Many inexperienced marketers consider keyword research a one-time thing that they need to do when learning how to optimize their page. But they’re wrong, as every expert digital marketer would tell you that it’s a never-ending process that can and should be done regularly and often.
But what does it even mean?
And…
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As you might know, I started my career working in New York’s top ad and marketing agencies – rising up quickly to Senior VP.
But then I quit in my late twenties (to my parent’s horror) to pursue becoming a (hoped for) bestselling author. Plus I wanted to help people – in a more personal way – as a branding and marketing consultant. Thankfully, my career plan/dream worked out! Now I love to help people to understand how to effectively market and brand whatever they’re selling – which is why I wrote this article on keyword research for SEO.
Firstly, the keyword research you need to do is based on finding the best, most popular phrases and words that are used by search engines!
Your goal: determine the relevance of a “digital object” (aka: article, photo description, website, etc).
They’re one of the first things you need to focus on when doing SEO research.
Now, I’m gonna explain (in short words) how to do good keyword analysis – and why do you need it regularly.
First of all, remember about professional SEO services. If you’re not sure that you or your marketers have enough expertise for a particular SEO project, then there’s no shame in turning to experts. This ensures that the money will be put to good use, and will eventually bring your profits, as such services provide top-of-the-line quality and allow your company to focus on the core processes.
But if you insist on doing everything yourself, start with topic analysis. Go through all the subjects that the product is related to. Check the most popular pages and projects that are connected to those subjects. Now you have an understanding of what the most popular topics are and where to focus your efforts.
Some of the tools are different, but most work in a pretty similar way – they suggest keywords based on a search query and provide lists from other websites. You can also use any other resource to find them.
Here are some tips to make your keyword research a much faster and more efficient process.
We all know about the usual ones, but what does negative mean? These are the keywords that aren’t related to your product, but still help to narrow down the search results. For example, if you sell electric cars, gas isn’t a query that would lead to your website. Yet, it can and should be included in the list of Keywords, Negative in Google Planner.
These are often overlooked by marketers, and that could be your winning point. The wise usage of negative keys has a lot of impact on reaching the right target audience and providing them with the needed results.
Every page can be analyzed for SEO, including your competitors’ ones. Search for the market leaders in your industry, or your main rivals. Now, look into what keywords they use, and how they do it. This will give you a comprehension of their marketer’s expertise level and their strategy effectiveness.
Use special tools to determine whether their keywords are effective and try them on your website if they are. Remember, analyzing your rivals is crucial for surviving on the market, and it also provides very valuable information that can be used for your own profit.
Each product has a time when it sells the most. For example, winter shoes sell the best in late autumn, while the demand for swimsuits rises in spring. And of course, don’t forget about seasonal discounts and events like Black Friday. These are very basic aspects of marketing in general, but they can help your SEO a lot.
How to use it to your advantage? Firstly, you need to realize that everyone in the sphere will be going for almost exactly the same keywords during these periods of time. That means, the competition will be deadly and it’s better not to fight with media giants. You’ll just waste a lot of resources without even a chance of winning.
Try to use more specific topics and queries or the ones that aren’t directly related to the subject but still will eventually lead to your product. For example, during the Oscar awards, the main topic is the movie industry. Try to focus on actors and their parts, for example, or make compilations of old movies. This helps to both avoid the high competition and still use the seasonal events.
One huge mistake many marketers make is that they forget about the simplest of the tactics. Of course, being creative, super-innovative, and unique is important, but only if done in the right amounts. And using the most basic techniques is crucial too sometimes.
Do not avoid huge trends. Right, they may not bring as much value to your content as well-researched articles about particular topics might, but they can still bring a lot of leads and traffic. Just do keyword research and you’ll see how many ways to get profits out of trends there are.
However, if you don’t want to lose the quality of your content at all, you can still use the trends. You can make articles with an expert analysis of them, and explore how these trends impact your industry. Or maybe just articles with a professional opinion on the situation. Remember, there’s no need to get into the trend itself to use the keywords for your SEO.
This is another very obvious aspect that too many people forget. Most digital marketers think that they are the ones who dictate the rules. However, the role is still reserved for the users who type in the queries and then click on the particular website among all other results. To get why they do it, and which requests lead to your site, use the Google Site Search in the Analytics tab.
It will show you what are the main queries that lead the users there. Of course, they aren’t always the keywords you need. But they represent the main topic the users are looking for and what they want to get in search results. Simply analyze these topics, the related ones, and you’ll get the perfect pool of keywords to use.
Local ones are those that will use your location in order to bring customers. These aren’t general instances like “sports cars”, because there are gigantic international conglomerates that use these, and you have a chance in competing with them.
However, people may be looking for a lawyer, and most of the time they want to find one in their local area. This exact search request is very common, but when it’s used as one related to location, it has a much bigger impact. Try to make them much more specific and related to the area. It’s a pretty simple, but nonetheless effective way to find perfect keywords.
These are only a few examples of how to maximize the efficiency of your keyword research. There are many other ways and techniques to use to your advantage, meaning that this topic needs a separate look into it too. Just remember that sometimes the most basic approach is the most effective one, so don’t overcomplicate things, and good luck!
Hire me as your branding and marketing consultant. I love to help people to understand how to effectively market and brand whatever they’re selling.
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