Why Is Keyword Research So Important?
Keyword research is important for so many reasons. Your website may be ranking highly for specific keywords as it stands, but if you’re not seeing the fruits of your labour… Well, you could be targeting the wrong ones. Or, you might be at the very beginning when it comes to keyword research and need a little direction.
Don’t worry, I gotcha.
What is keyword research?
Think of keyword research as a bit like being an investigator. You need to both identify keywords that relate to your business and target audiences, but also find ‘good’ keywords that bring traffic and a little less competition. Unless you have the power behind your SEO and content marketing, targeting keywords with stiff competition will have little impact.
So, why is keyword research so important?
Alongside link building and content marketing, keyword research is just one element of your website’s success. By using effective keyword research tools you can determine specific topics, phrases and keywords that can drive traffic to your site.
Every time you make a Google search, millions of results are shown, ranking websites accordingly. Depending on your search, your results will narrow down, a bit like an online catalogue. I like to explain searches a little like this:
If you were to search “shoes” on Google, you’d be there forever trying to find what you’re looking for. So you need to narrow it down a bit. By the time you make a search, it’s more than likely that you’re already aware of what you’re looking for.
Say… “black shoes”, well that’s a little better. But when you know you’re looking for trainers, why not narrow it down accordingly? “Black running trainers” - Getting there! If you’re anything like me, you might stick to a couple of brands you know you can trust… Equalling:
“Black Nike running trainers” ta dah! And why not whack on your size at the end for good measure?
That was easy, wasn’t it? Those simple words strung together make a phrase, picking up each keyword as a collective.
Finding keywords with low competition
There are plenty of tools around to help you find keywords with low competition, such as AdWord’s Keyword Planner. Although the competition level for each keyword is based on the number of advertisers bidding on keywords it can provide a good indication of how much general competition exists i.e. the number of sites targeting those keywords.
Although looking at the ‘competition’ of a keyword in GKP is useful for a quick idea of the competition, it doesn’t really provide us with enough information just yet. After all, let’s face it, there would be little point in targeting keywords with such high SEO difficult that your site will never rank.
KWFinder measures SEO difficulty based on the following SEO factors belonging to the sites already ranking for those keywords:
Authority and Trust: The topical authority and trust your domain and pages have accumulated is a major factor in determining Google search rankings.
Backlinks: the number of external links passing link juice to that site (links without the nofollow attribute)
Facebook shares: The number of Facebook shares for the URL targeting the same keyword.
Keywords with a difficulty rating of 0-9 are regarded as effortless and keywords with a difficulty of 50 or more are classed as hard or (near enough!) impossible.
Understanding what you’re competing against
When assessing keyword difficulty it can also be useful to examine who appears in SERPs and in what format. Like KWFinder, Ahrefs keyword tool also shows keyword difficulty by assessing Domain Rank, Page or URL Rank, and backlinks. However, with Ahrefs you can also view what type of results exist in SERPs.
Feeling confused when it comes to keywords?
Keyword research isn’t just about finding words that your audience may be searching for, but more about finding quality keywords that are going to make a positive impact on your site.
If you’re feeling a little perplexed when it comes to keyword research, get in touch with our team!