Keyword research is a practice used by search engine optimization professionals to find and research actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting any queries.
Keyword research should be the first step in any SEO campaign. Finding the perfect keywords for your specific niche or industry is a must.
Without knowing which keywords you want to target, you won’t be able to write any content for your website. When you write content first and then research your keywords second, you probably will have to plug those keywords into your written content, wasting your valuable optimization time.
Finding the right keywords to target can be quite a process:
Firstly, you need to research your industry and find out what keywords or phrases people are using to search for the products and services in your industry. Luckily for us, Google provides you with a free keyword research tool that will give you a pretty accurate average based on current keyword searches. When using this Keyword tool, you will also have to research which country or countries will be the target market for your product or service.
It doesn’t end here though. When you know which keywords and market will be targeted, you will have to refine your keywords to the industry and accommodate it with the product/service specific keywords. Targeting the key phrase “Cape Town Travel” when you have a Cape Town accommodation site simply won’t do. This keyword is too generic, and will not bring in the desired or potential client i.e. someone who is looking to book accommodation in Cape Town.
There are many more aspects to consider when researching possible keywords for your site such as:
- Branding Perceptions – Many company leaders and CEO’s have their own interpretation of how they want their brand to be portrayed and ostensibly perceived online.
- Existing Brands – If a company decides to sell Nike trainers online, the market is already highly competitive, and the Nike brand itself is predominant.
- Geographic targeting – Depending on what a company sells or offers, overlooking the likelihood of the inclusion of geographical locations in the search query may be highly detrimental.
- Long Tail Keywords – The long tail in keyword research is basically an expansion of a core, generic and high volume keyword phrase which includes numerous combinations and permutations of the keywords and their associated or relevant phrases.
Simply put, there is much more to keyword research than just choosing the keywords that you would search for and then hastily plugging that keyword everywhere into your site. So when you build your new site, Keyword research should be the first thing you do.
