19 Mar How to Get Found with SEO Keywords

If you have a website, then you likely want it to rank well on search engines, especially Google. In order to rank high on the list among your competitors, you’ll need a comprehensive SEO strategy. One of the most important elements of search engine optimization is choosing the right keywords. However, it isn’t as simple as choosing the words and phrases you think are relevant. What you’ll need to do first is conduct proper keyword research before you can implement the best keywords to help your website get found by users online.

Keep reading to learn how to get started with keyword research, how to discover new keywords, and how to pick the best keywords for your brand!

Getting Started with SEO Keyword Research

So, what is keyword research — and why is it so important? 

The online world is never static. It’s always changing! This is especially true for Google’s algorithm updates and your SEO strategy. While keyword research has always been at the core of building an SEO strategy, you have to be smart about keeping your keyword research practices up to date in order to keep your website relevant.

Keyword research, most simply, are the steps involved with discovering and analyzing the words and phrases people type into search engines in order to find your content and your website. It gives you a deeper insight (also known as intent) into how users are discovering your content, which can help you improve your content strategy in order to draw in larger target audiences. However, it’s important to note that simply having a single relevant keyword on your webpage is not going to be enough to get the desired results. Your content should address your audience’s intent in terms of specific keywords and content that appropriately matches them.

Here are the basics on how to do keyword research:

• Start by listing important and relevant topics, keeping in mind what you know about your business. Create a list of topics for which you want to rank. Write down five to 10 topics that you consider relevant for your business. Based on these topics, you can zero in on the most relevant keywords for your business. While selecting the topics, think from your audience’s perspective, such as what your audience would be looking for the most and selecting topics along those lines. Search volume of keywords — which shows the popularity of those words and is a feature of many SEO tools — can give you further insight as to which topics are right for both your audience and your brand.

• Next, it’s time to choose relevant keywords for each topic. You should select keywords or phrases for which you want to rank highly for in search engine results pages (SERPs). These are some of the keywords and key phrases that your audience might look for when searching for your type of business or the type of products/services you offer. Tools like Google Analytics can help you determine how well these keywords perform, as well as discover what users are already searching to find your website. Once you have some keywords selected, you’ll need to research any related terms that might also be relevant. One easy way to do this is by searching your keywords on Google and looking at the related terms at the bottom of the search page. 

• Then, you will want to generate your long-tail keywords. These are longer phrases that contain more popular head terms. The benefit to long-tail keywords, however, is that it’s much easier to rank highly for them when you are just starting out your SEO strategy because they have less competition compared to the most commonly used head term keywords. Long-tail keywords help you more specifically target your audience’s interests. However, it’s important to use a combination of both long-tail and head terms in order to fully optimize your reach. Be sure to check your competitors to see how well their keyword strategy is performing, which can help you improve yours by incorporating similar strategies or by avoiding others.
  
• Finally, you’ll want to fine-tune your keyword list using tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner and Google Trends. These tools will help you research search volume and traffic. With an ongoing SEO keyword strategy, you’ll want to be frequently using these tools to make sure you are staying on track for your brand and your customers’ interests.

Discovering New Keywords

Now that we’ve covered the basics of getting started with developing your SEO keyword strategy, let’s look further into how to discover new keywords. It may be easy for you to come up with a handful of obvious keywords related to your business, products or services. However, those alone may not be enough. So, how do you go about discovering new keywords?

As previously mentioned, keyword research tools will be the most helpful in this stage. By putting in your keyword head terms into these tools, other related terms will be generated, often many that you may not have expected. This takes much of the guesswork out of conducting your keyword research, which in turn makes your SEO keyword strategy more effective for bringing your target audience to your website. 

These keyword research tools will also be able to show you keywords with high and low competition, along with search volume. Start off targeting those less competitive (but still relevant) keywords, then over time you can gradually incorporate the more highly competitive ones once your website has become well-established with users and with Google.

Picking the Best Keywords for Your Brand

The most important part of developing your SEO keyword strategy is choosing the right keywords for your brand. Choosing keywords that aren’t relevant to your business, products, services or your customers will not help your website rank better in search results. Only the most relevant keywords and key phrases will help you do this. While we have stressed the importance of keyword tools to help you determine these keywords, there are still other options for helping you to gain insight. 

One way is to ask your customers or people who know your brand about what terms, questions, phrases or information comes to mind when they think about your business. This will help you learn first-hand what others think about and associate with your brand image. Enter these keywords in your keyword research tool to see how they compare to the results, as well as what related keywords you might also be able to use.

Make sure to keep a list of your generated keywords, which should contain both head terms and long-tail keywords. This list will always be changing, as keyword research is an ongoing process. Keeping your keywords relevant is crucial to increasing your website traffic.

Get SEO Done Right

Let’s face it — as a business owner, you likely don’t have the time or energy to manage your own SEO strategy, let alone even know where to begin. That’s where our digital marketing experts at Virtual Stacks Systems UK can help! Our SEO services are delivered by industry specialists who know the ins and outs of the ever-changing world of SEO and digital marketing. Learn more about our digital marketing plans, and contact us today to discuss the needs of your business.