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How to Do Keyword Research in 3 Easy Steps

Have you been creating content without getting traffic to your website? You may be targeting the wrong keywords or not optimizing your content for any keywords at all.

With keywords still important to search engine optimization, knowing how to find and select the right keywords for your content is an essential skill. In this article, we explore the meaning of keywords and teach tactics for finding the best keywords to increase search traffic.

What is a Keyword?

A keyword is a word or phrase that informs search engines about the content of your webpage. Individuals use keywords to search for information on search engines, which is why they are also called "search terms" or "search queries."

If you own a website, you'll want it to appear in results when users enter a search term related to your business. Say you run a restaurant, you'll want to rank for keywords like:

Best restaurants in [x]
Restaurants in [x]

Proper keyword use improves your website's chances of appearing in the search results when users enter those terms. This will drive traffic to your site and increase conversions.

Keyword Research 101: Finding and Selecting Keywords

Now that you understand the importance of keywords, it's time you learned how to find and qualify keywords. This next section covers the following:

Finding keywords with Google Keyword Planner
Finding related (LSI) keywords with Sqwizo Keyword Density tool
Finding keywords to match user intent with Answer The Public

Finding Keywords with Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is free keyword research used to find keywords to target in my SEO campaigns. But Google Keyword Planner does more than suggest keywords; it provides detailed statistics to help users understand what keywords to target.

The GKP tool has a lot of statistics, but these are primarily targeted at AdWords users. However, it offers useful data you can use to qualify keywords including the following:

Search Volume

Google Keyword Planner measures the popularity of a keyword through the Search Volume function. This tool shows the average monthly searches for a keyword, which is helpful for qualifying keywords.

Competition

In addition to measuring the popularity of a keyword, Google Keyword Planner can help you gauge the difficulty in ranking for a keyword. It evaluates competition for keywords, separating them into Low, Medium, and High based on their competition.

When using the Google Keyword Planner, avoid selecting low-volume keywords, since they hardly pull traffic. Also, avoid highly competitive keywords, except your site has a high Domain Authority (DA).

Instead, you should select keywords with above-average search volumes and low to medium competition. These keywords promise the best ROI and are easier to rank for on search engines.

Finding Related Keywords With Sqwizo Keyword Density tool

While finding the main keyword is important, your content needs to have related keywords for better rankings on search engines. Also called Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords, they are usually associated with your focus keyword and help search engines understand the content of your webpage better.

One of the easiest ways to find related keywords is to use the Google Autocomplete Tool. The screenshot below shows how we used Google Autocomplete to find related keywords for "learn SEO":

Google Autocomplete

While Google Autocomplete is great, you probably want a tool that shows the exact LSI keywords your competitors use in their content.

This is where the Sqwizo Keyword Density tool comes in handy.

With Sqwizo, you can find organic keywords that competitors in your industry are ranking for. Here is a step-by-step guide to using this tool for maximum results:

Enter your target keyword into the search engine
Copy a link to any of the top 1-5 results
Input the link into the Sqwizo Keyword Density and click "Check Density"

Finding Keywords to Match User Intent With Answer The Public

With Google updating its algorithm frequently, your content needs more than high-volume keywords to get to Google's front page. It MUST be relevant to users, or like the nerds say, "satisfy user intent."

User intent refers to an individual's objective for searching a particular term. For instance, a user who searches "learn SEO" is clearly looking for information that can help him become an SEO expert.

When your website content matches user intent and answers readers' questions, search traffic and online visibility will increase. Additionally, knowing what questions users ask about your focus keywords makes it easier to know what aspects to cover in your blog post or article.

We highly recommend Answer The Public for finding keywords to match user intent. This tool can generate dozens of questions for a keyword or keyphrase in minutes. We ran a search for questions related to "learn SEO" and found long-tail keyphrases including:

"Can I learn SEO on my own"
"Where to learn SEO for free"
"Is SEO easy to learn"
"Is SEO worth learning"
"Who can learn SEO"

With these question keywords, we can create a detailed blog post that reflects user intent and provides relevant information. This is likely to result in better search engine performance because Google will return our fictional article when users enter those search queries.

Commonly asked questions for "learn SEO" provided by Answer The Public

Conclusion

Keyword research is an art you must master for you to earn returns on your investment in SEO. Optimizing for the right keyword not only increases search traffic, but it also boosts ad revenue and conversions.

Keywords with decent search volumes and minimal competition are excellent for ranking on search engines and are your ideal choices. Finally, remember that search intent is king — create content that people will find relevant to their needs.

Don’t forget to check out Sqwizo.com for the best tools to up your SEO game!