How to Keyword Research for SEO【Begginer】

If you have those questions, I’m here to help you.

This is an ultimate step by step bigginers guide for keyword research.

Before jump into this topic, just a little bit about myself.

I’m an UX/SEO expert working for an international company in Tokyo.I have experience in SEO/content marketing/blogging for about 6 years.If you are looking for a japanese marketer or web developper, please contact me through my contact page.

Hopefully I can provide with a useful information for you.

What is keyword research??

Keyword Research is that primary SEO activity that involves identifying popular words and phrases people enter into search engines.

What we do here is to gain understanding on the demand and how difficult it is to compete organically in SERPs.

The key element in Content Marketing is to learning the needs of our audience.

Keyword research is the blueprint for your online marketing efforts, driving every decision you make

by Neil Patel

Why is keyword research is important?

Keyword research isn’t just about SEO.

It’s the foundation of all digital marketing practices.

Purpose1: To match user intent to website contents.

Matching what people are searching for with content that we are providing to fulfil that need.

Purpose2: To attract target audience

What kind of Keywords we choose will determine what kind of traffic we get.

Ultimate Goal

The ultimate goal is to increase Organic Traffic to your web properties by attracting the right audience.

What is user intent?

When a user conduct a search, there is always an intent.

It can be for finding restaurants, fact-checking & looking for information, online shopping, going to specific websites etc.

Types of search queries

Navigational Search Queries

It’s a search from users seeking for a particular website/location.

For example, if someone is typing “youtube” into Google, it is probably trying to find the YouTube website.

Informational Search Queries

It’s a search from users looking for specific information and have questions about a particular topic.

For example, if someone is searching for “leonardo dicaprio movies”, it is probably to see a list of movies Leonardo DiCaprio has been in it.

Transactional Search Queries

It’s a search from users are normally ready to buy, or take a specific action when they type in transactional search queries.

For example, if someone is searching for “buy iphone xs” or “book hotel in taiwan“, it is probably to get an iPhone or to book accommodation for their holidays.

Search / Keywords Categories

Local Search

Local search is to look for local business listings.

For example, “beauty store near me”, “beauty shop NYC”, “cosmetics stores in Sydney”

Natural Language Search

Natural language search is just a reqular search, like asking questions as if you were talking to someone.

For example, “what is SEO”, “how to use Uber Suggest”

Branded Keywords

Branded keywords are the search terms with specific brand name.

For example, “Nike”, “Uniqlo”, “Addidas”

“Head/Short-Tail” keywords

“Head/Short-Tail” keywords are the words with 1 or 2 words.

For example, “skin care”, “supplements”, “hair care”

“Long-Tail” keywords

“Long-Tail” keywords are the words with more than 3 words.

For example, “skin care for sensitive skin”, “supplements for joint pain and stiffness”

Ref:https://moz.com/blog/illustrating-the-long-tail

Using long-tail keywords can make sense when it comes to getting more targeted traffic in search engines.

As you can see the graph above, 70% of the search traffic are from long tail keyword search.

Keyword research components

Search Volume

Search volume is to look for how often is the keyword searched?

Greater the search volume, more traffic the keyword can bring.

SE = Search Difficulity (Competition)

Search volume is to see the level of competition(Low, Med, High).

In other words, It’s to find out how difficult to compete in ranking keyword.

CPC(Cost per click) Value

CPC ValueThe advertisement cost per click in Google Adwords.

The higher the CPC value is, the easier to monetise the query

Most Important Component – Keyword Relevance

Target keywords must be related/relevant to the website content

If not, try to match Search Queries with website content.

Keyword Research Process

Case study: Target Keyword is “Acne”

Step 1: Generate seed keywords

For exapmle, let’s say your product is to offer a acne cream and your target keyword is acne.

Type “acne” and one space in google search bar.

Those keywords are the seed keywords.

• acne🎯
  • acne treatments🌱
  • acne causes🌱
  • acne symptoms🌱
  • acne pictures🌱
  • acne types🌱
  • acne home remedies🌱
  • acne vlugaris pictures🌱
  • acne cream🌱

Step2: Expand keyword idea

List up all the keywords and see the search volume, difficulity, and CPC costs.

Filter keyword list

In the list above, I filtered the keywords by removing irrelevant keywords and highlighted the most relevant and the easiest keywords.

Connect with your articles

If you have a blog or website already, connect the target keywords and your existing pages.

I colored the cells by blue, yellow and red to see the progress.

What we do here is to create new articles by target keywords, and fill in the URL and color yellow.

Keep updating the articles, and when you hit the 1st rank on the target keyword, change the color to blue.

When you see a lot of blue cells, you will be able to rank for your main target keyword which is acne in this sample.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this article. I hope you learned something today.

I would really appreciate it if you could leave your comment, share and subscribe on my blog.