Keyword research starts with thinking about how potential customers might be searching for your business or website. You can then use keyword research tools to expand on those ideas and find even more keywords. It’s a simple process, but two things need to be true to do it well: (i) You need to have good knowledge of your industry; (ii) You need to understand how
keyword research tools work and how to get the most out of them.
In this unit, we’ll run through a few actionable ways to improve your knowledge in both those areas and discover potentially winning keywords for your website in the process.
- Brainstorm ‘seed’ keywords
- See what keywords your competitors rank for
- Use keyword research tools
- Study your niche
Brainstorm ‘seed’ keywords:
Seed keywords are the foundation of the keyword research process. They define your niche and help you identify your competitors. Every keyword research tool asks for a seed keyword, which it then uses to generate a huge list of keyword ideas (more on that shortly).If you already have a product or business that you want to promote online, coming up with seed keywords is easy. Just think about what people type into Google to find what you offer. For example, if you sell coffee machines and equipment, then seed keywords might be:
- coffee
- espresso
- cappuccino
- french press
Note that seed keywords themselves won’t necessarily be worth targeting with pages on your website. As the name suggests, you’ll use them as ‘seeds’ for the next steps in this process. So don’t obsess too much over your seed keywords. It should only take a few minutes to find them. As soon as you have a handful of broad ideas related to your website’s topic, move on to the next step.
See what keywords your competitors rank for: Looking at which keywords already send traffic to your competitors is usually the best way to start keyword research. But first, you need to identify those competitors. That’s where your brainstormed list of keywords comes in handy. Just search Google for one of your seed keywords and see who ranks on the front page.
Use keyword research tools:
Competitors can be a great source of keyword ideas. But there are still tons of keywords your competitors aren’t targeting, and you can find these using keyword research tools. Keyword research tools all work the same way. You plug in a seed keyword, and they pull keyword ideas from their database based on that keyword. Google Keyword Planner is perhaps the most well-known keyword tool. It’s free to use, and although it’s mainly for advertisers, you can also use it to find keywords for SEO. Let’s enter a few of seed keywords and see what it kicks back:
- barista
- macchiato
- irish coffee
- americano
- flat white
- cold brew
- percolator
You’ll notice that Google Keyword Planner is smart enough to show you relevant keyword ideas, even if they don’t contain your seed keywords. Take “k cups,” for example. Unless you’re a hardcore coffee connoisseur, you probably wouldn’t know this relates to coffee.
Study your niche:
Everything we’ve discussed so far is enough to generate an almost unlimited amount of keyword ideas. But at the same time, the process kind of keeps you “in the box.” It’s limited by your seed keywords and by the size and freshness of your chosen keyword tool’s database. Because of this, you’ll almost certainly miss some good ideas. You can solve this by studying your niche in more detail. And a good starting point is to browse industry forums, groups, and Q&A sites. This will help you find more things that your prospective customers are struggling with that didn’t show up in keyword tools and that none of your competitors bothered to cover.