How to do keyword research

If you get SEO right it’s one of the only FREE ways to build your blog and increase traffic.

 

I think as the subject is a little dry (alright downright boring!) we can gloss over it as we go looking for something more exciting to do with our time. We really shouldn’t though as getting right is so important. Not getting my SEO strategy right from the start is one of my main blogging regrets.

 

Why Bloggers need SEO

 

Er, did you not hear me just mention ‘free way to grow your blog?’ Good SEO will give you more search traffic. Search traffic has intent (they have typed something into Google that they want the answer to, as opposed to social media traffic, which has way less intent). They want your content more because they are actively looking for it, rather than just happened to see a tweet to your post on Twitter.

 

 

Why you need to do keyword research

 

 

Without keyword research you could be using keywords that people aren’t actually looking for or keywords that are hugely competitive and ones which you would struggle to even be seen in the search results. Which does not help your organic traffic growth….

Keyword research will tell you what people are actually searching for, you don’t need to guess it’s all there.

 

So people use specific words to try to find content which will answer their question. If you research what these words are and optimise your post for them. These people will find your content as the answer to their question.

When to do SEO keyword research

 

 

Before you start hitting the keys and banging out your next blog post. STOP! This is the time you need to do your keyword research. There’s no point in writing the post then having to rewrite chunks to squeeze in your keywords. You want your use of keywords to feel natural and so it is way easier to know the words before you start.

 

 

How to do SEO keyword research

 

 

Step 1: Get yourself a free Google AdWords account. You might have to put a credit card number in, but you don’t ever need to buy anything. Just signing up for a free account will give you access to the Keyword tool. There are other keyword tools and I’ll mention these later.

Step 2: Login to AdWords, and open up Keyword Planner.

 

Step 3: Click on Get Search Volume Data and Trends.

 

Step 4: Enter a keyword idea into the box, one per line. Just enter anything that comes to mind! For example, brand ambassador – here’s what it gave me.

 

If you wish you can edit the countries you want data for as well, just click the edit icon to add or remove countries/areas to target.

When you’ve finished click Get Search Volume.

 

Step 5: Now you can evaluate which of your keyword ideas is the best for your post. In other words, which one has the most people searching for it.

Ideally you want a high search volume BUT low to medium competition. Trying to rank for keyword phrases with high competition might not be the best idea.

 

Then you can add new keywords up in the top box if you want to search again.

The bottom section gives you the Average Monthly Searches for each keyword phrase, so this is where you can judge whether that number is enough to make you optimise for that word. If only 30 people are searching you might want to pick something else.

 

If you find something with a decent number of searches, low-medium competition AND a keyword phrase you feel you could naturally weave into your posts then you have your keyword.

 

Are you an SEO whiz or do you avoid it wherever possible? Do you have any questions?

Rather watch a video? Check out my tutorial.