Search Engine Optimisation(SEO) is all about keywords. Keywords are used to create content and pages with the hope that they rank high on search engine results. But can we use any keyword or phrase for creating content and pages?

The answer is a big “No”.

Not every keyword is worthy enough to be used for creating content and pages. Only the ones that are worthy enough should be used for SEO. Keeping this in mind today we are going to discuss “How to Perform Keyword Research for SEO”.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the process of finding keywords and phrases that are being entered in the search queries by the people. These keywords and phrases are used for creating content and pages with a goal to rank high on search engine result pages.

How to Research for Keywords?

1. Create a Seed Keywords List

Seed keywords are the keywords which act as a base for the keywords research process. These keywords must be relevant to your niche and your offerings. In order to create a seed keyword list you can use:

(i) Brainstorming

Here you want to think and ask yourself what terms people might use in the search engine to find your business. For example, You sell customized t-shirts. Keywords like customized t-shirts, customized t-shirts online, buy customized t-shirts etc., would be relevant for you. Make sure these keywords are relevant and are related to your offerings.

(ii) Wikipedia

Another way to find keywords related to your niche for keyword research is by using Wikipedia. Using wikipedia you can find many subtopics related to your niche. These subtopics themselves can be used as keywords as they are related to your niche and people are interested in these topics and are actively searching for them.

(iii) Reddit/Forums

Next you can use Reddit and forums to find new keywords. Let us say you sell homemade chocolates. You can head over to Reddit and search for a broad topic. For example- Homemade chocolates. It will return you a list of topics that your audience is interested and actively talking about. Similarly, you can go to a forum enter your topic and you will be presented with a list of threads /topics that your target audience is actively talking and looking for.

(iv) Google Suggest

The next thing you can do to find keywords for keyword research is to use the power of google suggest. Here you can write topics related to your niche or topics that you have collected using Wikipedia in the above step. When you enter a topic in google it shows you a list of keywords and phrases that are being entered by people that are related to your niche. How can it help you?

These phrases are very useful in your research as these are the most used search terms on google. They have high search volumes due to which they are appearing as a suggestion on google and when we want to search new keywords for us we simply can’t ignore google suggest.

(v) Google Keyword Planner

Using Google keyword planner you can discover new keywords for your site. Simply type topics related to your niche or enter your site URL and it will present you a list of related keywords and phrases. One thing should be kept in mind google keyword planner is designed keeping in mind PPC advertisers and not SEO. Therefore your expected results might vary if you only have google keyword planner at your disposal.

(vi)Semrush Keyword Research/Moz Keyword Explorer/Ahref Keyword Explorer

Besides helping in SEO audit these tools can also help you in your keyword research process. You can use them to find new keywords and collect metrics related to those keywords. You can also use these tools to know which keywords your competitors are using and create your own content to outrank them.

2. Collect Keyword Metrics

Now you have made your seed list the next step in your keyword research is collecting metrics for your keywords. Metrics like-Search volume, keyword difficulty, competition are of great importance. These metrics are used to filter keywords. In order to collect these metrics, we can use tools like google keyword planner, Moz keyword explorer, SEMRush SEO keywords research, AHREF keyword explorer, Ubersuggest etc.

However as mentioned earlier  google keywords planner is designed keeping in mind PPC advertisers and not SEO. They can be used to know how many clicks and impressions a keyword got in the past and how it might perform in the future.  But if you can afford, buy one of the paid tools like SEMRush, Ahref or Moz and if you can’t you can use google keyword planner or Ubersuggest.

3. Filtering

The next step in your keyword research process is filtering keywords on the basis of metrics collected in the previous step(search volume, keyword difficulty, competition etc.). We must filter keywords based upon these metrics so only those keywords are left that are relevant and are capable of boosting organic traffic of our site. For example, There can be keywords which might be relevant but don’t have a high search volume. So we must evaluate and filter keywords. In this step we assess the value of the keywords, check their relevancy and filter our keywords after which we will have our final keyword list.

4. Keyword Targeting & Content Creation

After getting your final keyword list the last step in your keyword research process is keyword targeting and content creation. In this step, we will select keywords from the final keywords list and prepare our content strategy for those keywords. For example, you might decide to optimize already existing pages and content or create new pages and new content using your selected keywords.

Conclusion

Keywords are the base of all SEO efforts. A good keyword can give your organic traffic a big boost whereas an irrelevant keyword can waste all your efforts. We must carefully evaluate keywords and their metrics before using them. If you like this post on keywords research leave your comments below also let me know how you do your keyword research.