How many times have you heard online publishing experts say that content is king? As true as that is, it’s only half of the story. Even the best content can’t be king without the right keywords. When you’re publishing for the web, keyword research is the single most important part of the job. It doesn’t matter how witty or informative your article is if nobody reads it; and the only way they’re going to find it is if you use the keywords that people are actually searching for.
Whether you buy software for keyword research or use the free tool that Google offers, a little time spent finding the right words will make a world of difference. Keyword research will help you improve search results positioning, get more traffic to your site, and ultimately generate more revenue.
What Are Keywords
Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, let’s take a moment to define the term “Keyword.” Keywords are the words or phrases that people type into their browser’s search bar to find information. Generally, single keywords are far too generic. Typing a single word into the search bar usually generates millions of results that aren’t relevant to the information we’re looking for; so for our purposes, the word “keyword” refers to a related string of words, called a “keyword phrase.”
Why Should I Do Keyword Research
Keyword research is time consuming, but it’s worth the effort and anyone can do it. Even if you plan to hire a freelance writer to produce your website content, you can save money by researching your own keywords. Many website content providers offer keyword research services, but it usually adds time to the project, and can cost you as much as $150 per hour or more.
Finding The Right Keywords
The first step in keyword research is easy. Create a list of phrases that you think people would commonly use to find your page. If you can’t think of enough phrases to make a list, ask your friends and family what words they would use in a search. Try to be specific. Using words that are more or less relevant to your product or service can bring traffic to your site, but traffic from generic keywords generally will not convert to sales. Using targeted keywords brings targeted traffic. In other words, keywords that are specific to your products tend to draw visitors that are in a buying frame of mind.
Remember, you’re not just trying to rank your site. You need to optimize each and every page of website content to get them all ranked well in the search results. That means you’ll need several for each page. Twenty to thirty keywords is a good start, but the more the better. Find as many as you can, even if the final number is in the hundreds, because you’ll be eliminating a lot of them from your list during your keyword research and analysis.
Other sources for finding keywords include:
- Your Web Browser- As you type words into the search bar, most search engines offer suggestions in a drop down menu. These are often among the most popular recent searches for that topic.
- Your Competition- Look at some of the other websites in your niche. Especially the ones on the first page of results. If they’re optimized correctly, their main keywords will be in their URL, page title, subtitles, and repeated throughout the text several times.
- Keyword Tools- Entering your keywords into a keyword research tool usually shows 100 or more related keyword phrases. As you learn more about keyword research, a premium keyword research tool will be a wise investment, as these often give more detailed information.
Be sure to include synonyms in your list, as well as both singular and plural forms of your keywords. Once you have enough keywords to look at, you’re ready to move on to the next stage in your keywords research- analyzing keywords and keyword competition.
