What is Keyword Research Analysis? 

The need for a site to rank high in the Search engines has enabled Keyword research and its analysis to continue to remain with marketers.   Hence marketers always look for the search terms people use to enable them better answer questions to meet their needs through their content or posts.

The intent behind the search terms people put into the search engines has also not ceased to be important.

Let’s say you have in mind to write on a particular topic and subtopics.  Put that search term into google or yahoo and bing, amazon, and in the case of video, youtube.   The results that come up in relation to those terms, may reveal related searches being made on your topic.  You can then use these search results to write your posts etc. and to provide searchers with the required service, information, or product.

There is also the need to devise a keyword research process to use. 

Steps to perform Keyword Research

The first step used in the keyword search is brainstorming then some of the words are put into the Google search bar. These are known as seed terms.

From this, come search results pages.  These can also be put into the search bar one after the other for more search results and more resultant Keywords.

So for your post, you can use various variations of the same term or phrase through your post.

The various types of Keywords

Keywords are of various types namely:

• Short tail – 1 or 2 words
• Medium tail  – 1 to 3 words terms, and
• long tail – made up of four or more words. 

You can generate long-tail keywords by adding more words to a search phrase.  For example, put into Google search a three-word phrase.  Give it some seconds to load and note the results that come up.  Add some more words to it and see the results that come up.  You can see that with a little effort more keywords can be obtained from the initial seed keyword you imputed.  You must analyse the keywords to see how best to use them in your post.

A post should be written in such a way that the words flow naturally within the text and should be relevant to what is being written about. This is where latent semantic keywords come in.

The use of Latent Semantic Keywords (LSI)  

These are the related words that give meaning to the keywords already used.  Use the latent semantic keyword tool for this purpose.

Sometimes you may want more information on the keyword chosen like the number of searches a month, traffic potential, etc.  Another free tool you can use is the Google Keyword Planner. 

Google keyword planner has now been incorporated into the Google Adwords tool.  You’ll need your Google account to access the Google ads account.   

• You will be asked to set up an Adwords campaign. 
• Go through the steps, and create a hypothetical campaign.  
• Then select a billing method, time zone, and currency.

Create Account without a Campaign – Google Adwords

Alternatively,  it can be accessed without setting up an Adwords campaign.  Look for the ‘create an account without a campaign’ option.  You do this by readjusting your browser to full screen for that option.  Click on it and submit.

Next, click on tools and settings then Planning

Inside the tool, select ‘discover new keywords’.  Type in a keyword and add some related words to it.  You also have to specify the location and language you want to see the data from.  You can add other locations in addition to your own.  Click get results.  The results will show more keywords based on what you specified together with their average monthly searches and competition.  They can be downloaded into CSV form.

The other columns on ad impressions and bid range will be of interest to you if you want to run an ad.

Google Keyword Planner stopped showing exact match monthly volumes of keywords;  It now shows broad or vague ranges.  But you can filter to find out how much competition is for the word.  Look for ‘add a filter’ and click ‘competition’.   This will bring up the options of the competition – high, low, or medium. Choose one and click apply.   It is a very useful tool that you can explore further.

Why is keyword research important?

Keyword research is important as SEO writing has proven to be the best way of generating relevant content that meets searchers’ demand.  It makes the search engines find your blog naturally.

• Without keyword research, you would not know what terms related to your topic are already being searched for.
• Blog posts would grope in the dark, not answering peoples’ search queries.  
• Saves you time and energy from the limitations that go with brainstorming.

How long does it take to do keyword research?

The length of time taken to do keyword research depends

i.  on the tool used, (i.e the option used – paid tools have all the features and some are faster).  Secondly,

ii.  the experience of the person doing the research.  When you are starting out you tend to go after all keywords,  with time when you learn the kind of search intent to use for your posts, you gain speed in doing a search for keywords.

Note that you do not have to use all the tools nor the methods all the time.  Depending on the metrics you want.   to find, you may use more tools.   When you become quick at researching for search terms you’ll also use more tools in no time. 

You can see that there are various ways and tools used in researching keywords and making analysis for SEO purposes.  You do not have to use all the tools or methods.  Just do what feels manageable for your purposes.

Did you enjoy this post?  If you did, please leave a comment and also share it.

The post Keyword Research and Analysis for SEO – A Marketing Strategy appeared first on Work Plaza 1.