Keyword research is a fundamental SEO concept and one of the most powerful activities you can do to improve your SEO efforts. Keyword research has become an essential part of our ability to position ourselves well in the searches that people do on search engines and is usually the first step in optimizing any website.

Keyword research is necessary whether you are looking for a new niche, new content ideas, or want to optimize your existing content. Any website owner, blogger, online marketing, or SEO specialist must perform a keyword search.

Before going into detail, let’s look at the basic terms and concepts related to keyword searching.

What Is Keyword Research?

 Keywords are the search terms that people enter into search engines with the goal of using that data for a specific purpose. Keyword research is the process of finding, analyzing, and using the right keywords that help you to find the search terms people use when looking for the information.

Why Is Keyword Research Important?

Finding the right keywords allows you to optimize your website to appear in the search results. In other words, keyword search improves the search engine optimization (SEO) of your site by finding the most frequent keywords that your target audience actually searches for on search engines.

 You must implement your keyword research into your content marketing strategy and create content on those keywords that most people in your audience want answers to.

How to Research Keywords for SEO?

First, make a list of important and relevant topics based on the most frequent ones in your niche. Then Identify for each topic, specific keyword phrases that you think your target customer is searching for because these keywords are important to rank in SERPs (search engine results pages).

Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer persona to find the keywords that your target audience could research and for which you would like your business to be found. You can find keyword ideas also by determining the keywords for which your website is already found.

For example, in Google Analytics, you can find your website’s traffic sources and sift through your organic search traffic to identify the keywords people use to get to your site.

To get a good ranking on search engines like Google, keep in mind that it is more important that your content tries to solve your audience’s problem than simply looking for the keyword used by the searcher.

When you enter a keyword in Google, some suggestions related to your search terms appear. These keywords are the most searched for by people on a specific topic, which you can take into consideration.

The keyword search process helps you establish a list of terms you need to target and execute a solid keyword strategy that will help you be found for the search terms that really interest you.

• Panda

Panda’s algorithm is applied on February 24, 2011, and in January 2016 it was definitively incorporated into Google’s core algorithm. Panda has penalized Duplicate text, plagiarized or thin content; user-generated spam, and keyword stuffing.

The Panda algorithm update assigns a “quality score” to the web pages that are used as a ranking factor. In the past, SEO simply meant having the right words in your meta keywords tag. But today, search engines are trying to detect and sanction websites that deliberately use too many keywords in their content.

Google’s algorithms are always based on keywords. And having a keyword in your title tag improves the ranking of your page, which means you can simply optimize pages for keywords.                                                                               

• Google Penguin 

Google Penguin penalized the unnatural use of keywords. Hazards: Spammy or irrelevant links; links with an over-optimized anchor text.

The objective of Google Penguin is to lower the ranking of sites with unnatural inbound links. Google Penguin put an end to low-effort link building, such as buying links from link farms.

• Google Hummingbird 

With Hummingbird, Google has improved semantic search and focuses on search intent, which has given it a better understanding of what people are looking for. The Hummingbird algorithm helps Google better interpret search queries and deliver results that match the searcher’s intent.

While keywords are still important, the Hummingbird algorithm allows a page to rank for a query even if it does not contain the exact words the searcher entered. This is achieved using natural language processing that relies on latent semantic indexing, co-occurring terms, and synonyms.

To be consistent with the Hummingbird algorithm, try to broaden your keyword research and focus on the concepts behind the keywords. Carefully analyze related searches, synonyms, and co-occurring terms.

• Google Rank Brain

Rank Brain is a machine learning system inspired by Hummingbird, which moved Google from an environment of “chains” to an environment of “things”.

When a query is entered into Google, Rank Brain the algorithm matches the query to you by taking into account the environmental contexts and extrapolating the meaning where it was made, in order to make the best content appear in the best format(s).

With Rank Brain, it is no longer a question of finding an ideal keyword but rather of understanding the audience and covering the topic in a complex way. If the topic is well covered, you can rank yourself for keywords you haven’t even used in the text!

How to Find Keywords for Your Content?

In order to write relevant, compelling content, you need to know what your audience is interested in and what they are looking for in your niche. Once you have selected a list of keywords in your niche, it is time to refine your list of keywords based on the best ones for your content, considering the three main factors for choosing good keywords.

1. Relevance

Google ranks content according to its relevance. In other words, Google ranks content higher if it offers more value than other content on the web. To be ranked higher, your content must be the best resource available for the query.

2. Authority

Google will give more weight to sources it considers authoritative. By enriching your site with useful and relevant content and promoting your content on social media to get the necessary traffic and backlinks you can become an authoritative source for the search engine results page (SERP) of a given keyword.

3.Volume

Volume is measured by MSV (monthly search volume), which means the number of times the keyword is searched per month across all audiences.

To decide if a keyword is suitable for your content, it is obvious that the most important keyword is your first choice to consider, but you need to think about other factors, such as the ranking of other content for that keyword.

Some very competitive keywords may be out of reach for your content as it competes with many paid ads or authoritative websites on this page to get the coveted top rank and attract the attention of the searcher.

On the other hand, you may end up on the first page for a very low volume search keyword, but if no one ever searches for it, it will not drive traffic to your site.

What Are Long-Tail Keywords?

Long-tailed keywords are composed of three to five or more words. Long-tailed keywords are more specific and therefore have a lower search volume and generally lower competition, but they have higher engagement and conversion rates.

By targeting longer and more specific keywords for the title and main topic of your blog post or article, you can get a better ranking in relevant searches.

So searching for long-tail keywords should be part of your SEO strategy. The trick is to find a reliable, renewable source of long-tail keywords that are right for you and for your niche.

Read more: 

How to Use Long-Tail Keywords in Your Content Marketing Strategy?

To find long-tail keywords you can take advantage of Google:

1-Use Google Suggest

Google Suggest is a really easy and free keyword research tool that you can use without having to search through the different tools.  You can use the Google Suggest feature on Google Search when deciding to research relevant keywords.

Let’s take a look at the three features you can take advantage of to come up with new keyword ideas:

Autocomplete

Google provides you with related search queries directly in the search form, based on actual searches performed by people.  These suggestions can be a good source of inspiration for interesting keywords. When you use Google for your keyword research, Google Suggests displays the best suggestions for all the keywords you’ve searched for.

By typing your main keyword in Google, you can see that Google’s suggestion box shows you variations of long-tailed keywords. By simply adding letters of the alphabet at the end of each selected phrase, Google suggests the most popular keywords that are used repeatedly by Internet users who search for each keyword with keyword expansion.

People also ask

One of the features you can find in Google search results is the “people ask also” snippet which is a set of questions that relate to the original search query. When you click on one of the questions, specific details are revealed and additional questions are added at the bottom of the list.

You can use “people ask also” features as an inspiration source for  “long-tail question”.

Use Google’s Related Searches

when you type your query, related searches suggested by Google such as the Google suggestions appear, but at the bottom of the SERP, below the first page of organic results. 

2. Use YouTube Autosuggestion

“YouTube is not just a website; YouTube is the second most important search engine after Google. With 3 billion searches per month, YouTube’s search volume is greater than that of Bing, Yahoo, AOL and Ask.com combined.”[1]

Keyword research for the YouTube platform has a high volume of searches behind the most popular topics that can be useful for keyword research on Google as well.

When you type any keyword in the YouTube search box, a drop-down menu appears that shows suggestions based on relevant queries that people have already searched for on YouTube, and they are a great source of inspiration for your keyword research.

Although the keyword research on YouTube is more practically oriented, a quick check of the search volume shows that its searches are also very popular in Google search.

There are many tools such as the YouTube Keyword tool that can help you find the autocomplete results.

3. Use Q & A sites

Questions make excellent long-tail keywords, which is why question and answer sites like Quora, Yahoo Answers, Answers.com, Askville by Amazon, and LinkedIn Answers, where people search for answers and information, can be a good source of long-tail keyword ideas.

4. Use Google Keyword Planner

In  Google Keyword Planner, you can get search volume and traffic estimates for the keywords you are considering and get multiple information about the audience of Internet users to be targeted by your different keywords.

Google Keyword Planner is part of Google Ads (Google AdWords). So to use Google Keyword Planner you need to create a Google Ads account. If you don’t have a Google Ads account, you can create one from your Gmail address or any other Google account you already have.

By entering the address of your web page in the menu bar, you will be able to see the most searched words in your content. Google also offers you some ideas for ad groups or keywords. Google Keyword Planner is a great tool that offers many valuable data for PPC campaigns.

if you have not created an AdWords campaign, choose “keyword ideas” to get an accurate evaluation of the most effective keywords, and therefore the most searched for on Google by Internet users, especially at a given location.

You have several pieces of information about the keywords found, the monthly search volume, the level of competition, and the price paid by advertisers on the keyword in question.

In addition, in the top banner, you can filter the results by location, language, search networks, and time period. You have the possibility to be even more precise by adding filters. You can request that a keyword contains or does not contain a given word, select only or exclude keywords with a low (medium or high) level of competition, etc.

You can also add or remove columns by clicking on the “columns” icon in the upper right corner.

4- Keyword Research Tools

Another common way to find many keyword research possibilities is to use a keyword research tool. There are many tools on the market, but I will now review some of my favorite tools:

Jaaxy

Jaaxy is an online keyword search tool that allows you to easily obtain rankings. it collects search data from the three main search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Jaaxy presents the collected search data in a way more suited to niche search, unlike Google Keyword Planner, which is an advertising tool for AdWords.

One of the amazing advantages of Jaaxy is to show the ranking of your site and your posts. You can create to-do lists for your projects, save your keyword lists and organize them by theme.

Jaaxy takes advantage of the Google Alphabet Instant Soup technique and offers new niche and keyword ideas. Jaaxy helps you discover affiliate programs for your niche and keywords and determine if there is money to be made in a particular niche.

Keywords metrics such as Avg. (monthly searches), estimated traffic, quoted search results (QSR), keyword quality indicator (KQI), of Jaaxy, will help you boost your SEO efforts.

• • Avg. (Monthly Searches): This measure tells you the total search traffic for each keyword on Google, Bing, and Yahoo combined per month. The recommended minimum is 50 searches per month if you plan to write an article around that keyword.

• • Estimated Traffic: this metric shows the actual monthly traffic you’ll get if your site ranks on Google’s first result page.
  • Quoted Search Results (QSR): This tells you how many pages are competing for the same exact keyword or key phrase on Google. The lower the number, the better. When you start, aim for the lowest keywords, i.e. those below 100.  Beyond that, it will get harder and harder to rank.

• • Keyword Quality Indicator (KQI): this indicator classifies your keyword difficulty with three colors of green, yellow, or red. Red is poor, yellow is good, and green is great.

• • SEO Power: this metric tells you how easy it is to rank for a specific keyword and if you’ll get an acceptable amount of visitors. The higher the number, the better. Between 80 and 100 is really good.

Here are some additional features you can enjoy in Jaaxy:

• Site Rank:  You can use this function to check the ranking of your site or article.
• Alphabet Soup gives you more ideas for long-tail keywords by taking advantage of the Google Instant feature to add all the letters of the alphabet to your keyword/keyword phrase based on people’s actual searches.
• Saved Lists: You can save your keywords into lists to better organize them by topic or niche. You can export your keyword lists in CSV or  TXT format to your favorite spreadsheet program and evaluate them offline.
• Search History: This is used to memorize your previous keyword searches even if you have not saved these keywords in your lists.
• Search Analysis: This shows which sites or pages are in the top 10 positions of Google, Bing, or Yahoo.
• Affiliate Programs:  after finding your keyword, this feature helps you find affiliate programs and products to promote and earn money in this niche.
• Brainstorm: This feature helps you find other niche ideas to exploit, based on the latest trends from Google Trends, Yahoo! Buzz, Alexa Topics, Amazon Best Sellers, and Twitter Trends.

Read More:

Jaaxy Keyword Research Tool Review

AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic is a visual keyword research tool that extracts queries from Google and Bing and presents them in a circle of categorized keywords.

When you type a keyword in the search bar, the tool displays a massive visual list of questions, ranging from how, where, what, why, can, and who in a keyword wheel. Each question can be a content idea.

 By typing only one or two main keywords, the AnswerThePublic tool gives you many content ideas in the form of questions classified into different sets as follows:

– Questions, with why, what, where, how, when and can.

– Prepositions, with, without, near, for, and to.

– Comparisons, with similar or related keywords

– In alphabetical order, from A to Z.

This is what will appear in the View tab:

Each question will understand the main keyword as a question in different contexts. Then you can save the results in a spreadsheet by clicking on the Download CSV button at the top right of the page and organizing them.

Conclusion:

These tips on keyword research will help you discover a multitude of new keyword possibilities, whether you are building an online business from scratch or trying to increase traffic to your site.

Knowing the words your target audience uses to search online is an extremely important aspect of any keyword research and finding the most frequently used keywords in your industry or niche is an important part of continued online success.

 It is also very important to use a powerful keyword research tool to perform this analysis if you want to get a good ranking in Google. But don’t forget that keyword research is only one of the elements of search engine optimization.