Keyword Research
Keyword Research
Keyword Research
Keyword Research
The meaning of the word “research” is: attempt to find out in a systematically and scientific manner. The same stands true with keyword research. It is a scientific approach to understand how keywords are ranked by search engines to identify the most appropriate keyword to use in order to obtain the maximum traffic.
There are two factors we should consider before doing keyword research
• The broader niche you want to write about.
• Your expertise on the topic under consideration.
It is very critical that you identify answer to both these above questions as it decides the success of your article or blog post when published. Even though your article ranks top in search engines, if there is not enough content value it will simply increase your website bounce rates. We should never ignore the ethics in content writing or blogging. It is not a great idea to blog simply about what is in demand. Blog about what you are really passionate about and gradually build your expertise and authority. On the long run you will certainly be rewarded.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is a technique built around two major factors that needs to be identified before writing content and they are:
• Competition of the target keyword
• Search query / demand for the target keyword
Firstly, the major advantage of identifying market competition is that it cuts down the number of search results you are about to compete with to rank first. This reduces your SEO efforts to reach the top.
Secondly, by identifying the demand for the target keyword will help you to identify what is the expected traffic from search engines if you eventually reach the top of the list.
The above two identification is the starting point to keyword research. Once you have compared these metrics and chosen a targeted keyword title or topic to blog about, it makes your job easy. This is why Keyword Research is considered to be the smartest approach to blogging. In the next chapter you will further learn on how to identify the right topic to blog about.
Tools required to do Keyword Research:
Google is the biggest and best tool that you could use for keyword research. Google is not only the best search engine, they are also kind enough to share their search traffic details, trends and keyword demand statistics to help internet marketing experts to excel in providing the best content and value to the internet.
• Google Adwords Keyword Tool.
• Google Insights.
• Google Trends for websites.
• Market Samurai.
How to do Keyword Research:
Consider each and every blog post as a project and give it enough time to make sure you make your effort and time spent on it worth while. You can create a successful blog or website with a handful of well optimized posts rather than breaking your head on timelines to post a number of posts each day. The basic steps involved in keyword research for each of your blog post are:
• Identify a good topic to blog about and it should be well within your blog’s niche.
• Search for the keyword on Google adwords tool to identify the search query demand, traffic estimation and competition.
• Check the identified keywords on Google Insights to find the trends in search traffic.
• Write a well optimized article with unique and valuable content.
• Do the on page optimization
• Do off page SEO like link building.
• Bask in the glory of success
Finding ideas to blog about should be one of your offline activities, take out time to do research on good topics that you are expert about.
It is important that you sense the pulse of your niche and stay updated. Keep your eyes open on what is going on within your niche from other Blogs, Forums and News. This will certainly pour in more ideas for you to blog about.
The next step would be to craft content that is very unique and provides great value to your readers. Once you have your content ready, it’s critical to make it search engine friendly. Here are some tips that could help you to optimize your on page content to maximum. The top SEO factors you should be working on are:
- Good title tag for your article
- Good description and keywords based on the keyword and title
- At least one H1 tag containing your keyword
- At least one H2 tag containing your keyword (if possible)
- At least one H3 tag containing your keyword ( if possible)
- At least few keywords should be in bold
- ALT tag set to your keyword (this could be set in any image’s property when you insert image)
- If possible add the Keyword in the first sentence
- If possible add the Keyword in the last sentence
- Internal linking of articles and pages within the blog
- Turn on Pingbacks or Trackbacks to get free link back links to your articles
- Make your “read more” and affiliate links as “no-follow”
- Have the right keyword density
You can check and manually make sure all these are in place to have a well on page optimized content for your website or blog.
You have already started! Now it’s up to you to bring the knowledge to practice on Keyword Research. Wishing you all the success.
