How to Build A Quality Keyword List for SEO: A Beginner’s Guide
Akram Messail
Introduction: What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process of identifying and targeting a list of keywords for a website. It is a fundamental step in search engine optimization (SEO).
Keywords are words or phrases that people type into search engines to find information on the web. Optimizing your site with keyword-rich content will help you get found by your customers in online searches.
A good keyword list can lead you to find terms, phrases, questions, and products that are within the interest of your users and customers. With this data, you’ll get to create targeted content that satisfies both users and search engines.
Your keyword research should be done before any other SEO activities. It will definitely help you to determine what your site should be about, also, it gives you an idea about what content to produce, and it guides you to the pages you need to promote through social media or paid advertising.
In this article, you’ll get the tools and the strategies to make your list of keywords. You’ll also learn how to avoid mistakes when looking for the right keywords and create high-quality content. Once you choose your keywords, you’ll put the first break in your SEO strategy.
What is The Importance of a Keyword List in SEO?
Keyword research is the process of analyzing and discovering what keywords are most relevant to a website or blog.
Here are some reasons why keyword research should be at the forefront of your digital marketing campaign:
You need to know what you’re selling and who your customers are; this will help you identify keywords potential customers will be searching for. What are you selling? What services do you offer? Or if you don’t know these things, identifying your keywords could help.
Keyword research tells you what people are looking for and can be helpful when it comes to marketing your business.
Search Engines need to know what your website is about in order to rank it. You can do this by including keywords on different pages of your website. This will help make it easier for search engines to find and rank you in their results.
When you blog, you want to include keywords that are relevant to the topic of your post. This can get people from other sites to come over, which may lead to more collaboration and more links.
Keyword research is essential for any digital marketing campaign. However, it should be continuous so that you can monitor your keyword list and analyze your ranking with your competitors.
After conducting solid keyword research, you can create high-quality posts and pages that are focused on those keywords. This will help rank your website and generate more traffic.
What are The Main Elements of Keyword Research?
The Relevance
Keyword research is the process of determining which search terms are most relevant for a given website or content. This is why it is important to know your audience and create content that meets their needs.
Furthermore, to rank higher in SERPs, your content needs to be the best resource out there for the query, because, Google will not rank your article higher if it provides less value than other articles that already exist.
The Authority
Google will rank higher on the websites it deems authoritative. For this reason, you should focus on creating and promoting content that is helpful and informative for your audience. This will earn you social signals and backlinks that can help you become an authority in your niche.
However, If your website doesn’t have authority in your niche, or if there are heavy players dominating your keyword (like The New York Times or Forbes), it’ll be more difficult – if not impossible – to rank unless you produce extraordinary content.
The Volume
Though you may rank on the first page for a particular keyword, it would be useless if nobody actually searches for the keyword. Essentially, you’re setting up a shop in a deserted town.
Volume is measured by MSV (monthly search volume), or the number of times a particular search query or keyword is entered into search engines each month. The higher the search volume, the more people are likely to come across your offer and buy it.
How can you actually find this?
You can use specific tools to determine the relevance, authority, and volume of a given keyword.
What are The Best Tools for Keyword Research?
Keyword research is a crucial aspect of any digital marketing campaign. It is important to choose the right keywords that will generate the best results for your business, and it can be difficult to find the right ones.
This article will discuss some of the different keyword research tools and how you can use them effectively to build a solid list of keywords.
Google Adwords Keyword Tool
The first tool that you should use is Google Adwords Keyword Tool. You can enter a word or phrase and the tool will show you how many searches have been done on it per month. Plus, other information such as competition level, suggested bid prices, potential traffic value, and more.
This tool can help you determine which keywords are worth targeting with your campaign. it will help you find new long-tail keywords based on your main keyword.
People don’t pay much attention to it, but Google Trends can be very useful as well, it will allow you to see the popularity of a term over time, whether it be in terms of searches or absolute numbers.
Depending on what information you’re specifically looking for, this tool will give you an idea about the relevance of that keyword.
You check the tool here.
The Ubersuggest tool
it is an advanced research tool that allows users to browse different topics and long-tail keyword combinations that are related to their initial query.
The search engine displays data on the most popular topics, as well as related keywords and suggestions. You can launch a content marketing campaign using this tool, or you can explore a new topic area, it is all up to you.
Ubersuggest also provides information on how often the keywords are used in search engine result pages, and how many times we would expect to see the keyword in a given month.
That’s not all
The tool offers an article ranking score, which measures how relevant the article is to a given keyword. This ranks articles by how many times they are being searched for using the keyword.
The tool also provides information on what topics people are searching for related to the keywords.
You can check the tool here.
KWFinder
it is a tool that is designed to help you find keywords that are easy to rank for. It’s an excellent tool for beginners who don’t know where to start when it comes to researching keywords or for those who need a little help finding long-tail keywords.
The best part about this software is its user interface which makes the process of using it quick and easy. The keyword planner provides a list of long-tail keywords for your niche with monthly search volume data.
The KWFinder tool also provides a list of related niche keywords which can help you find new long-tail keywords. If you’re just starting out, or need a little help finding the best long-tail keywords for your business, this resource is perfect for you.
You can check the tool here.
Ahrefs
This tool is an SEO software suite that contains tools for link building, keyword research, competitor analysis, rank tracking, and site audits.
The tools can be used independently or in conjunction with each other. Ahrefs has excel spreadsheets and API integrations for data analytics. The tool is designed for both beginners and experts in the field of marketing and SEO.
The pricing for Ahrefs begins at $99 per month for a single user. For multiple users, the cost is $79 per month plus $20 per additional user per month. There are also enterprise plans available that are tailored for business needs ranging from $299 to $1,500+ apiece.
Ahrefs provides a number of sales channels including social media, lead generation, affiliate programs, e-commerce, and more.
You can check the tool here.
How to Find the Best Keywords for Your Target Audience?
I’m going to show you a step-by-step keyword research process you can follow and what to do when analyzing a list of keywords:
Step 1. Use Google Keyword Planner to make your keyword list.
This is the first step in creating a content marketing strategy. The goal is to find out what people are searching for on Google that can lead to your product or service.
The Google Keyword Planner will generate a list of keywords based on the search volume and competition for each keyword. You can also use this tool to see which keywords are related to your business, in order to get ideas of what people are looking for.
Step 2: Focus on low-hanging fruits.
If you have just started, and you haven’t built authority in your niche, you better target keywords that you have a chance of ranking.
Large companies typically rank higher when it comes to high search volume keywords, and since these websites have already established a brand and a following, Google mostly rewards them with authority over many niches.
This low-hanging fruit is easy to find and it ensures that you get more exposure for your website.
Step 3: Check the monthly search volume (MSV) for your list of keywords.
When it comes to optimizing your pages for search engines, one of the most important factors is picking the right keywords.
An MSV (Monthly Searcher Volume) is a rough estimate of how many times (per month) a given keyword is searched on google. It can help you make an idea about what keywords are worth investing in and which ones you should avoid.
It can be hard to determine the exact value of your keywords’ MSV, but it is important to have an estimate. You can use tools like Google Trends to get an estimate of your keywords’ MSV.
Step 4: Factor in SERP features when you pick your list of keywords.
In this section, I will talk about how to factor in SERP features as you are choosing keywords.
To rank for competitive keywords, it is important to take into account the SERP features that come into play. These include Google Suggest, Google Autocomplete, and the Featured Snippet.
These features can help you know what your competitors are ranking for and how they are using their keywords on their pages.
Step 5: Check for a mix of head terms and long-tail keywords in each bucket.
This step is to ensure that you have a mix of head terms and long-tail keywords in each bucket.
Head terms are the words or phrases that people will type as their first choice when they’re looking for something. Long-tail keywords are the words or phrases that people will type as their second choice when they’re looking for something.
For example, if someone is looking for a dog walker, then “dog walker” would be ahead term, and “dog walking services” would be a long-tail keyword.
Step 6: See how competitors are ranking for these keywords.
Just because your competitor is using one keyword frequently doesn’t mean you should use it too. However, Understanding what your competitors are looking for can help you better assess your own keywords before creating content around them.
For example, if you’re a realtor, your competitor might be an online platform like Zillow. Because many people turn to Zillow when searching for “homes” or “information on homes”, it would make sense for you to leverage this phrase in your content.
However, if your competitor is more of a local site that only has local listings in their database, it might be a sign that this keyword is not that lucrative.
The solution for that is a quick check on Google Trends to see the search volume of that query.
Conclusion: Do it Correctly!
Conducting effective keyword research is a very important piece of your SEO strategy that helps you find keywords that people are searching for.
By knowing that, you can better target your audience and create relevant content that will increase brand awareness and improve conversion rates. which leads to better rankings and higher traffic.
Keep in mind that there are no “best” keywords, your list of keywords is what your audience searches for the most. and it comes to you to craft the content that will help them help you rank higher.
The best keywords for your SEO strategy will take the relevance of the query to your website, the authority you have built in your niche, and the search volume of that query.
Now that you know how to do your own keyword research, it’s time to move on to the next step: making your pages enjoyable for human readers and search engine crawlers.
You want to create high-quality content and you don’t know where to start!
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Posted Oct 2, 2024
A good keyword list can lead you to find terms, phrases, questions, and products that are within the interest of your users and customers
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