Keyword research is the process of coming up with a list of keywords that people search for. It is a key component to any SEO strategy, as the right keywords can drive relevant traffic and help you rank higher in search engine results pages SERPs.
When you conduct keyword research, you want to find keywords that are both popular and relevant to your audience. This will ensure that your website shows up in search results when someone is looking for a product or service like yours, and that you are getting the most value out of each visitor to your site.
The most important aspect of keyword research tool is understanding what your target market is searching for. This will help you determine which content to create, and how to write that content so it is optimized for search engines SEO. The best way to do this is by asking your customer-facing colleagues what terms they use when talking with customers or prospects, as well as common questions they get asked.
Another important aspect of keyword research is discovering what your competitors are ranking for. Knowing which organic keywords your competition is ranking for will help you identify opportunities to steal traffic and customers from them. This can be done by using a tool like Ahrefs’ Keyword Gap report, which finds keywords that your competitors are ranking for but that you do not.
Once you have a list of keywords, it’s time to start optimizing your website to rank for those keywords. This involves making sure your title tags and meta descriptions are properly optimized, as well as ensuring that your website is structured in a way that makes it easy for search engines to crawl and index your pages.
There are many tools you can use to conduct keyword research, but some are more powerful than others. The free version of WordStream’s Keyword Magic tool, for example, allows you to filter by industry so that you only see keywords that are relevant to your business, as well as search volume and competitiveness data so that you can prioritize the keywords that are most likely to drive qualified traffic.
Moz’s Keyword Explorer is also a great tool for performing keyword research. It allows you to search for a specific keyword and see all the related information you need, including monthly search volume, difficulty, and CTR. It also shows you the top Google results for that keyword, and whether or not there is a featured snippet.
Aside from the functionality of these tools, you should also consider how user-friendly they are. Some are designed to be as user-friendly as possible, while others are more complex and may require some training to use. Lastly, you should also consider what features are most important for your needs. For example, if you are doing PPC keyword research, you will probably need to be able to filter by country and language. This will allow you to optimize your ads for the most effective targeting.