they make your business look relevant.
Don’t just focus on the headlines, though. Go deeper and get an understanding of which topics and terms are trending, as well as why they’re trending. This will ensure that you repackage your keywords and content so that it is contextually relevant to your audience.
For example, Black Friday is a seasonal trend. First understand what it is, why it’s happening and what it means for your audience. Then, you can adjust your title tags, meta descriptions, and content accordingly so that more relevant traffic finds your page.
5- Understand User Intent
It’s not enough anymore that you pick the right keywords. You have to understand more about who your audience is that’s typing these keywords into Google, as well as why. Thereafter, you will have to create user intent based content.
When a user types something into Google, they usually have a specific intent. You might have the right keyword, but if you haven’t understood their intent, you won’t have the content they want. As a result, your bounce rate will be high and your ranking will drop.
There are four types of search intent:
- Informational (searching for information — “how to …”)
- Navigational (searching for a particular website)
- Transactional (the user is in the mood to make a purchase)
- Commercial (carrying out research before making a purchase — for example, a user might look to compare one company with another)
Once you understand user intent, you’ll be able to build stronger keyword research campaigns, and your overall content strategy will improve, too.
These are 5 brilliant keyword research strategies that will help you rank better. Experiment with each one and see how they boost your overall SEO strategy. While there’ll be a fair amount of initial work to carry out, once you’re up and running your keyword strategies will begin to work their magic.
(This is a guest post by Aljaz Fajmut is a digital marketer, internet entrepreneur, and the founder of Nightwatch— a search visibility tool of the next generation. Check out Nightwatch blog for SEO and marketing tips and follow him on Twitter: @aljazfajmut)
(This is a guest post by Aljaz Fajmut is a digital marketer, internet entrepreneur, and the founder of Nightwatch— a search visibility tool of the next generation. Check out Nightwatch blog for SEO and marketing tips and follow him on Twitter: @aljazfajmut)
Also See:
