Keywords, popularly known as “SEO Keywords,” are words or phrases that users type into the search engine to find information online.

A keyword is a gateway that leads people to the organic search results and, eventually, to the site where they find the information they want.

That is why finding the right keywords plays a significant role in SEO. Once you find the correct words or phrases your customers want to know more about, you can adjust your content strategy and optimization to target those phrases.

As a result, your ranking will improve, and you will get more visitors.

How to discover the keywords?

The answer is through doing keyword research.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is researching popular search terms that people type into search engines to find more information. Then, you must include the keywords strategically in your content so that your content receives the top position on the SERP.

Why is Keyword Research Important?

Keyword research is the procedure of finding the right keywords for your business and understanding how your business is ranking. 

Keyword research helps in gauging the possibility of your ranking for these keywords on SERP.

You should follow keyword research while running a digital marketing campaign for several reasons. Here are some of the important reasons why:

• Understanding your keywords help you to understand your business. What are your products or services? If you do not know this, discovering your keywords can help you get a clear idea about your business.

Keyword research can provide vital information, like where you rank for the keywords, which are the keywords that are easy to rank, and for which keywords your competitors rank.

Keyword research tells you what your customers are searching for instead of what you think they are searching for.

The search engine can rank your website only if they understand what your business is all about. So, using those keywords on various pages of your site means the chances of Google ranking your site in SERP is high.

• Find keywords to use in blogs and to drive traffic to your website. Keyword research is the first step in a digital marketing campaign, but it should be a continuous process.

You must frequently check your keywords and find your ranking compared to your competitors.

After conducting your keyword research, create content and pages that focus on keywords. Combined with different SEO strategies, it can help your page rank and get more traffic.

What is the Best Free Keyword Research Tool?

There are large numbers of keyword research tool that helps in finding the right keywords along with their search volume and keyword difficulty.

Here are a few of the best keyword research tools.

Some tools are practical keyword generators for Google and other popular search engines. On the other hand, others offer targeted data for eCommerce websites like Etsy, eBay, and Amazon.

The most comprehensive of these keyword research tools include important SEO data like monthly search volume and keyword competition.

Below are descriptions of what you can achieve with each keyword research tool and their drawbacks and benefits. Some of the popular keyword research tools are:

• Keyword surfer
• Question DB
• Ahrefs Keyword Generator
• SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool
• Ubersuggest
• Moz Keyword Explorer
• Google Trends

Create a list of essential and relevant topics based on your business.

To start this process, consider the topics you want your website to rank. You will come with nearly 5 to 10 topic buckets that you think are important for your business, and then you must use those topics in your content.

If you are a blogger, the keywords you get by doing keyword research are the ones you should use in your blog or website frequently.

Or probably they are the topics that increase the sales conversions.

Imagine yourself as your customer- what terms will your customers type in Google to get your website in the search engine results? 

• Fill in the topic buckets with the right keywords. When you have a few topic buckets to focus on, it is time to find some new keywords that you can include in those buckets.

These keywords play an essential role in the SERPs as your target customer is possibly conducting searches for those terms.

• Create a list of relevant topics. These keywords are essential to rank for in the search engine result pages as your target customer is possibly conducting searches for those keywords.

Depending on the primary grouping of your brand and the objectives you intend to attain, divide it into small topic buckets.

Next, create a document with all the topics related to your company that you want to rank on the SERP.

For example, if you own an FMCG brand specializing in men’s care products, you must use topics related to your business, like men’s facewash, men’s haircare, skincare for men, and men’s skincare product.

They must be the topics important to your brand and should be related to your buyer personas. First, think about what kind of topics your customer will search for on Google. Later, divide these topics into keywords linked to those topics.

• Make a list of seed keywords. Once you divide your main category into various buckets of sub-topics, you can start making a list of seed keywords.

These keywords are specifically the terms that a searcher uses to find more information about it on Google.

Seed or focus keywords are essential as they form the foundation of your keyword research process. In addition, they help you in defining your niche and finding out your competitors.

If you are confused about how to find the seed or focus keywords for your product or brand, it is much simpler than you imagine.

You should define your offering as simply as possible and find out how other people might search for you on Google. 

• Find long tail keywords. Often, seed keywords are short search terms that are closely associated with your company’s main topic.

On the other hand, long tail keywords are more explanatory and often associated with your company’s list of sub-topics.

Matching your customer’s search intent to long tail keywords is much simpler when compared to seed keywords.

For instance, if your website publishes content on reviews of golf equipment, using long-tail keywords like “top 5 iron golf club” will help attract relevant audiences compared to the seed keyword “golf club.”

Usually, long tail keywords get few clicks, but as they are focused on a particular topic, they typically get a high conversion rate.

• Find what your competitors are doing by conducting competitor keyword research. Doing keyword research about your brand using the best keyword research tool is not enough.

You must be aware of the activities that your competitors are doing. The better you understand the content, the better it will be for SEO purposes. 

Understanding the competitiveness of various keywords will also help you find search terms that might be hard to rank. But most significantly, you will come across keyword opportunity gaps.

These opportunities happen when you find keywords related to your brand and industry with the low or medium-level competition. 

• Keyword research is the base of your SEO strategy. Keyword research is a significant step in attracting traffic to a website.

If your website has content that your users enjoy and find informative, then they will stay longer on it, through which Google understands that your website is doing a good job. 

Organic SEO is an ongoing process.

You may rank quickly for specific phrases or terms, but there are chances that you might see a slow rise in the SERP. So, you must be patient, consistent, and enjoy the whole process of keyword research.