Keyword Research For SEO – Where to Start and Why

At the start of any SEO campaign, solid keyword research is a must. This article is meant to outline keyword research for SEO, where to start and why. There is a plethora of information floating around and many business owners these days have at least passive experience with SEO, however, I see the same mistakes over and over again when it comes to keyword research. Many people are most concerned with the most obvious keywords, while those may produce often times there are many long-tailed variations that you can approach and get faster results. Also, competition is a really important factor when deciding where to put your focus. Let’s dive into this topic and hope that it makes sense!

Keyword Research – Consider the Competition

Generally, the highest volume keywords, meaning monthly search volume, are some of the most competitive on the web. While of course, you are setting out on an SEO campaign to get as much exposure as possible, long-tailed variations can be much less competitive and if you glue enough of them together the search volume may be more than the single highly competitive keywords that you think would be best.

For the sake of example, a root keyword may be “electrician san diego”, which is bound to be highly competitive, whereas a long-tailed variation like “best electrician in san diego” may be a bit less competitive and have similar search volume. As an SEO Company, we go after competitive search terms all the time, but we have endless tools and thousands of hours of experience to do this. On top of that, we have clients sometimes working with large marketing budgets to go after those competitive keywords and search terms. For a novice SEO, focusing on long-tailed variations may be a much less daunting task than trying to approach super competitive search terms that may require a lot of knowledge, tools, and money to get results.

Keyword Research – Getting Ideas for Keywords

While there are tons of keyword research tools at your disposal, as an agency we often times use Long Tail Pro, Ahrefs, and a few other tools to complete this task. If you are a new SEO or don’t have a budget for expensive SEO tools, this list of free keyword research tools, compiled by the team at Ahrefs is a great place to start.

In addition to these free tools, just Google something and some of the more popular keywords are there at your disposal (see image). Using recommended searches via the Google search box and then suggested searches listed at the bottom can be a really powerful tool when deciding what keywords you want to approach with your SEO campaign.

Free and Paid Keyword Research Tools

If you are just getting started, Google Keyword Planner is a good free place to start pulling data. Paid tools like Long Tail Pro usually give you more data and better keyword suggestions, which is why we use them for client campaigns.

Keyword Metrics That Matter

Once you have a list of keyword ideas, these are the data points we check before choosing which ones to target:

• Search volume: how many people search the term each month. If there is next to no search volume, the keyword probably is not worth the effort. A keyword with lower volume can still be the better pick, depending on your SEO goals.
• Competition score: many tools give each keyword a competition or difficulty score. Pay close attention to it. If you are new to SEO, stick with low competition keywords at first.
• CPC (cost per click): most tools estimate what a click would cost in Google Ads. This helps with budgeting if you run SEO and PPC side by side, and a much higher CPC is usually a sign the keyword is more competitive.

Check Your Keyword Data in More Than One Tool

Keyword data can vary a lot from one tool to the next. When you can, run your list through a few different tools before you settle on the keywords that make the most sense for your business.

Map Each Keyword to Content

Every keyword you go after needs content behind it. Start by checking which pages and posts you already have that could be adapted for your chosen keywords. For the keywords with no content yet, put together a content marketing schedule and get writing.

Wrapping it up

Not unlike anything else in life, a solid plan is a must to make it a successful endeavor. SEO is no different and spending the time to facilitate a solid keyword plan will ultimately dictate whether or not your campaign is a success. Hopefully, some of the tools and techniques listed will help with your SEO efforts!