Rashida
Keywords are the foundation of your SEO strategy. They guide your content creation and help you analyze your success. It all starts with knowing how to conduct keyword research for SEO.
The truth is, this can be easier said than done. It can be difficult to know which phrases are relevant to your audience and your business.
Today, we’ll share 10 effective keyword research techniques for how to conduct keyword research for SEO.
People Also Ask
Google provides many easy, free resources for generating effective keywords. When you search for a keyword or phrase on Google, it has one section of “People Also Ask.” This area has related questions that users often search about the given topic.
For example, if you look for “content marketing tips” on Google, the “People Also Ask” section includes:
- What is the best way to content market?
- What are the 7 steps of content marketing?
- What are the 5 essential elements of content marketing?
When you click to expand a question, the “People Also Ask” section will add additional related questions. For example, clicking the dropdown for a few of the questions adds these additional questions:
- What are the types of digital marketing?
- What is SEO vs SEM?
- What are examples of content marketing?
- What skills do I need for digital marketing?
All of these questions provide topic ideas and long-tail keywords. They also give you an idea of some related keywords. Where your original keyword may have been “content marketing tips” you can now also consider “digital marketing”, “elements of content marketing”, etc as other keywords.
Related Searches
In addition to the “People Also Ask,” Google also shows related searches at the bottom of the page. When you type the search in, before you hit enter, Google will also display an even longer list of related searches. Again, this provides a great option for content ideas as well as some keywords.
For the same search, content marketing tips, the related searches include:
- Content marketing tips 2022
- Content marketing tips for small businesses
- content marketing tips for beginners
- Blog content marketing tips
- Marketing strategy tips
- Digital marketing tips
Individual Sections of Current Content
Your existing content is another great place to look for new keywords. In one article, you may have a subsection that narrows in on a more specific topic. Oftentimes, you can turn these subtopics into unique articles of their own that have a slightly different keyword.
For example, in this article, we have a subtopic below on social listening. Social listening is related to keyword research and the overarching realm of digital marketing. It can be a keyword and topic that stands on its own in many ways. So, we could turn the sub-topic of “social listening” into several other keywords and articles.
Take a look at your current content. Look at the subheadings and related keywords shared throughout. Which of these are relevant to your brand and work well on their own? Transform them into the next set of keywords and topics.
Social Listening
Social listening is another powerful way to find out about the keywords and topics that your audience cares about most. Social listening is the concept of monitoring what your audience is saying online. Many times, brands use this strategy to learn more about how their customers view them.
Additionally, you can use it to simply learn more about your audience and what they care about. Monitor their social profiles to see the topics they talk about and ask about the most. There are several methods for performing social listening, including many helpful tools.
You should also carefully monitor your own social media channels and how your audience interacts with them. What topics do they engage with the most? Are there common questions they ask? These all give you starting points for new ideas.
Seasonal Keywords
Seasonal keywords are important for many businesses and vital for some. If you experience significant changes in sales throughout different points in the year, then you can’t miss out on seasonal keywords. Even for other brands, these often make sense.
Seasonal and holiday keywords can work in several ways. In one example, imagine that you provide pest control services. While you may want some content about summer, fall, winter, and spring pest control, seasonality also impacts the specific pests you treat. It makes the most sense to target the keywords that are relevant to the seasonal pests. So, if rodents are more common in the winter, then narrow your focus to rodent pest control keywords during that season.
Seasons also mean holidays. For many other businesses, these can be helpful. For example, we’ve leveraged many holiday-related keywords here at Content Cucumber. No, digital marketing doesn’t depend on the season, but our audience often looks for seasonal content. Here are some examples:
- Copywriting For Halloween
- How To Write Good Copy For Father’s Day
- Give The Gift Of Content
- Engaging Your Online Audience With Holiday Copy
Trending Topics
Evergreen content is important for your long-term marketing strategy, but a mix of trending topics helps keep your content fresh and entertaining. Additionally, trending topics provide a great jumping-off point for keywords.
Look at the current industry and global trends and news. Pick out the relevant ones and then use some of the strategies above to plan them out for your brand.
Imagine a beauty brand. In the beauty industry, words like body positivity, inclusive, sustainable, etc are hot and trending. These terms are great keywords to focus on, especially in combination with other industry words (inclusive eye shadow palette).
Competitor Analysis
Most keyword analysis tutorials include competitor analysis because it is such an effective keyword research technique. You want to find out what keywords your competitors are ranking for, especially those ranking ahead of you. Then, you can craft higher-quality content and focus on outranking them for important keywords.
Imagine a dental clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. You would want to look at your competition and see how you compare terms like “Milwaukee dental clinic” or “dentist in Milwaukee.” If you were behind your competition for such keywords, it would give you a focus for future content.
Keyword tools like SEM Rush make it much easier to perform competitor analysis. You can enter several domains into these tools and get a ranked list of various keywords, including keywords that your competitors rank for you and you don’t.
But even without such tools, you can investigate your competitors. For one, you should search on Google for keywords you are looking to rank for. Examine where your competitors vs you fall. Additionally, you can browse their website and look for service pages or blogs that they have and you do not.
Social Media (searches, hashtags, etc)
Social media is not only great for social listening, it’s also good for general keyword research. Much like Google, YouTube provides “also searched” topics when you type in a key phrase. Additionally, the recommended videos and content can give you many ideas.
For other social media sites, consider hashtags. You can see the popularity of various hashtags, and look through the content tagged with the hashtag. Oftentimes, people use several related hashtags. If you search for one that you know is relevant, you may be able to find several ideas in the list of hashtags for that post.
Your FAQs
What is your audience always asking you about? Take a look at your own FAQs for ideas. In the form of questions, your customers and prospects are already telling you what they are searching for.
Sometimes, you can directly turn a frequently asked question into its own blog post, video, or content. Other times, the questions may reveal certain language patterns or terms to leverage for keywords.
Keyword Research Tools
There is also an abundance of free and paid keyword tools that can help you assess which keywords and phrases to use for your website. Many of these tools can analyze your website and reveal your ranking for various keywords, and some even allow you to compare your website with competitors. These tools also offer helpful keyword research functions that can provide you with more ideas around the main keyword.
Some of the top keyword research tools to consider include:
- SEMrush
- Ahrefs
- Google Keyword Planner
- SECockpit
- Moz
Keyword Research: Conclusion
The tips above can help you understand how to do SEO research. Still, these effective keyword research techniques take time to implement and master.
One of the best ways to boost your SEO strategy is with the help of Content Cucumber. Our team of dedicated writers and editors can help you with everything including keyword research, topic generation, writing, and even publishing. Tell us what you need help with and our team is happy to help.
Learn more about our content packages today by booking a demo with our content specialists!
