Keyword Research Made Easy
Great, you made it here. I know what that means - you're starting to take your content seriously. What do I mean by seriously? I mean, you're going to get the traffic your content deserves! All over the world people are telling their stories and creating beautiful content just like you. Still, a lot of those people aren't receiving the attention they'd like. But, you're on the right track to changing that for yourself.
I am going to walk you through Keyword Research which, by the end of this, you'll see it's pretty easy. If you haven't read my SEO Basics entry, you should check that out first.
Keyword vs. KeyPhrase
Before you can get to the nitty-gritty of choosing a Keyword and unveiling your competitors, and possible opportunities - you need to understand the difference between Keywords and Key Phrases.
A keyword is a simple (usually single) word that users type into the Google search engine. An example would be someone looking to buy sneakers online. They would type sneakers into the Google Search bar, and millions, if not billions of results would show up.
A Key Phrase is different, as it uses multiple words (usually a question or a fragment of a statement). For example, the same person is searching for sneakers online, but this time she types in Red high-top Nikes. If you try typing the search terms yourself, you'll notice fewer results for the key phrase rather than the keyword.
How to Find Your Keywords and Competitors
This is where Keyword Research made easy becomes reality. I recommend using the following criteria when choosing your keywords.
Monthly Searches on Google
# of Competitors
Content Relevance
1. Monthly Searches on Google
You don't want to spend your time and energy on search terms (keywords or key phrase) that won't convert, let alone bring in traffic. So, when researching your keywords, you should always check it's monthly searches on Google. There are a bunch of free tools out there that you can use. I use the Keyword Planner by Google. You don't have to create an ad on ad words to use it. Still, you may need to create an ad words account.
Once you arrive at the keyword planner, you can start typing in keywords or key phrases relevant to your content. Google, will generate similar keywords for you, along with monthly searches. You should create a spreadsheet of the keywords that could work for you. Also, keep in mind that the competition shown by the keyword planner is irrelevant unless you're planning on running an ad words campaign.
2. # of Competitors
By punching in your search terms in the Google search engine you'll get an idea of how many competitors you're facing, but don't worry, 3 million competitors for a search term IS NOT a lot. Trust me I've landed multiple number 1 positions on Google. One of which beat out 46.5 million competitors using the same methods I'm sharing with you.
3. Content Relevance
One of the most important things you should know is relevance! This part is so important that people create content based on their keyword - that's right! When you choose a keyword or key phrase during your research and squeeze it into "already-made" content it may work temporarily. But you may go back to discover that your listing has been bumped so low you can't even find yourself anymore.
Scary, right? I know. You may think showing up in the top spot for an irrelevant keyword would bring traffic and you'd be right. Still, once your visitors notice your page isn't what they're looking for your bounce rates will increase, and Google will bump you off the search term. So, be sure to keep relevance in mind!
Research Your Competitors
By this time, you should have an idea of your keyword or key phrase, the number of competitors, and where you expect your next piece of content to appear on Google. Once you have this done, you can start researching your competitors! As you may know, there are tools out there for this, but they're expensive. I'll show you how to do this for free while getting the results you're looking for.
What you'll be looking for is keyword density.
Keyword Density = (# of times keyword appears/total # of words) * 100
You can copy the text right from your competitors' page and paste it into Google Docs or Microsoft Word. These platforms will tell you the total number of words within the text. Next, press Ctrl + F to bring up your Find bar. Type your keyword or key phrase into the bar and press Enter. To the right of your search term, it should tell you how many times it appears throughout the text.
The number will usually be below 2% which is a number you should be aiming for with your content. Additionally, you should evaluate the text surrounding the keyword to see how it is brought about. This will play a big role in your contents optimization once published.
How Do You Know if You Chose The Right Keyword
The compromise of doing all your keyword research for free is you'll only truly, know if you chose the right keyword after your post is published. Give it an hour after publish and punch your search term into Google. If you're on the first page, you did your keyword research right! Still, if you're a few pages lower - that's the result of your competitors having stronger off-page SEO.
If you followed all the steps during your keyword research and read my post on SEO Basics, you should be seeing first page rankings. And if you subscribed to my newsletter you should have received my Advanced SEO trick. My SEO trick is the kick that gets your content indexed by Google and gets you ranked in the search results. There are other factors to consider when choosing the right search terms, but those will be introduced in another post, as they go more in-depth, about off-page SEO.
If you have any questions or suggestions about the Keyword Research Made Easy article feel free to leave a comment below or email me through my Contact Page. Have more in-depth questions regarding your businesses digital strategy? Schedule your first appointment with me free when you use Promo Code FIRSTFREE.
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