Why Keyword Research Is Important for Your Business

An introduction to keyword research

With Google rolling out algorithm updates left, right and center, it can be hard to stay up to date. One way to keep your head above the water is by doing keyword research.

Keyword research is an essential part of search engine optimization (SEO) which focuses on identifying keywords your audience are already searching for. Keywords are words or short phrases used to find information, products or services.

Nowadays, people rely on immediate access to answers. Therefore, based on a searchers intent, search engines will adapt their results to capture a user’s attention. Ask yourself what it is that you want to be found for.

Why keyword research is valuable:

  1. Increases the chance of being found by search engines
  2. Increases website’s relevance by matching a searcher’s words
  3. Drives more qualified clicks (less money wasted on cost-per-click advertising)
  4. It helps to understand the audience’s needs
  5. Every marketing channel can benefit from it

In short, if no one is searching for a topic on your website, it will not receive any traffic.

The two types of keywords:

  1. Long-tail – these tend to be more specific and consist of three or more words. This means that these are easier to rank for.
  2. Short-tail – these can be more vague and are typically less than three words. Therefore, these tend to have more competition.

Carrying out keyword research:

  1. Determine your buyer personas
  2. Define your goals
  3. List relevant topics and keywords
  4. Use autocomplete to see who you are competing with (search potential keywords into Google)
  5. Use a keyword research tool such as Google’s keyword planner
  6. Consider a searchers intent

Strategically place your keywords.

Keywords should exist in:

  • Titles
  • Text body
  • Metadata (back-end).

Tip: the first place to include your keywords should be in your URL, this is the first place search engines will go to find out where to rank your website.

On the other hand, too many keywords can be damaging for your SEO strategy. Using too many keywords is known as keyword stuffing, this will make your webpage rank lower and decrease the quality of content on your page.

81% of shoppers research products online before making a purchase (Saleslion, 2019).

34% of people at the start of their Product search use search Engines like Google to search for products (Saleslion, 2019).

All of these searches use keywords which help search engines determine where your website ranks.

To conclude, the best keywords have low competition rankings and high search volumes.

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