Get to know the basics of SEO Keyword Research!
In January, I was invited to give a lecture on the basics of SEO Keyword Research at the Digital Career Institute in Düsseldorf. The lecture was so well received that I decided to turn it into an article. If you follow this article you will be well on your way to understanding SEO Keyword Research.
Know your audience…
Before diving into the lecture, I shared some background information on myself. I then asked the students to stand up, state their name, where they were from and to tell me two interesting things about themselves.
This sounds quite normal for a classroom situation. But I had a purpose for doing so. First, I wanted to show them that they have been their own Marketing and Public Relations Manager for years. That have already developed the skills to present themselves, a brand or a topic. During their studies, they will learn to refine their skills and learn the theory behind various marketing techniques.
The second reason, I did this was to show them it is important to know one’s audience. Not only did I gain information, they willingly shared additional details that I did not ask for including their ages.
This laid the groundwork for my lecture. As it is very important to know one’s audience and gain some insights before producing content.
So what is SEO?
SEO is an acronym that stands for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, which is the process of optimizing your website to get organic, or unpaid, traffic from the search engine results page.
SEO involves making certain changes to your website design and content that make the information that you are sharing more attractive to a search engine. You do this in hopes that the search engine will display your website as a top result on the search engine results page (SERP).
A quick overview on how to utilize SEO.
In a nutshell, if you can answer specific search terms then your content or site has a chance of ranking higher on Google or other search engines.
In order to do this, you need to utilize SEO strategies. This means you have to title, tag and curate all the information on your website in regards to a specific topic also known as a Search Term.
An example of how to do this includes, creating a title that is relevant to your topic. Next, you can insert the Search Term into the first sentence of the description of the article under the title.
Next, you can edit the Metadata. This is the data that people do not typically see and I think many people forget that they can actually do this. For example, the title of an image should be relevant to the Search Term. Even though this is unseen, search engines will still recognize it. Additionally, the URL for the webpage can be edited to include the Search Term.
If people begin sharing your content or website, then Google will pick up on this. Search engines like Google, because it sees you as an important source of information based on other people’s recommendations.
To take it one step farther, one should include similar Search Terms that fall into the same niche. Relative topics tend to be rewarded by Google by giving you a higher rank.
Understanding Keywords…
SHORT-TAIL KEYWORDS…
Let’s say you have a blog about baking. You don’t need to be a genius to know that one of the keywords you want to rank for is “baking” or “baking techniques”.
The issue with these keywords (sometimes called Short-Tail Keyword) is that they naturally have very high competition.
LONG-TAIL KEYWORDS…
But if you dig deeper into the niche, you’ll find that people interested in baking may also use keywords like:
- “best baking recipes”
- “how to bake the best pie”
- “top 5 cupcake recipes”
- “how to improve my baking”
Useful terms…
Before you dive too deep into the SEO rabbit hole, it is good to know some terms that will help you better understand analytics. Knowing how to understand this will help you find the right keywords for your content when using SEO tools.
Search Volume (VOL) - The number of searches a particular keyword has during a month.
Cost Per Click (CPC) - The average cost per click if you wanted to pay Google to be seen as an ad. If someone is paying a high CPC, the keyword is more valuable.
Paid Difficulty (PD) - The estimated competition in paid search, the higher the number the more competitive.
SEO Difficulty (SD) - The estimated competition in organic search, the higher the number the more competitive.
Free Keyword Search Tools
So the best tools are not free and most new tools do not stay free for long. However, one does not need to fall into the SEO trap of subscribing to tools. If you are on a budget, using some of the free tools in correlation with one another will help you get more traction in regards to the traffic of your content or website.
Below you will find a brief overview of some free SEO Keyword Search Tools.
Google Trends visualizes the relative search popularity of a keyword over time. This also allows you to compare more than one term or topic.
Keyworddit is a unique tool that pulls keyword ideas from Reddit. Enter a subreddit, and it’ll mine the titles and comments of threads to find up to 500 keywords.
Questiondb finds the questions people are asking about a specific topic. It pulls these from a database of 48M+ questions sourced from Reddit Questions are then sorted by popularity, but you can also sort by topic.
Keyword Surfer is a free Chrome extension that shows estimated global and monthly search volumes for any query typed into Google.
With more than 10k users signed up, Surfer makes real-time analysis for 500+ potential ranking factors, helps to evaluate correlations, and tells you what works now for your keyword.
Quora and Reddit are websites where people discuss pretty much every topic under the sun. Naturally, these sites can be used for ideas as well.
Simply type in your keyword and click search. This will provide you with ideas relating to your topic.
This is a site was produced by Neil Patel and will provide you with quite a bit of valuable information. In fact, Neil has created a platform that also helps explain the terms that I mentioned earlier.
You can also type in a competitors domain to get additional keyword ideas. It pays to know your compeitition!
That is right just head over to Google and do a search.
Google will then suggest a few items relating to what you typed. This can be a good way to discover various topics for content as well as keywords.
You can either type out a word such as ‘esports’ to find ideas. But did you know that if you put a couple of spaces in front of the term it will give you a different set of search results? This little trick can be quite helpful.
It uses Google Suggest data to discover questions, comparison-based queries and keywords containing prepositions.
The great thing is that Answer the Public presents the information in diagram form and as a list. The design of the site is quite brilliant if you really want to see a well thought out tool.
Other helpful free tools include Wordtracker and Keyword Sheeter.
Exercise Time…
I found this exercise online and found it to be quite useful for the students to put the information that I shared to use.
Also, I wanted to show the students the importance of working in teams. When one joins an agency or a company, then he or she must work in teams to help reach the goals that have been set.
With partner you will complete the following tasks.
Topic: Soup
- Using two or more of the sites that we discussed, identify 5 keywords / keyword phrases relating to soup.
- Brainstorm ideas for content that you feel would have the greatest reach.
- Based on your research, what would make a good blog post topic?
- Why would these topics yield the best results?
The results were quite interesting and included: Healthy Soup Recipes, The Top Healthiest International Soup Recipes, and Best Soup Recipes For The Keto Diet. Each group chose topics that were trending to present as their idea.
Note: This exercise is particularly useful for students to do during the fall or winter. This way they can see how the topic of ‘soup’ tends to trend higher during colder months.
Please keep in mind…
It does not matter how many keywords you use, if your content is not authentic or genuine then people will notice.
It should not always be sell, sell, sell… informing, inspiring and entertaining will help you gain credibility. By doing so, you will generate traffic to your site over time.
So always be true to your audience and self.
Also once you create a webpage or content you still have to promote it. Spreading the word is what helps generate traffic. If people discover your site or content to be interesting they will share it. Also, make sure you enable comments on your content or posts. This enables you to interact with those viewing your content. Engagement can go a long way, but I will save that for another article.
In the end, content is king and so is context. If you are not producing quality content that people will genuinely find interesting then SEO Keyword Research will not benefit you. So always try to present content in the best way you can and choose your topics wisely.
For Additional Research…
There are some great YouTubers out there focusing on SEO Keyword Research and Digital Marketing: Ahrefs, Neil Patel, Miles Beckler, Nathan Gotch and Brian Dean.
Learning from the pro and combining their techniques will allow you to master Digital Marketing and SEO Keyword Research.
WRAP…
I really enjoyed presenting at DCI in Düsseldorf. Originally the school started in Berlin and was for refugees. Eventually, they opened their doors to everyone and now have students from almost every country. Their story is really quite inspiring.
Learning about SEO Keywords is important when it comes to mastering digital marketing, content creation and website design. This overview should help lay a foundation that you can build on!
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