A Guide to Conducting Keyword Research for SEO
Discovering what your target audiences are searching for is an essential part of any SEO marketing strategy. Conducting keyword research provides the opportunity to product relevant content and rank well for the search terms that your target audiences are using. We’ve pulled together a guide to help you with the basics of keyword research and discuss how it can improve your website performance.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is an essential part of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). The purpose of keyword research is to discover the search terms that your target audiences are using, when searching for services that you offer. By finding out the search terms that potential customers are using, businesses can implement on-site changes and develop high-quality content that positions them in front of the right people.
Why is Keyword Research Important?
Attracting the Right Customers
Discovering the search terms that your audiences are using can help place your business in front of the right customers. Attracting a large volume of organic traffic is beneficial, however it is important that visitors are relevant to your business and ultimately, are looking to purchase your products and services.
Purpose-Driven Content
It’s important that the content that you create has direction, discussing topics that will pique the interest of your visitors and encourage them to stay. Keyword research enables an understanding of what your target audiences want to know about your industry or the products and services that you offer. Producing regular content that caters to customer interest can persuade potential customers to use your services and encourage current customers to stay.
Content Relevance
Search engines, such as Google, use an algorithm to evaluate the relevance of a website’s content and assess how well it matches a user’s requirements. This is called Content Relevance. The content of the website can be determined across several factors, including content language, body text, page titles and images. If a website doesn’t have relevant content, then it can impact keyword rankings and organic traffic.
How to Conduct Keyword Research for Your Business
Consider Your Business Goals
It’s important to have a good understanding of your business’ aims and what it is that you are trying to achieve before creating your keyword list. What market are you entering and how competitive is it? Do you aim to target customers that are local or nationwide? These factors will have a major influence on the keywords that want to target, and it is important to consider them during the primary stages of your research.
Create a Target Keyword List
You should have a list of keywords that you want to target across your website, that are highly relevant to the main concepts of your business. These terms will, predominately, attract the large proportion of users to your website, as they are more relevant to the products and services that you offer.
Address Long-Tailed Keywords
Your main list of target keywords mainly consists of highly competitive terms with large search volume, making it harder to rank well for them. Long-tailed keywords consist of terms that receive search volume but face low competition, presenting the opportunity to rank in the top places. These niche keywords may attract less relevant traffic but are effective for attracting a different type of audience and increasing your brand awareness. Content such as blog posts and FAQs are an effective way to attract users that are not directly searching for your services, but are considering purchasing them in the future.
See What Keywords Competitors Are Targeting
Analysing what keywords your competitors are targeting is an effective way to make you more competitive on search engines. Appearing on the same search results as competitors means that potential customers are likely to scan your website, as well as competitor websites, to create a comparison. By attracting the visitor to your site, you have the opportunity to pique their interest. To remain competitive, you need to produce content that encourages the user to stay on your website. To help with this, we’ve produced a blog post with tips on how to write SEO content: https://www.epicnewmedia.co.uk/blog/news/tips-on-how-to-write-seo-content-that-ranks-on-google/.
Speak with an Expert SEO Content Agency
At Epic New Media, we are a results-driven marketing agency that has years of experience in delivering top rankings for clients. If you are interested in our SEO marketing services, then we can offer a free website audit, where can we identify opportunities for your site. Contact us by filling out a form or get in touch by calling us on 0800 464 0159.