How To Do Keyword Research in 2023

Keyword research is a vital component of any successful SEO strategy. Without it, your content won’t get the visibility it needs to attract traffic.

To do keyword research, start by creating a list of topic buckets relevant to your business. Then brainstorm for keywords that fit within those topics.

1. Look at Your Competitors

If you’re trying to rank for keywords online, you need a solid understanding of the search landscape. Fortunately, you can use tools to help you get this information quickly.

An excellent first step is looking at your competitors’ websites. This will give you an idea of what they’re doing right and where they might fall short. It’s also a great way to determine which keywords drive traffic to their sites.

You can also look for their social media presence, including how often they post and what content gets the most engagement. You can also track how they’re using paid ads to drive traffic.

Another great way to learn about your competitors is to attend industry conferences and trade shows. They’re a great place to meet other businesses in your industry, hear about their products and services, and see how they interact with customers.

Usually, these events are free and can give you helpful information about your competition. You might even find a new partner or business that can help you out in the future.

Once you understand your competitors well, it’s time to do some keyword research. This will allow you to identify the keywords your competitors are ranking for that you could target in your marketing.

This process will also allow you to identify high-intent terms your competitors aren’t targeting. This will enable you to optimize your content for these words and build a solid online presence.

If you want to do more comprehensive competitive research, you might consider using a tool like Spyfu. This will show you your competitors’ keywords, their Adwords campaigns, and the backlinks they have.

In addition to giving you a thorough understanding of your competition’s online presence, this will also help you make better decisions about where you should spend your time and budget. For example, if you’re an eCommerce retailer and your biggest competitor sells a lot of apparel, maybe you should focus more on clothing than electronics.

2. Look at Your Audience

If you’re looking to boost your online visibility, keyword research is an essential part of the process. It can help you rank higher on search engine results pages, increase your online credibility and attract your target audience.

The goal of keyword research is to find the terms your audience uses to look for your business and then use them in your content. When your content matches your audience’s search intent, they’re more likely to stay on your page and read it thoroughly. This leads to more traffic, more conversions, and more revenue.

To start, make a list of keywords that are relevant to your business. This can be done in a spreadsheet or by analyzing your site’s analytics. Once you’ve made a list, take some time to think about your mission and what sets you apart from the competition.

You’ll need to keep this information in the back of your mind because it will affect your target keywords. It will also help you create an effective SEO strategy that fits your business and your target audience.

Another thing to remember is that when you’re doing keyword research, you’ll have a lot of options to choose from. You can try and rank for as many of them as possible, but it’s important to choose the ones that have high search volume and are related to your business.

Next, use Google Trends to check out which keywords are trending in your area and their demographics. This can help determine which keywords to focus on because it can help you see where your audience is searching and what they’re looking for.

In addition, it can help you determine which of your competitors is using the same search terms to attract customers. This will give you a better idea of what strategies are working for your competitors and can help you improve your own SEO strategy to avoid their mistakes.

Finally, you can also look at the pay-per-click value of each keyword, which will indicate how competitive it is. Those with low pay-per-click are typically easier to rank for in the organic results.

3. Look at Your Content

When doing keyword research, you should look at your content. This includes your blog posts, articles, product descriptions, and social media posts.

If you’re writing content that doesn’t match up with your keyword strategy, it can hurt your SEO. That’s why it’s important to spend some time thinking about how to make your content fit your strategy.

Your content should always be relevant to your audience and their search intent. This means that every post and article should be written to answer a particular question or solve a problem for your audience.

Using keywords strategically can help you answer those questions and drive traffic to your website. But you can’t just choose any keyword and hope to see results — you need to research to find those that are profitable and relevant for your business.

In the same way, you should always look at your content as a whole before starting to write any new articles or blog posts. This will help you avoid cannibalization issues from competing with your existing content for the same keywords.

It will also help you understand what type of content your audience wants. This is critical because if your content doesn’t match your audience’s search intent, you won’t get the traffic you need to grow your business.

Another great way to figure out what keywords your audience is looking for is to ask them what they’re searching for on Google and other platforms. This insight can be crucial to improving your SEO and content marketing strategy.

Once you understand what your audience is searching for, you can develop a strategy that meets their needs better than your competitors. This will help your business grow and increase revenue.

Doing keyword research can be overwhelming and daunting, but it’s important to remember that it’s not about wasting your time and energy on the wrong topics or keywords. By following the above steps, you’ll be able to create a list of potential keywords that can help you improve your search engine visibility and your business’s growth.

4. Look at Your Keywords

You must conduct keyword research if you’re looking to increase your site’s visibility and bring in more traffic. Not only does it help you determine the best keywords to target, it also allows you to understand your audience’s queries when conducting research online.

First, list the essential topics and categories that relate to your business. It’s best to begin with a broad range and then narrow it down as you learn more about your target market.

You can use tools like Google Trends or our related keyphrases tool in Yoast SEO to understand better what people are searching for. This is a great way to find out what keywords you should target and whether they’re worth the effort.

The next step is to look at these keywords’ search volume and ranking difficulty. This will help you determine the most valuable ones for your business and how competitive they are.

For example, if you sell coffee-making equipment, you would probably be best off targeting long-tail keywords that are less popular and less difficult to rank for. These are typically easier to rank for than head terms like “dog food.”

When analyzing your competitors, you can do this by plugging in their websites into competitive intelligence tools and then checking which pages they are currently ranking for. Comparing the top two or three competitors for each keyword is helpful.

Once you’ve found a few keywords that you can potentially rank for, it’s time to prioritize them and decide where to focus your efforts. This is a reasonably individual decision and can be influenced by several factors, such as traffic potential, keyword difficulty, business potential, and search intent.

While this can be time-consuming, it’s an essential part of the keyword research process. By evaluating these elements, you can develop a solid and effective keyword strategy to drive more organic traffic and increase your revenue.