Keyword definition
Many times, we search for specific things on search engines using some words. Based on these words various information and article pop up. These kinds of words are called keywords. Keywords are such kinds of words and phrases that will lead you towards the information you are looking for.
Having the right keywords on your website will lead people towards you. It’s like leaving out breadcrumbs on the way so people can discover your location. In online platforms, the goal is to let people discover your content for more reach. And for that purpose, keyword research has become a very important part of any website or content on the internet.
What is SEO keyword research?
In SEO keyword research is probably the most crucial part. It refers to finding the right kind of phrases and words to bring people towards your content. There are many things to consider when choosing the keywords. We will go through them later in the article. In simple terms, keyword research is getting through a list of words and phrases that are relevant to your content.
Then select the ones that are most appropriate and have a high chance of people using them.
This way your content will have the most optimized keywords. With those keywords, your content will rank up high in any search engine. So, eventually, your contents get better reach because of the keywords. And the way you find those keywords is through keyword research.
SEO keywords example
Okay, let’s say you have a website related to pets. That’s your niche. Now, you want to promote a cat food product. To do that you will need to write some content or maybe upload videos. And if you want people to find your content you would want it to rank high on the search engines. Because whenever people search for “cat food” they will get to see thousands of results. Naturally, they would go for the contents that come right in front of them.
This is where you need the work of keyword research and optimization.
With proper keywords focusing on “cat food” you can make your website content visible to people on the front page of search results. Most of the people will go through the first few pages of search results and they will get their answers. So, when you rank on the front page the chances of your content getting reach get high.
This is how SEO keywords are used. In this instance, the keyword was “cat food”. People would generally type “cat food” or “best cat food” and your content should appear. That’s the goal here.
How to Choose Keywords for SEO
Now that you know how keywords work let’s get to how you choose them. The first thing you will need to figure out is what is the purpose of the content. You will need to determine what information you have put in the content. Then come up with some basic ideas of keywords surrounding that information.
You will need head keywords and some long-tail keywords. Coming up with the head keyword is the primary thing to do. Head keywords are usually short. You can have three words at best for your head keywords. Now, when you are going for the head keywords you must realize that it is used in more volume and the competition is also high here. This means the head keywords aren’t usually unique to distinguish your content from other common contents.
That’s when you have to lean towards long-tail keywords. You will need to figure out some long-tail keywords that people might use when they are looking for the information you put on the internet. Once you have got some basic keywords you can try out different keyword research tools. Search for some more keywords and create a list.
Keep in mind that you can’t just jumble up as many keywords as you want. It has the opposite effect as well. So, you have to go through some elimination from the list you created. You will need to eliminate keywords based on four criteria. These are volume, competition, current rankings, and relevance. You can check these out from various tools online.
Volume tells you how much do people use those specific words. You will want to have keywords that are high in volume because that increases the chance of being discovered. But here comes the problem which is the competition. High volume keywords have a higher rate of competition which means people use it more in their contents too. So, you will have a hard time getting a better rank with those high-volume words.
Then what to do? Well, try hitting for a balance of high-volume words with lower competition. These two are the most crucial factors for choosing keywords for SEO. Then comes the ranking of the words you have chosen. This changes from time to time. Words with better rank will get you a better rank on the search results as well. Another factor to consider is the relevance of the words. Just having high volume with low competition won’t help if the words aren’t relevant to your content. So, you will need words that lead people to the correct information they are looking for.
After going through all these you come up with the final list of keywords for your website content. And if everything goes well you will surely rank high on the search engines.
Keyword research for article writing
The most important keyword research you need is for article writing. Articles are the core contents of your website. As they deliver the information you want to provide you will need to have the proper keywords prepared for them.
For article writing keyword research you will first need to look at the topic. From there figure out ahead keyword for your article. You will use this within the beginning 100 words of your article and the ending 100 words. Surrounding your head keyword, you will need some long-tail keywords. After you find all the keywords you will need to figure out the perfect places to put your keywords.
You can get the long tail keywords using different kinds of keyword research tools. You will need to do it following your article topic or maybe head keywords.
Keyword suggestions for the website
Unlike article writing keywords website keywords have a permanent value to you. Because these keywords will work as a marketing tool for your website. Try going for website keywords that you can put on your domain name. It helps a lot in ranking your website as it is.
Other than that, you will need to go for keywords that highlight the services or products you provide.
The keywords you choose for your website must represent what you do. This is basically the relevance factor we talked about earlier. Then you will need to optimize those keywords to get better SEO ranks.
The keyword density for SEO
The keyword density for SEO refers to the fact that how many times a targeted keyword appears. Usually, people prefer to have 1 to 2 percent keyword density. So, if you have a hundred words content then you would want your keyword to appear a maximum of twice. Following up on that a thousand words article can have your targeted keyword 20 times.
Anything more than that is usually considered jumbled up keywords. That won’t get you a good rank on SEO. You can find many tools online to find the keyword density of your content. It’s necessary to follow this guideline for better SEO ranks.
Affiliate marketing keywords
In the case of affiliate site keywords play a really important role. Because with the proper keywords you can attract customers towards your sites and then get the affiliate commission you are working for. People looking to buy stuff will obviously go to the top result they can find on search engines.
So, you will need to have good keywords for your affiliate campaign. To do that start off with a specific niche. This way you can narrow down the affiliate products along with the target audience. Then choose some keywords based on that niche. Go through a keywords analysis to come up with the best results. You can use various tools for that purpose.
Then finally go for individual products and keywords related to them. Long-tail keywords play a vital role in this case.
Best keyword research tools
Here are some of the best keyword research tools you can check out-
- KW Finder: This is a keyword finder platform which is easy to go through.
- SEMrush: This one is an all in one solution for your any SEO needs.
- GrowthBar: Gets you some quick results for better keywords on your website.
- Long-tail Pro: You can get the best long-tail keywords suggestions from this tool. It gets you high convertible long-tail keywords.
- Moz keyword explorer: This is a keyword research tool for getting the best keywords possible for your content and website.
Keyword research tool free
If you don’t want to spend money on keyword research tools that’s okay. You can try out the following tools that let you search for keywords for free. But it’s always better to go for the paid ones as they give you better results.
- Google Keyword Planner: This is obviously the best keyword research tool you can find for free. You can just access it with an AdWords account.
- Wordstream keyword tool: You can find a lot of keywords based on your targeted niche here.
- Soovle: Let’s your keyword research for multiple streams of websites.
- Ubersuggest: Get a pack load of keywords for free with the Ubersuggest keyword research tool.
- KeywordTool.io: With this tool, you can get your keywords filtered to your preference.
Tools for affiliate marketing keyword research
Affiliate marketing needs a lot of work with keywords. You can work with the ones we have already talked about above.
Usually, you can just go with google keyword planner for getting keywords. Affiliate marketing keywords won’t be that difficult to find. You can get a lot of them quite easily.
Then you can go through google trends to know about the popularity of the keywords as well. For the long-tail keywords, you can go for either ubersuggest or answer the public. Both of these tools are efficient in getting you good keywords for affiliate marketing.
Best keyword research tool for amazon Products Research
Those who are thinking of working specifically with amazon can get a lot of help from this. Here, we have got some of the best keywords research tools for amazon affiliates.
- Helium 10: This is a top choice for many of the Amazon affiliates for getting keywords.
- Sonar: Sonar is a free keyword research tool you can try out for getting better results in amazon SEO.
- Google keyword planner: Well, this is the simplest tool you can find for any keyword research purpose. It works everywhere.
Best keyword research tool for YouTube SEO
The YouTube videos also need some keyword research to get better results on the search engines. So, these are some of the best tools you can use for that purpose.
- Ahrefs: It’s simply the best friend of online marketing for keyword purposes.
- VidIQ: This is a tool meant for YouTube keyword research. So, you can’t go wrong with this.
- TubeBuddy: You can get a lot from this because it’s easy to use and it’s free as well.
Keyword research tool for kindle publishing
You can find a lot of kindle keyword research tools online. They all serve the purpose quite well. You can also go for the same tools you use for amazon keyword research. You can also try out a tool named Publisher rocket that helps you find kindle keywords efficiently. There is another tool called the keyword tool dominator.
Conclusion
There you go, we provided you a complete guideline to keyword research. We tried to keep things simple and not go over all the technical stuff behind it. So, now you know all the basics behind keyword research for SEO. And if you want to learn how to do it then you have got your doors open.