7 Steps for an Effective Keyword Research

ByAravind Ramesh

Keyword research is arguably the most important step in Digital Marketing.

It involves identifying the list of words and phrases your target audience will use while discussing or exploring your product or service.

Different types of keywords include head (“t-shirt”), body (“blue t-shirts”) and long tail (“blue American apparel t-shirts”) keywords.

Long tail keywords, with more than one word, have greater chances of conversion.

So while doing keyword research your aim must be to find long-tail and specific keywords related to your business.

More than 70% out of total search volume for all keywords in the world are long-tail keywords.

Step 1: Brainstorm and find seed keywords

Based on what you know about your business brainstorm and find out your seed keywords.

To do this you can ask yourself the following questions.

  • What are your main products/services?
  • What would you type in search engines to find what your website offers?
  • What would you think other searchers will ask for?
  • What is your website content about?

Step 2: Get help from Google Suggestions

Once you have the seed keywords, get more suggestions from Google. You can find more keywords from the autocomplete feature of Google.

You can also use “related searches” (which can be seen at the very end of a search engine result page) to find more keyword ideas.

Step 3: Find more specific keywords

Using Step 1 and Step 2, you will get a broad idea of keywords related to your business.

Now use keyword research tools to find more specific keywords related to your basic keywords.

This step must include finding out LSI keywords and synonymous words and phrases.

You can use a tool like Keyword Sheeter to find them. Ubersuggest is another effective keyword tool.

Step 4: Remove unrelated keywords

Now you may have a lot of keywords at your disposal.

In this step you have to remove from the list the keywords that are not related to your business.

Step 5: Make sure you have long-tail, specific keywords

Now that you have trimmed the list in the previous step, you have to make sure that the keywords that remain are long-tail, specific keywords related to your business.

Step 6: Find monthly searches and competition for the keywords

The next step in keywords research is to find the number of monthly searches and competition for each of those keywords that is in your list.

The idea is to find out keywords that have good number of monthly searches and lesser number of websites competing for it.

It must be noted that there is no specific number that could be termed as “good number of monthly searches” and it will be different for different industries.

Keyword planner in Google Ads is an excellent tool to find out the number of searches in a month and the competition for the keywords.

Step 7: Refine the list over time

Keyword research is a continuous process and you have to refine the list to add new keywords and remove keywords that are no longer relevant.

You should closely monitor your analytics data and PPC data to identify new opportunities.

Happy keyword researching.

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