A strong keyword strategy is the guiding force of any SEO strategy. While there are many other elements to consider, your SEO keyword strategy will help you identify the most and least competitive search queries to target in your content.
In this blog, Ignite Visibility’s Senior SEO Strategist, Eric Solomon, will take you through the steps in building an effective keyword strategy for your campaigns.
What We’ll Cover:
- What Keyword Research Is
- Looking at Search Intent – Keyword Research for SEO
- How to Find the Best Keywords for SEO
- What to Do Once You’ve Found Your Keywords
- SEO Keyword Metrics to Consider
- FAQs: Keyword Research for SEO
My Expert Opinion on Keyword Research for SEO
Without keywords as the backbone for your content, you’ll leave rankings to luck when optimizing for SEO. Keywords give your strategies a clear direction and are some of the most integral pieces of the SEO puzzle.
Knowing which keywords to target and when will help you succeed with your efforts as you integrate them into everything from web page and blog content to image alt text and video descriptions. So, what is keyword research for SEO and how can you use it to your advantage?
When conducting keyword research, I recommend using tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to conduct initial research based on your industry targets. Group the different keywords based on which audiences they target, which is where search intent is a valuable consideration.
An Introduction to Keyword Research for SEO
SEO keyword research is an important part of digital marketing. It refers to the process of identifying potential new keywords and analyzing how they might help your brand.
The correct keywords can make or break your digital marketing efforts. If you want to find achievable success, you have to do research to find out which keywords your preferred audience is searching for. Through this process, you can identify words or phrases that are resonating with them and, in turn, are more likely to get you noticed on the SERPs.
The right keywords are essential to driving organic traffic to your site. Learning how to do keyword research correctly will help you understand your searchers’ intent, optimize your content, and improve your paid media strategy.
As keyword strategy continues to evolve into 2024, it’s not just about incorporating as many relevant terms as possible into your content—intent is everything. Today, the best keyword strategy will target terms based on where audiences are throughout the buyer’s journey, with highly specific terms that speak to this intent.
Based on the keywords you select and the intent behind them, you can use them to inform your content strategy to connect with audiences throughout their journeys. The ideal terms will also help you align your strategy with your business goals to get real results, from boosting brand awareness to driving conversions and sales.
The ability to target terms based on user intent is particularly crucial in the “messy middle” of the search journey. Here, you’ll want a keyword strategy that can connect with audiences looking to learn more about the pain points they experience, your solutions, and why your offerings are better than your competitors’. The different types of keywords you target at each stage here will streamline the journey from the top of the funnel to the bottom.
Understanding Search Intent in SEO
When conducting keyword research, it’s crucial to understand the search intent behind queries. For example, what are navigational keywords, and where do they fall in the hierarchy of an SEO keyword strategy? Search queries can be broken down into four distinct categories:
- Informational: Keywords where users are seeking information (e.g., “How do I renew my passport?”).
- Navigational: Keywords where users are trying to reach a specific website (e.g., “Facebook login”).
- Transactional: Keywords that indicate a user’s intent to complete a purchase (e.g., “buy iPhone 13”).
- Commercial: Keywords where users are looking to compare products (e.g., “best laptops 2024”).
By classifying search queries into these categories, you can better match content with user intent.
Optimizing for Zero-Click Searches and Featured Snippets (2024)
In 2024, zero-click searches—where users find answers directly on Google without clicking through to websites—are becoming more common. Optimizing your content for Google’s featured snippets and People Also Ask sections is essential to maintain visibility, even when users don’t visit your site directly. Structured data and clear answers to common questions will help you achieve this.
The Different Types of Keywords
Based on the intent behind them, it’s important to know about the different types of keywords and their place in your keyword strategy.
The following are the primary keyword types to consider when developing an SEO keyword strategy:
Head Terms
One type of term that can drive keyword research for SEO is a head term, which refers to highly popular keywords with high search volume. These keywords are typically very competitive short-tail terms of no more than one or two words.
It’s often best to incorporate head terms into your SEO keyword research if you want to reach people at the top of the funnel and boost brand awareness. People may simply want more information around a broader topic here with vague educational intent.
Long-Tail Keywords
When you want to get more specific with intent and connect with people at specific stages of the customer journey, you’ll want to target long-tail keywords when conducting SEO topic research.
Long-tail keywords are longer than head terms, usually comprising three or more terms or entire phrases. These keywords tend to be more specific and subsequently have lower search volume than head terms, but they’re essential for maximizing your reach in search engines.
You’ll target long-tail terms at every stage in your keyword strategy, from informational keywords toward the beginning of the journey to transactional keywords toward the bottom.
Seed Keywords
To help you give you ideas for keywords in SEO research and development, you would target initial seed words, which could include short- or long-tail keywords that help you find more long-tail keywords based on a central idea. These could include keyword research questions or general phrases.
Ideally, you would start with a basic term with a specific kind of intent, which could help you find similar long-tail terms that appeal to the same intent. However, you can also start with broad terms to give you a variety of intent-driven topics.
For instance, using a tool like Answer The Public, you could enter a single seed keyword that will give you more specific ideas based on what people are looking for around a particular topic.
LSI Keywords
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords are simply terms that are related to a central base keyword. These terms give search engines like Google more context about website content.
These terms are likely to naturally appear within content that includes certain keywords. For example, if you write a blog about “basketball skills,” you might have some related terms like “dribble” and “pass.”
Seasonal Keywords
Seasonal keywords refer to search terms that fluctuate in popularity based on the time of year (e.g., “Christmas gifts”). If your business benefits from seasonal traffic, target these keywords during relevant times of the year.
Negative Keywords
Just as you want to target as many relevant keywords as possible with your SEO research and development efforts, you will also want to avoid targeting irrelevant terms, or negative keywords.
Although negative keywords typically work as part of pay-per-click (PPC) strategies, SEO campaigns are also using them to help trim excess terms for leaner, more refined strategies. SEO experts also use negative keywords to avoid terms with irrelevant search intent when targeting users at specific stages of the journey.
One keyword strategy example could entail writing a web page discussing “best hotels in [city],” you might not want to target other terms modifying that one in irrelevant searches, such as “cheapest” or “last minute,” reserving those for other more specifically related content.
How to Find the Best Keywords for SEO
To find the best keywords, it’s essential to start by understanding your audience’s needs and behaviors. A simple but effective strategy is to ask questions like:
- Who is searching for pizza?
- What types of pizza are people searching for?
- Where are potential pizza customers located?
Once you have these questions, you can dive deeper into keyword research using tools.
Tools to Help You Find the Best Keywords for SEO
As of 2024, the leading tools for keyword research are:
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is great for backlink and organic traffic analysis in addition to keyword research for SEO. Ultimately, it’s a great solution for helping track your overall SEO research and development efforts extending beyond your keyword strategy.
Semrush
Semrush is a comprehensive tool for keyword gap analysis and content research. It offers plenty of tools to help you monitor your website’s performance, find the best keywords for SEO, assist with SEO topic research based on competitive analysis, and perform other tasks related to your campaigns.
For help with every aspect of your SEO campaigns, you may want to implement this all-in-one solution.
Moz
Moz is another easy-to-use comprehensive tool for SEO, including SEO keyword research and much more. This platform includes a site crawler, performance tracker, and a keyword research tool, along with content audits, link research, and analytics and reporting capabilities.
Again, this tool works well for initial research and overall performance monitoring, helping you with every element to build the best keyword strategy.
Google Keyword Planner
For basic keyword research, you can use Google’s free Keyword Planner tool. This solution will give you many keyword strategy examples to give you some ideas, with metrics for all keywords such as volume and competition.
It’s also a great tool to help you select keywords for PPC ads.
Google Autocomplete
For some initial keyword research when exploring basic ideas around specific topics, you can just go into Google and enter the base term on Google. In the autocomplete results, you can see some of the other popular searches for related terms.
However, keep in mind that these are often limited to local searches, but this could help indicate who to target in your area for local SEO campaigns.
People Also Ask
After performing a search on Google, you can take a look at the “People also ask” FAQ section on the first page of results, which will help with keyword research for questions that people often ask about a certain topic.
These topics could be ideal to cover in blog posts and primary web pages, as answering them could help you appear in their results.
These tools help you identify high-volume and relevant keywords to target in your SEO strategy.
How to Perform a Competitor Analysis
One of the best strategies for staying ahead in your industry is to analyze your competitors’ keywords. Tools like Semrush and Ahrefs allow you to see the keywords your competitors are ranking for, giving you insights into what you’re missing.
The following are some basic steps to follow when analyzing your competitors’ performance as you work to build the best keyword strategy:
- Log into a tool like Semruch or Ahrefs and open up your competitor analysis tool.
- See what keywords your competitor is ranking for around specific topics.
- Compare rankings to your existing keyword targets and those of other competitors.
- Look at the competitor’s website, including their blog, and see if there are any relevant topics they aren’t covering.
- Continue to do keyword research around content gaps that you could fill.
- Determine if there are any high-value keywords you can target with lower competition.
Tips for Analyzing Keyword Metrics
Understanding how keywords perform is just as important as finding them. Here are some key metrics to keep in mind:
Search Volume
Search volume refers to how often a keyword is searched within a given timeframe. Generally, higher search volumes mean more competition. Finding keywords with moderate search volumes can often provide the best opportunities for organic traffic.
Keyword Difficulty
This metric measures how difficult it is to rank for a specific keyword. High keyword difficulty indicates fierce competition. Focus on a mix of high and low-difficulty keywords to optimize your chances of ranking.
Search Intent
In addition to specific metrics, consider the reason why people are entering each query to prioritize and organize keywords. For example, you’ll want to create informational blog posts based on keyword research for questions around base topics, while people entering terms like “best places to buy” are in the market for a potential solution. You can also rename metrics to fit in with each stage of the buyer’s journey, from the awareness to the decision stage.
In 2024, search intent has become even more critical in keyword research. Instead of solely focusing on search volume and difficulty, you must analyze patterns in user intent. Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush now offer features to understand how different keywords map to different stages of the buyer’s journey, from awareness to decision-making.
How Do You Decide What Keywords to Target?
With the answer to “What is keyword research for SEO?” you might wonder how to select keywords for SEO based on your campaign’s unique needs.
There are a few key ways to find the best keywords for SEO, including:
Grouping By Place in Buyer Decisions
Begin by grouping keywords into specific places based on users’ position along the buyer’s journey. Specifically, collect informational, commercial, transactional, an navigational keywords and place them in either the awareness, consideration, or decision stages of the journey.
Based on these placements, you can better determine the intent behind each keyword and align them with your goals. For instance, informational and navigational keywords are often great for building brand awareness, while commercial keywords can persuade people to turn to your brand over competitors.
Finally, keywords at the bottom of the funnel will help you meet conversion and sales goals
Topic Clustering and Avoiding Keyword Cannibalization
To avoid keyword cannibalization (where multiple pages on your site compete for the same keyword), use topic clusters and pillar pages. These strategies help organize your content and ensure you rank for broader terms while maintaining depth on specific topics. Pillar pages serve as comprehensive hubs for major topics, while supporting content (the cluster) targets specific subtopics.
Not only can pillar pages and clustering help prevent cannibalization, but these strategies will also ultimately help you establish industry authority. The more topics and subtopics you cover, the more you’ll dominate rankings while gaining credibility in your audience’s eyes.
Voice Search SEO in 2024
As of 2024, voice search is responsible for 30-50% of online searches, particularly for local searches. Optimizing for voice search requires targeting long-tail, conversational keywords, as users tend to speak queries differently than they type them. Integrate more question-based and natural language keywords to capture this traffic.
Now That You Found Your Keywords… What Do You Do?
Once you’ve identified the right keywords, you need to organize them and analyze their effectiveness. Tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and SurferSEO help assess metrics such as search volume, competition, and keyword difficulty.
You’ll also want to check the SERPs for your selected keywords to verify the user intent behind them. Ensure that your keyword strategy aligns with Google’s evolving algorithms, which now place more emphasis on content quality and user experience rather than solely keyword optimization.
With updates like Google’s Helpful Content Update and Core Web Vitals, SEO strategies must now focus heavily on content quality, page experience, and usability. Core Web Vitals measure factors such as loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. Optimizing for these metrics ensures your website ranks higher and provides a better user experience.
How to Track and Update Keywords
Covering more of what to do after keyword research, you must effectively track and measure your campaigns, making any updates as needed to get the best possible results.
To keep track of your keywords once implemented, you can use analytical tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 (GA4). These and other tools will help you monitor rankings and fluctuations in real time.
When measuring the results against your goals, you should decide when to make any necessary adjustments to your strategy. If keywords are underperforming, for instance, you may want to incorporate them into more high-value content. At the same time, you might determine that certain keywords aren’t worth optimizing for based on minimal search volume or intense competition.
As you monitor your keyword strategy, there are some pitfalls to avoid, such as:
- Targeting Too Many Difficult Keywords: If you’re targeting a large number of keywords with too much competition, you may struggle to get anywhere with them in your rankings. Try to go after only the most important keywords to your campaign or target low-hanging fruit terms, which could include valuable long-tail keywords that competitors aren’t targeting as heavily.
- Cannibalization: Another risk is cannibalization, when multiple pages targeting the same term attempt to rank at once. Superficially, it might seem like a good idea to dominate results with as many pages as possible, but this could actually lead Google to punish your pages if it’s not sure which to rank highest. Developing pillar pages and plenty of other pages covering subtopics can help you prevent cannibalization. You should also ensure multiple pages don’t target the same term when possible.
- Stuffing: One of the biggest mistakes that SEOs can make today with keyword implementation is stuffing. This method entails integrating as many instances of a keyword as possible into content in ways that are unnatural and negatively impact readability. While this black-hat SEO technique used to work in the early days of SEO, it comes across as spammy to search engine crawlers and users alike, potentially hurting your rankings. Make sure keyword instances complement the surrounding content rather than impeding it.
FAQs: Keyword Research for SEO
Have some questions beyond, “What is keyword research for SEO?” Get some answers to some popular questions about keyword research for SEO with the FAQs below:
1. How often should I update my keyword research?
Keyword trends evolve continuously, which is why you should know what to do after keyword research begins. It’s crucial to update your research periodically, especially if you’re not seeing results or if changes occur within your business or industry. Some good times to revisit your keyword strategy include:
- After Google algorithm updates
- When launching new products
- During seasonal trends or business shifts
- When updating old content
2. Which is the best tool for SEO keyword research?
Not sure exactly how to do keyword research for SEO? There are a ton of really good SEO keyword research tools, including the free Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, AnswerThePublic, and SpyFu. Which tool you use will depend on your goals and personal preferences.
3. How many keywords should I use for SEO?
There isn’t a secret number when it comes to how many keywords you should use to improve your SERP ranking. Google favors quality over quantity, so just be sure to use them naturally throughout your content and avoid keyword stuffing. Ultimately, knowing how to select keywords for SEO is more important than knowing how many.
4. What are seasonal keywords and how can they benefit me?
Seasonal keywords are words or phrases that are specific to a certain time of the year. Examples include “winter coats,” “back to school supplies,” “Christmas trees,” or “beach gear.”
You can use them to benefit your business if a particular season is more lucrative to you. For example, a retailer that sells winter coats is going to thrive when using seasonal keywords like “winter coats” or “ski jackets” in the winter when people are looking for those things. In the summer, the seasonal keyword “winter coats” probably won’t perform as well because no one is looking for a winter coat when it’s 100 degrees outside.
5. How do Google updates affect my keyword strategy?
Google updates will significantly affect your keyword strategy. It’s best to keep up to date on Google’s constant algorithm evolution and adjust your strategy accordingly.
6. How do I handle keywords for multilingual or global websites?
Multi-lingual websites are going to need a slightly different approach to keyword research. You should be sure to conduct the appropriate research using tools that support each different language you want to target. Also, be sure to stay informed about regional search trends and adjust your strategy when necessary.
7. How do negative keywords play a role in SEO?
Negative keywords are generally used more in PPC advertising than organic SEO work. However, that doesn’t mean they can’t have an impact on your organic traffic as well. To counteract their negative impact, take certain steps, such as avoiding keyword cannibalization, improving your user experience, and developing a strong content strategy.
Ready to Take Your Keyword Research for SEO to the Next Level?
By now, you should have a solid understanding of keyword research for SEO. Keep in mind that search algorithms evolve and so should your keyword strategy. By integrating the latest trends in voice search, zero-click searches, and Core Web Vitals, you can ensure your SEO strategy remains competitive in 2024.
Ignite Visibility has a team of expert digital marketing professionals ready to leverage the power of keyword research to help businesses improve their search engine results rankings.
Through our search engine optimization services for keyword research and more, we can help you with:
- On-page optimization
- Boost organic rankings
- Customize SEO
- Maximize ROI
Our expert strategists work closely with clients to understand their unique needs, whether it’s creating optimal content or catering to user intent, we handle every aspect of SEO to ensure our clients receive optimal results.
Ready to get started? Reach out now!
