Sunday 10 January 2016

Keyword Research Tips For SEO Using Best Keyword Search Tools


Despite good blog content, many bloggers fail to rank their post higher in the search engine results. There could be several reasons behind it. However, one of the most common reasons is the use of wrong keywords or the use of right keywords in wrong places. In other words, bloggers fail to conduct right keyword research.

Conducting keyword research is a sure shot method of improving search engine ranking. Keyword planning requires a lot of practice. The more you practice, the better you become in keyword research. It not only helps you use right keywords but also enables you to use the right keywords in right places. 

Inability to use keywords effectively in a blog post is one of the reasons that most of the bloggers fail to rank higher in the search engine results.

In my previous article, I discussed some amazing tips to create a successful blog and I pointed out the importance of identifying the opportunity. You ability to pass on your blog content to the right audience is an opportunity in itself. Keyword planning enables bloggers to reach out to their targeted audience.

There is no use writing great content unless you know how to reach out to your ideal audience. If you know how to research keywords, you will find it easier to reach out to your targeted audience. Keyword planning is one of the greatest methods of targeting the right audience.

If you know how to search right keywords you can significantly improve the ranking of your pages in the search results. A keyword or keywords are the phrases or a single word that users use to find things on the search engines. People use different keyword phrases to search same things on the web. 

For example, if you are looking for equipment to lose weight what keyword phrases you will use. You could use a variety of words or group of words such as weight loss equipment; best equipment to lose weight, cheap weight loss equipment, or simply weight loss machines.

Therefore, the first thing that you will have to do is to identify the best keywords your targeted audience uses. This is the most difficult part of search engine optimization.

To make the task easier, there are several keyword planners available online that you can use free of cost. If you can afford you can go for the paid ones. Some of the best free keyword planners include Google keyword planner, Ubbersuggest, KeywordDiscovery, MajesticSEO, KeywordSpy, Bing Webmaster Toolbox, Moz Keyword Planner etcetera. The majority of these keyword research tools are available free of cost with limited functionality.

You can find many more paid as well as free tools that you can use for keyword research. However, the most important thing is to use keyword planner to your advantage.

Let’s check out in this article how to research keywords to optimize your blog post using free keyword planners.

We will use this article as an example to gain in-depth understanding of the concept step by step

Tips to Conduct Keyword research

Find your targeted audience


For example, this article primarily focuses on targeting users looking for keyword research tips. In other words, the bloggers who want to learn how to use keywords for SEO. The users who want to optimize their content for search engine results. So your first task is to identify the right keyword for your blog post.

Search keywords your audience might be using

To identify the keywords, you can either use your assumptions or you can use the available keyword planning tools. However, if you will use hypothesis along with right keyword planning tools you will get amazing results.

There are two ways to conduct this keyword research. First, you can use Google Keyword Planner tool to get keyword ideas. In this method, you simply type the main keyword term such as in this case Keyword. The Google keyword Planner tool will provide you several ideas related to this keyword. 

The tool will show you average monthly searches as well as the level of competition. The competition column shows the competition in terms of number of Advertisers competing for the keyword, not in terms of research engine results. Since Google Keyword planner aims at facilitating the task of advertisers to find right keyword to run their Ad campaign, therefore, it is important to use the tool wisely. If you do not find your ideal keyword in the suggested keyword ideas you can use the alternate method.


For this article, your first task is to identify the right keywords that you can use in this article. You can brainstorm or use your common sense and come up with some keywords and keyword phrases such as Keyword, keyword planning, blog post keywords, how to use keywords etc. Then open Google Keyword planner and enter these keywords to know how many people use these keywords to search things on the search engines. You will find the following results:

Keyword research tips


As you can see in the results the keywords you have planned to use in the article are trailing in terms of monthly searches. Your targeted audience is not using these keywords in large numbers on the search engines. 

However, there are some keywords that can be used despite low monthly searches as they will help in ranking higher in the search results faster. The long tail keyword like How to use keyword can be used as a keyword for this article.

If the keywords you are planning to use in your post are not used by your targeted audience you must conduct a Keyword search to find the right keywords.

Conduct keyword searches to identify the most appropriate keywords that your audience uses


Now your task is to use the right keywords that can help you reach out to the maximum number of readers using your keyword. You should not use the word “Keyword” as it is a general word and thus it is highly competitive as well in terms of page ranking. If you use general keywords in your article or blog post you stand a little chance of ranking higher in the search results.

Since your objective is to reach out to the right audience rather than a large of a number of web-surfers, therefore, you must use the most appropriate keywords. The keyword search tools like Ubbersuggest and keywordDiscovery will help you identify the other keywords users generally use to search the word Keyword. It will help you come up with some better suggestions such as Keyword Search, Keyword research, Keyword planning, keyword analysis etcetera. If you run these suggestions on Google Keyword planner you will find the following results.

Keyword research


Now the number of monthly keyword searches has increased significantly and this seems to be your targeted audience. However, there seems to a problem with using the term Keyword Search or Keyword Research as a keyword in the post. Users might be using these keywords to search something else on the web such as keyword research tools, keyword search software, keyword search meaning etc. Therefore, you will have to further refine this keyword.

Refine your keyword search


Since the objective of this blog post is to share keyword research tips, therefore, it is better to further refine the keyword. You can also use Google Search to identify the words that you can use before or after the term Keyword research as you see in the screenshot.

Keyword search tips


Finally, the best keywords with medium competition and high traffic that you can use are Keyword research, Keyword research tips, Keyword search tips, keyword planning and long tail keywords such as how to use keywords, how to search keywords and how to research keywords. 

Since it is not a good idea to use a large number of keyword in an article, therefore, you should ideally use 3 to 5 keywords in a post. Now let's have a look at what we have found.

Keyword Planning


This keyword combination includes short tail as well as long tail keywords. More importantly, it includes a mix of Keywords that can help you reach out to your targeted audience as well as rank higher in the search results faster for long tail or low traffic keywords.

The Blogger Platform allows users to use a maximum of 20 keywords in a page and 2000 keywords in a single blog. Although, it is a good idea to target a single keyword to optimize your blog post, however, using 3 to 5 keywords will enable you to identify which keyword is performing well in the search results. You can easily remove the keywords later that you find are not performing well in the search results. 

You can use Keyword Position SEO tool to check you page ranking for a particular keyword. Depending on your position you can add or remove keyword to rank higher in the search results. 

There are two advantages of using appropriate keywords in your article. First, it will help you to appear in your targeted audience’s search results. Secondly, you will be able to avoid unnecessary competition by using the most appropriate keywords.

If you use only Keyword Research as the keyword for this blog post you will have to compete with a large number of competitors. 

For example, if you type the term Keyword Research you will find more than 10 million results. On the other hand, if you type the term “keyword research tips” on Google Search engine you will find only 5 million search results. Therefore, you should always use combinations of keywords that can help to rank higher in search results.
  
The chart below shows the steps we used to conduct this Keyword research.

Keyword research tips


While using keywords in your article, you should also take into consideration the keyword density. High keyword density can adversity impact your keyword optimization efforts. Ideally, your keyword density should not be more than 3%. It should be anywhere between 1 to 3%. 

However, there is no hard and fast rule for keyword density as Google advice to focus on quality content rather than stuffing content with keywords.

It is better to focus on long tail keywords and low competition keywords. Long tail keywords are usually less competitive. One of the advantages of using low long tail keywords is that it enables your post to rank higher in search engine results faster.

Use the keyword in right places to get best results. If possible, you should use the keyword in the title of your post, headlines and at the end of the article. Do not forget to optimize images, graphs and infographics using alt key. Moreover, you must also use the Keyword terms in you Meta description and permalink of your blog post. 

However, it is important to note that there is no substitute for quality content. If you know how to use a keyword in an article, you will be able to make the best use of your quality content. If you are a victim of wrong Keyword SEO check out these 10 signs.

The keyword research tips boil down to following points


1.      Do not use general keyword terms unless you own a high authority domain
2.      You should not use highly competitive keywords if you own a small website or blog
3.      Focus on a few keywords rather than using a large number of keywords
4.      Use the keyword that your targeted audience actually use to search things on the web
5.      Do not compromise with the content quality while planning for keyword research
6.      Do not use the keyword term excessively in your blog post
7.      Use short tail as well as long tail keywords in your article.
8.      Use the keywords in the right places to generate desired results
9.      Use keywords to help search engine identify content of your blog rather than deceiving search engines
10.   start your keyword research with assumptions and end with identification of right keyword term
11.   It is better to target a small number of right customers rather than driving useless traffic to your blog 

If you find this article informative, please feel free to share it with others. what other keyword SEO technique do you use to search right keywords, please share with us in the comment box. 



7 comments:

  1. Keyword research is important part in SEO. Nice information about keyword research tips.
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    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Joy for taking out time to comment.

      Delete
  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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