Introduction
Keyword research is the holy grail of SEO. To many, it’s one of the most complex parts of designing a rock-solid SEO strategy.
Why though?
There are a million nuances and moving parts—it’s almost impossible to master overnight. You need to consider your competitors, domain authority (don’t worry, we’ll cover this too)), and more.
Who am I?
I’m Steven Schneider, co-founder and CEO of TrioSEO. Before TrioSEO, I co-owned a portfolio of 40 websites and published about 400 articles per month across all sites. Needless to say, I’ve put in my “10,000 hours” of keyword research. I teamed up with Serpzilla to create this ultimate guide on keyword research.
Looking for a great backlink partner to help grow your website’s domain rating? Serpzilla offers various services, from guest posting to contextual content links.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process of finding phrases (e.g., keywords) that your customers search for in Google so you can optimize your website to rank for those terms.
Every business offers products or services. Let’s take TrioSEO, for instance – our agency provides “keyword research services” to clients. If you look at the link, you’ll see a dedicated landing page on our website that speaks to that service and what’s included.
You can use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush (to name a couple) and pinpoint precisely what people type into Google and how many times per month they do so. Knowing this will help you optimize specific areas of your website so you can rank organically for phrases.
This might sound confusing at first, but hang in there. Let’s expand on a few concepts.
Why is Keyword Research Important For SEO?
As you conduct keyword research, you’re essentially reverse-engineering customer psychology to understand what people are searching for.
While doing so, you’ll understand the intent behind each keyword. Knowing the intent allows you to tailor content toward their needs and desires.
For example, if someone looks for “keyword research services,” they are in a buying mindset. You’ll want to create a sales or service page optimized for that mindset (e.g., what your services entail, pricing, testimonials, etc.).
However, if someone (like you) searches for “how to do keyword research,” the content may align with a blog, video tutorial, course, etc.
Intent is key. Your strategy will be off if you don’t understand why your customers are searching or what they intend to find at the end of their journey.
What is Long-Tail Keyword Research?
Long-tail keyword research is the process of finding long-tail keywords.
What Are Long Tail Keywords?
Long-tail keywords are long search phrases that typically result in more niche queries.
For example, if someone searches for “best running shoes for men with flat feet,” – this is a long-tail keyword.
Alternatively, if someone searches for “best running shoes” – this is not a long-tail keyword.
So what’s the difference? Why are long-tail keywords so sought after?
Have you ever heard the phrase, the riches are in the niches?
Long-tail keywords are usually less competitive to rank for and typically come with higher intent to complete an action. If someone is looking for “best running shows,” the lack of specificity could leave their intent open-ended. Maybe they aren’t ready to buy and just want to see options.
But if you see someone search for “best running shoes for men with flat feet,” it’s fair to assume they are closer to buying because they are looking for a specific product.
Long-tail keywords are low-hanging fruit and often a wise move.
Pro Tip: When conducting keyword research in Ahrefs, include “for” as a secondary filter to find long-tail keywords.
Why is Keyword Research So Hard?
Spoiler alert: keyword research is hard (like, really hard).
But what makes keyword research so tricky?
I’ve been doing keyword research for almost a decade, and while the basics are the same, every strategy differs. You must analyze competitors and search engine result page (SERP) results among a handful of other metrics.
What does this mean?
The SERP shows which websites are currently ranking for a specific keyword.
Since each keyword has a unique level of difficulty, otherwise known as keyword difficulty (KD). Knowing what keywords to target (and which ones to avoid) adds another layer of complexity to your strategy.
Not only do you have to collect the keywords, but you need to use them effectively.
But KD is just one piece of the puzzle.
Let’s review some metrics before we get too far.
Keyword Research Metrics
You’ll need to sift through a lot of data when doing keyword research.
Here are the primary keyword research metrics to note:
- Keyword Volume: The number of monthly searches (per country)
- Global Search Volume: The combined monthly search volume
- Keyword Difficulty: How hard it is to rank in the top 10 (0 to 100)
- Keyword Intent: The goal of the user query when searching
- Clicks Per Search: The ratio of Clicks to Keyword Search volume
- Cost Per Click: The average price for each ad click in a paid search
- Domain Rating: The domain authority of websites ranking for a keyword
- Referring Domains: The total number of unique domains linking to a search result
There are a few other metrics, but for the sake of simplicity, these are the core ones you’ll want to understand.
Keyword Research Tips
Looking for tips to kick off your research?
Steal my top 10 keyword research tips:
- Focus on search intent
- Monitor keyword rankings
- Consider keyword difficulty
- Use keyword research tools
- Look into long-tail keywords
- Analyze competitor keywords
- Include LSI (related) keywords
- Map keywords to specific pages
- Write topics based on KD & traffic
- Build hub and spoke keyword clusters
What Are LSI Keywords?
LSI (latent semantic indexing) refers to terms related to a target keyword. For example, if you want to rank for “article writing,” related terms might include “blog” and “content.”
However, “LSI keywords don’t matter because Google has stated that it does not use latent semantic indexing to rank search results.” (source: SEMRush)
That said, scouting similar keywords can sometimes yield positive results.
What is the Hub and Spoke Strategy?
Search Engine Journal says, “Think of a wheel and all the spokes pointing outward from the center. We want to establish more authority around the hub and rank better on the main topic. The spokes are all the supporting content related to our main topic that will help boost our authority in Google’s eyes.”
As you perform keyword research, you’ll want to organize topics into clusters (e.g., hubs).
We’ll touch on this soon.
How to Do Keyword Research For SEO
Now that we understand the core concepts, let’s dive into why we are here and learn how to do keyword research.
Before starting, create a document or spreadsheet to record your notes. I prefer a spreadsheet to keep track of a few metrics (as outlined above).
Since the primary keyword research tool I use is Ahrefs, we’ll use it to guide our discussion.
1. Study Your Product or Service
You can’t do keyword research if you don’t understand your client’s core offer.
Plain and simple.
Take TrioSEO, for example. Our agency offers keyword research services, article writing, and more. These are our “hubs,” or major content clusters, to help us find keywords.
2. Study Your Competitors
There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel, right? Take a look at your competitors and see what they’re ranking for, then compile a list of websites and add that to your spreadsheet.
In Ahrefs, you can search specific sites, take note of their top-ranking pages, and even see what keywords rank within those pages.
When examining competitors, you should also note their domain rating (DR). A website with a higher domain rating can rank better for difficult keywords. If you look at the SERP for any given keyword, you’ll see the top-ranking websites, their DR, and the keywords for that page. Knowing how your website compares to others is key in demining the likeness of securing a top 10 ranking.
3. Outline Your Primary Hubs
Studying your products and services should be the foundation for your hub and spoke strategy. For example, if “keyword research services” are offered by TrioSEO, the hub of content centers around “keyword research.”
4. Use the Keyword Explorer in Ahrefs
Go to the Keyword Explorer and search for your hub. It’s always best to start broad and go from there. Use the “Matching Terms” function to identify terms containing your query.
Although doing so will yield many results (usually more than you need), it is an excellent way to understand the hub better.
Fair warning: this strategy takes longer but is worth the effort.
If too many extra keywords are unrelated to your core offer or services, apply filters to narrow down your research, including or excluding specific phrases.
5. Collect Keywords and Organize Your Spreadsheet
As you explore, add keywords to your spreadsheet. Then, organize your spreadsheet with metrics and notes to aid future decisions.
Here is a picture of how I typically organize my strategy sheet:
Take note of the:
- Keyword
- Volume
- Keyword Difficulty
- Hub
- Spoke
- Funnel (BOFU = bottom of the funnel, MOFU = middle of the funnel, etc.)
- How content should be formatted based on intent
- Which month you created the content (e.g., group)
In some cases, you might also want to consider adding whether the topic is a new piece of content or if it’s an update to an existing page.
How Do I Know What Keywords to Keep and What to Disregard?
Opportunities are endless, but that doesn’t mean you have to collect every topic imaginable.
The key to designing a solid strategy is to add topics (e.g., primary keywords) within reach of ranking.
How do you know what keywords to add to your sheet? And more importantly, which ones should you avoid?
The best rule of thumb is to consider the Keyword Difficulty (KD) and analyzing the top-ranking SERP. If a particular keyword’s KD is relatively high (20+) and the top websites ranking for that term are double your DR, it’s probably not ideal to target in the short run.
Remember, you are looking for keywords your website can rank for (and drive results).
There’s no point in targeting a keyword that is out of reach and highly competitive.
Advanced Keyword Research Techniques
Applying filters to your keyword research process is one of the best ways to level up your strategy. As mentioned, if too many extra keywords are unrelated to your core offer or services, apply filters to narrow your research, including or excluding specific phrases.
My favorite filters are Keyword Volume, Keyword Difficulty, or Lowest DR.
For example, in the picture below, I am looking for “keyword research” phrases with a keyword difficulty of 0-20, where the search volume is greater than 10, and the Lowest DR of 20 in the SERP.
Depending on your website’s authority, adding a KD filter will remove too competitive keywords.
Moreover, the Lowest DR filter is a new, convenient filter in Ahrefs.
Here, you can see only keywords with at least one ranking position and a DR of up to.
What does that mean?
Let’s assume that we have two keywords:
- Keyword A SERPs have an average DR of 80, with the lowest DR = 70
- Keyword B SERPs have an average DR of 40, with the lowest DR = 3
Seeing a DR 3 website ranking in the top 10 for a keyword gives us some degree of confidence, assuming our DR is 35.
Thus, applying an “up to 10” filter in the top 10 helps us find keywords that fit that logic.
The picture below shows that a DR 6 website ranks 10.
However, it’s worth noting that this approach is not as black and white as it may seem.
A low DR website can rank well if backlinks are built to that page, which helps increase page authority. While it’s a good advanced strategy, you’ll need to layer on some extra due diligence to ensure the keyword is worth targeting.
Looking for help with backlinks? Check out Serpzilla’s Niche Edits to grow your website’s authority and rank for difficult keywords.
What to Do After Keyword Research
After you’ve compiled a few hundred primary keywords, the next step is to create an action plan. What keywords do you want to target, and where are they applied?
For example, to target “keyword research services,” you must determine if this results in a new page or an update. Typically, creating a roadmap or sprint outlining the topics you want to focus on over a given period is best.
Up to this point, you should understand your topics, industry, competitor website authority, keyword difficulty, and other metrics we have highlighted.
Using the data to your advantage, you must determine what topics are within reach and how to upgrade current content.
Pro Tip: Updating content is a massively underrated skill. When appropriate, incorporate a mixture of new content and updates to keep pages fresh and relevant.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below are some frequently asked questions surrounding this topic:
What is KD in Keyword Research?
KD in keyword research stands for Keyword Difficulty: a range of 0-100 outlining how competitive the keyword is to secure a top 10 position. If the keyword is difficult, you’ll likely need more backlinks to the page you’re trying to rank.
What is CPC in Keyword Research?
In keyword research, CPC stands for cost-per-click, the cost advertisers pay to display their ads in the search results.
How Can I Speed Up The Keyword Research Process?
Applying filters to search queries in tools like Ahrefs and mastering competitor research can speed up the keyword research process.
As you hone your skillset, analyzing your competitors’ rankings and scouting their keywords will become increasingly important.
Are Keyword Research Services Worth It?
If you want to avoid the work, keyword research services are worth the investment. Nothing is better than having a trusted expert like our team oversee the process from start to finish.
How Can I Incorporate User Intent Into My Keyword Research?
You can incorporate user intent into keyword research by putting yourself in your customer’s perspective and analyzing the top SERP results. If you see that a keyword returns service and sales pages, you’ll want to do the same. Thankfully, tools like Ahrefs have also started incorporating intent tags near keywords to help note this.
Conclusion
Although keyword research may seem overly daunting, remember that practice makes perfect. As with learning any new skill, the early days are challenging, but that’s okay – it’s part of the process. Perfect the craft, remember to have fun with it, and never rush the process.
I hope this guide has served you well! Best of luck on your keyword research endeavors!
