What is the purpose of keyword research?

SEO Keyword Research

Keyword Research is the first and foremost step to performing SEO. One can argue that Keyword Research is a must for any SEO campaign to succeed, although it is still possible for SEO campaigns to produce results without doing Keyword Research.

There are 3 main criteria for selecting keywords:

Search Volume
SEO Difficulty
Relevancy

Keywords with high Search Volume usually possess a higher SEO Difficulty and Cost-per-Click (CPC) as everyone is trying to rank for those same keywords, and vice versa for Keywords with low Search Volume.

Keywords	Low Search Volume	High Search Volume
SEO Difficulty	Low	High
Cost-per-Click	Low	High

What is the purpose of Keyword Research?

The purpose of performing keyword research is to identify words and phrases that are utilized by users for their searches on Google and other search engines. You can then optimize your site for the identified words and phrases to put yourself in front of your target audience.

Think of Keywords as Goods on Auction.

Keywords with higher search volume are more desired keywords and hence, usually command a more budget and effort to rank for. As more websites attempt to rank for the same keywords, competition increases and it becomes harder to rank for the same keywords.

Types of SEO Keywords

Keywords used by users in their search queries indicates their intent.

There is an objective behind every search performed on a Search Engine. Some users are looking for information, while others are looking to buy specific products online. Keywords can be organized into 3 categories to identify the users’ search intent.

Informational Keywords

These keywords are used when users are simply searching for information. They are generally higher in search volume and often adopts the form of questions.

E.g. What is Inflation? How does Recession affect us?

Webpages that ranks for Informational Keywords are designed to educate the users.

Navigational Keywords

These keywords are only applicable for established terms. They could be name of brands, products, or services.

E.g. DBS Bank, Banking services

Users already know what they want and are usually evaluating available offers in the market.

Transactional Keywords

These keyword are used when the user is ready to take an action such as making a purchase. As users have already done their research and made a decision at this point, Transactional Keywords generally have lower search volume.

E.g. Fujifilm X-T4 for sale, cheap Basketball

Additionally, there exists Long-tail Keywords that are longer variations of your standard keywords.

Standard Keyword E.g. ATM
Long-tail Keyword E.g. How to withdraw money from ATM?

Long-tail Keywords targets specific intent and hence, they are generally low in search volume. These makes them a lot less competitive to rank for and helps to reach out to the target users.

Use Existing Tools

There are a lot of existing tools in the market from renowned brands that are amazing for Keyword Research.

These tools are designed to support users in their SEO endeavors. The very content on this page that you are reading is written with the help of some of these tools.

I will write a blog posts on the specific tools I am using. The point to make here, is to encourage the use of existing keyword research tool to make your life easier. Most of these tools offers free limited trials and some of them are absolutely free to use.

Disclaimer; some of the data, such as Search Volume, provided by the Keyword Research Tools / Planners are not 100% accurate. No Research Tools / Planners can offer data that are 100% accurate.

But please do not let this deter you from trying out Keyword Research Tools / Planners are their data are still pretty accurate, helps you to organize and track your Keyword Ranking efforts.

How to do SEO Keyword Research?

This is my personal practice for doing keyword research.

Step 1: Follow Marketing Objectives

What are the established marketing objectives? If you haven’t already establish your marketing objective, SEO may not be the right tool for you. If that is the case, reading this page might be a better idea – Digital Marketing Introduction.

If you want to increase relevant web traffic, you should establish thought leadership on a relevant topic. Your keywords should be something like “How to …” or “Why is …”.

If your focus is to generate immediate sales, you will need to rank for keywords such as “buy … online” or “cheapest …” where users are ready to make a purchase.

Click here to re-visit Keyword Intent.

Step 2: Understand your Market

Analyze your offering and competitors. Identify the common discussion topics to get an idea of the keywords to go for. One way to do this is to adopt the buyers’ perspective. Asks the questions you would ask when you are looking for your offering, and compare the common features against competitors.

E.g. queries for a Telco company:

Can my phone work without a SIM Card?
Who is the fastest Internet Service Provider?
Can I use Whatsapp without a SIM Card?
Cheapest Data Plan

From the above, I can identify several keywords relevant to a Telco company – SIM Card, Internet Service Provider, & Data Plan. These are all good keywords to show up for.

Step 3: Finding the right Keywords

Utilize a Keyword Research tool to explore relevant search queries based on the keywords identified in the previous step. There are plenty of free tools online that does the job despite the limitations for free use.

You should be able to view the Search Volume and SEO difficulty of the identified keywords and suggested search queries.

Step 4: Choosing the right Keywords

As an example, I generated some keyword ideas with the Ubersuggest SEO tool for the keyword “cheap data plan” for Singapore region (Yes, keyword performs differently for different regions).

Now choose the keywords based your objectives.

If you have the budget and want to generate immediate traffic flow, you can try to compete with the top websites and try to rank for keywords like “cheap data plan singapore”; that has high search volume and high SEO difficulty.

But if you are working with a tight budget, go for long-tailed keywords such as “how much data a month do i need”, that answers a potential question and build your ranking for the particular topic instead.

As a rule of thumb, I would recommend keywords with low SEO difficulty to build confidence. I have seen people giving up on SEO as they do not see the results, but they failed to understand that SEO is a long-term strategy.

So go for lower SEO difficulties and see your website appear on the SERP within a shorter timeframe to motivate yourself to do even better!

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take before my website appears on the first page?

This depends on your competitors and quality of your content. Hence, no one can really answer this question as new content revolving around your keyword is constantly generated.

Using my Google Knowledge Panel Guide page as an example:

I choose to rank for the keyphrase “How to get your own Google Knowledge Panel”, which has a SEO difficulty rating of 5 and 1-10 monthly search volume (based on Ubersuggest). Statistically speaking, this is not hard to rank for.

It took me 3 weeks to be within the top 10 pages on Google after publishing the web page.

After 3 more months of editing and addition of content, I’m finally able to reach the 2-3 page on Google (depending on where you are searching from). So if you google “How to get your own Google Knowledge Panel”, you should be able to see this website on the second or third page of the SERP.

Hope this example is able to provide a reference to aid in your SEO planning.

What are the best free Keyword Research Tools?

I would recommend Ubersuggest and Ahrefs, these two provides limited free usage without the need to create an account with them.

Moz and Semrush are good too, but you have to create an account with them to utilize their limited free service.

I would strongly recommend the use of multiple tools to crosscheck on the accuracy of the statistics for the keywords.

Having difficulties following the guide?

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