Still, spending hours building huge keyword lists in Excel? It’s time to bring your keyword research process into 2018 with an updated SEO keyword research process specifically adapted to the realities of modern topical-relevance-based search engines like Google. Best of all: it’s just 2 steps!
Keyword Research is about to get a lot easier with this 2 step process
Did you just say 2 steps? Yes, we did.
Your shiny new website has just gone live, a quick Google search reveals hundreds of competitors and your website is nowhere to be seen. You stop looking for it after page 5. So, the next step is figuring out how to make your website visible to the world.
A quick search for tips on effective Search Engine Optimization reveals the importance of keyword research in your quest to improve your website’s rankings. There is no way around it, you know that any SEO efforts without effective Keyword Research are going to cost you when trying to rank. The pressure is on. Breath. And begin.
Not all of us are in a position to delegate the task of keyword research to someone else. And SEO is not possible without content on your site. Creating a website that is content rich is time-consuming, so take advantage of all the free SEO tools online to make that task easier.
Those of us working with a tiny, or even non-existent budget, will appreciate this new process more than anyone. Because after reading this article, you will be able to confidently dive into your Keyword Research, knowing that you are equipped with the right process to compete against the big players and their big fancy SEO budgets.
Efficiency is key to getting the most from your keyword research, and as you know by now, Keyword Research is the key element in any SEO effort. If you get this wrong, you get it all wrong and your website won’t get any organic traffic. Scary, isn’t it?
The goal is to get your website ranking on page 1, with little or no budget. Time resources are also tight, so a fast, efficient and easy-to-get-your-head-around approach is what you’re after.
Typically what happens with Keyword Research, is that we target the same keyword that our competitors are targeting. They tend to have a high search volume, are quite broad and are extremely hard to rank for against the competition.
The better strategy is to think of more specific search terms that your target audience is likely to use. In other words, target long-tail keywords. They are more specific and you are more likely to rank. So consider a lower search volume which is a much more valuable term, and most importantly, where ranking is achievable.
We have broken this process into two very simple steps, that are designed especially for people who are not time-rich and have little or no budget to compete against larger competitors. This Keyword Research process will not only save you hoards of time but it will be super effective.
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Introducing your new two-step Keyword Research process.
STEP 1: Do a Competitive Analysis
What is the point in finding a keyword to target your SEO efforts on, if you don’t know what your competitors are ranking for? You are going in completely blind if you don’t consider what your competitors are doing.
At the very least, by doing a competitive analysis you’ll get a few ideas of what works within your industry based on how your competitors are performing with different strategies.
There are plenty of tools around where you can run a competitive analysis. One such tool that’s popular is CanIRank Keyword Research Tool. (There is a free plan you can sign up for to test the service). In addition to keyword research, you can also use other useful features to help you improve and publicize your content.
STEP 2: Find The Right Keywords and Phrases
After you find and analyze your competition, then it’s time to move to the second stage. Keyword Research is used for accurately identifying which keywords you can rank for against the competition.
With that in mind, here are a few things you should consider when deciding which keywords or phrases you are going to target.
How to find the right keywords to target.
After finding out what keywords your competition is targeting, you can then try to find out if you can use that data to come up with keywords for your website. How do you know which keywords to use? Look for words and phrases that fulfill following criteria.
- Keywords or phrases that have high search volume
- Keywords or phrases that have high value
- Keywords or phrases that have low competition
- Find which of those high-value keywords or phrases your competitors
- Find the gap?
These are your keywords = high search, high value, low competition
In addition to CanIRank, you can use various other tools such as Google Keyword Planner or Ubbersuggest.
Top Keyword Research Tools
But there are other keyword research tools available you can try. Most offer a free account or a trial period so you can test them out. You’ll have to experiment to see which ones you like the most.
- Keyword Planner by Google – Best known Keyword research tool from Google. Not as good as it used to be.
- Übersuggest – free keyword suggestion tool that makes good use of different suggest services.
- SEMrush – Another nice tool for researching your competitors & keywords. They also offer keyword tracking.
- KWFinder – KWFinder is an easy-to-use keyword research tool bringing perfect keyword ideas.
- LSIGraph: LSI Keyword Generator – LSI Graph finds semantically linked and related keywords.
- MOZ Keyword Explorer – One tool to discover and prioritize the best keywords to target
- Word Stream Keyword Tool – Another great keyword tool
- LSI Keyword Generator – Start generating Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keywords for your SEO needs.
- Keyword Discovery – Another Keyword Suggestion Tool
- Free Serps SEO Tools – A free, blazing fast SEO tools for keyword research from Serps
- KeywordTool.io – Get 750+ Google Keyword Suggestions For Free
- SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool – Free but requires registration
- Soovle – Explore the most typed in keywords on multiple search engines based on the keyword root
Combining a competitive analysis and careful keywords research based on your competitor rankings can help you improve your keyword rankings and drive valuable traffic to your website.
About Author: Rachel Craig is an SEO Consultant with Canirank.com, SEO Software, and Digital agency. Our clients have the benefit of AI backed software combined with human expertise to tackle their SEO needs. Originally from Ireland, she has spent the last 7 years either in her adopted city, Barcelona or exploring new places around the world.
