Keyword research doesn’t have to be difficult. When finding the right keywords for your business, there is no need for guessing or taking a stab in the dark. We’ve outlined a foolproof way to understand your business offerings and begin to create a keyword map that is in line with your audience.
This method can help create a great keyword strategy through a researched based approach. This consideration can help you build a keyword strategy that packs a punch.
So what are the steps in creating the perfect keyword list for your business?
Understand your value offering
Before you can speak to your audience, you need to know what you are offering! What makes you special and unique? As a brand, who are you? What is your website about? What value can you offer to your customers and what promises do you make to your customers?
Having the answers to these questions will give you a solid foundation of the value you offer customers and the type of problems you solve for them. This will help you narrow down keywords that match your industry and create content around the descriptions of your products, help pages, FAQ and more.
Study your niche market
Studying your ideal customer and their behaviors, needs and language will help you use and target keywords that are in line with the tone and way your audience speaks.
You can do this by speaking with your customers and finding out more about them, their needs and the language they use when searching for your products or services.
Putting yourself in the shoes of your customers also helps. Imagine you are describing your brand to a friend, as your customer, what words would you use to describe it?
Visit forums and blogs online and get involved in the conversations with customers in your industry.
Keep note of flaws and common complaints in your industry, these can be an opportunity for you to solve them!
Define your goals
Once you have a clear picture of who you are, you will want to specify your brand’s objectives. What is that you want to achieve? Do you want to hit a number of sales by a certain date? Or maybe you want more newsletter subscriptions?
Knowing your end goal will help you define the language you are using and eventually be the language you incorporate into different marketing funnels. Your goals will also help you define your SEO copywriting and content.
You’ll want to document your goals, write them down, and visit them frequently. This will help direct you in creating your top-level marketing content.
Make a topic-bucket list
Make a list of all topics and keywords that you would like to rank on Google. For example, if you are a hair salon, some topics that would be related to your brand are: -women’s highlights -women’s haircuts – oil scalp treatments – maintaining healthy hair – hair care products and group these keywords into buckets.
These will all be keywords that are important to your business and related to your target demographic of buyers. Think about things your audience will type in the Google Search bar. This is the start of creating a great list of keywords that you can then narrow down.
Create a list of focus keywords
Take your over-all topics and begin to break those down into smaller topics. For example, something like haircare might include : anti-breakage shampoo, hair strengthening serums, balding conditioner etc. These keywords should be related to your various topics and be topics that your target audience is searching for.
Use a keyword research tool
Defining your brand and mission first is important in this step because it encourages you to focus on who you are and what value you provide to customers first. This will keep you from getting too overwhelmed with keywords that are not relevant to your business.
Once you have defined your mission, keyword tools are helpful to narrow down specifics. We love Keyword Tool, Ubersuggest and MOZ Keyword Explorer. These tools are powerful and can help you identify industry-related keywords and even provide keyword suggestions and emerging trends. Use this list of our favourite 20 SEO tools to help improve your site.
Understand Search Intent
It is imperative that businesses understand their end users’ search intent. What you want to know as a business owner is why and what your users are looking for.
Do they want more information about a product or service? Is it to make a direct purchase online or find a specific product? Is it to directly navigate to a specific website?
Having the answers to these questions will help business owners match and use keywords on their landing pages that are in line with user intent.
Different search intent will require the use of different keywords. You will know if and when you are using the right keywords when your pages begin to convert and rank well.
Identify long tail keywords
It may seem counterintuitive but using long-tail keywords are keyphrases that have a lower search volume but get a higher conversion rate because they are more specific.
Singular specific keywords may be what your overall website is about ie “hair salon” but when you specify using more niche keywords, like “hair salon in Vancouver”, the likelihood of you hitting a specific demographic is higher (because these keywords have lower search volumes).
Another bonus is that, because these keywords are more specific, a consumer is more likely to buy your product or service because you are exactly what they are looking for.
Get the scoop
Peaking on your competitors is not only a great way to stay on top of your industry and trends but can also help you find gaps in their keyword strategy.
This is an opportunity for you to swoop in and fill the gaps that your competition may be missing. Keyword tools will allow you to do a keyword analysis on your competition and show you the top keywords your competitors rank for.
Executing these ideas, step by step, will help you research and create a solid keyword strategy that will have your website ranking organically. Although this is a process that may take some time and effort, it is one that can turn a profit when done properly.
