Current search engines function by recognizing keywords

By Justin Jones Last updated Nov 11, 2022

Current search engines function by recognizing keywords: While Google keeps us on our toes with all the algorithm tweaks they keep rolling out, one thing has kept quite consistent for inbound marketers who are wanting to optimize their websites for search, and that is the practice of conducting keyword research.

In this article, we will discuss what keyword research is, why it is important, how to do keyword research for your SEO strategy, and how to select the appropriate terms for your website.

Table of Contents

Current search engines function by recognizing keywords

The information you can gain from conducting keyword research on what your intended audience is actually typing into Google is priceless. You may use this information to improve your content strategy as well as your overall marketing plan.

As part of their internet study, people utilize keywords to narrow down their search results. In the event that your material is seen by our audience while they conduct online searches, you’ll be able to generate more traffic. Consequently, you should focus on those searches.

To add to that, the inbound technique advocates generating content around what people want to learn, rather than what we want to share with them. In other words, they’re already here.

Keyword research is the first step in this process.

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There are numerous advantages to conducting keyword research, including but not limited to these:

Marketing Trend Insight

Effective keyword research can provide you with insights into current marketing trends and help you center your content on relevant topics and keywords your audience is searching for. Keyword research can also help you center your content on relevant topics and keywords your audience is searching for.

Traffic Growth

When you choose which keywords are the most appropriate for the material that you post, you will move up in the rankings of search engine results, which will result in an increase in the number of visitors to your website.

Customer Acquisition

If the content that your company offers is something that other business professionals are searching for, you will be able to fulfill their requirements and offer them a call to action that will guide them through the buyer journey, from the stage of awareness to the stage of making the actual purchase.

You will be able to handle the questions that the majority of people in your audience want answers to if you conduct research on keywords to determine their popularity, search volume, and general intent.

Keywords, on the other hand, are more important than ever because Google no longer uses exact-match algorithms.

Keywords vs. Topics

Every day we hear how much SEO has changed in the previous decade, and how little importance keywords have in our ability to rank effectively for the searches consumers conduct on a regular basis.

The fact is that an SEO expert sees this as a different strategy. A piece of content should be judged on whether or not it meets the intent of a keyword (we’ll talk more about intent in just a minute).

Even yet, it doesn’t mean that keyword research is obsolete. For those who don’t get it, I’ll try to explain

Search engine optimization (SEO) tools can inform you what topics people are interested in and how popular those topics are among your target audience. Finding high-volume monthly searches for keywords allows you to find and organize your content into subjects about which you wish to develop content (the essential term here is “topics”). Use these subjects to guide your keyword research and target.

Elements of Keyword Research

There are three main elements to pay attention to when conducting keyword research.

1. Relevance

Content is ranked according to its relevancy. Search intent enters the picture at this point. If you want your material to show up for a particular term, it must satisfy the needs of the people who are searching for it. Furthermore, your material must be the finest resource available for the query. Why would Google rank your material higher than other stuff on the web if it delivers less value?

2. Authority

Google is going to give more weight to sources that it considers to be authoritative. Your site must be filled with useful and informative material, and you must promote that content in order to gain social signals and backlinks. It’s more difficult to rank if you’re not considered an authority in the field or if a keyword’s SERPs are full of weighty sources (like Forbes or The Mayo Clinic) that you can’t compete with.

3. Volume

If no one searches for a given term, even if you rank on the first page, you won’t get any visitors to your site. In a way, it’s like opening a business in an abandoned town.

MSV (monthly search volume) is the total number of times a keyword is searched for each month by all audiences, regardless of geographic location.

How to Research Keywords for Your SEO Strategy

I’m going to walk you through the steps of conducting keyword research so that you may generate a list of terms that you ought to be focusing on for your website. In this method, you will be able to create and implement an effective keyword strategy that assists in getting you found for the search phrases that are genuinely important to you.

Step 1: Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.

Start by categorizing the keywords you wish to rank for into general categories. Identify five to ten broad categories of interest to your organization, and then use those categories to generate more precise keywords later on.

Topics like this are likely to be in your blog’s “Top 10” list. Another possibility is that salespeople bring them up a lot. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and think about the kinds of topics they’d look for, and how you want your company to be found for them. As a firm like HubSpot.

Step 2: Fill in those topic buckets with keywords.

It is time to select some keywords that fit into the topic buckets that you have decided to concentrate on now that you have a few topic buckets to choose from. These are the keyword phrases that you believe it is vital to rank for in the SERPs (search engine results pages) because you believe that your ideal client is most likely searching for those particular terms.

For instance, if I were to take the final topic bucket for an inbound marketing software company, which was “marketing automation,” I would brainstorm some keyword phrases that I believe consumers would type in linked to that issue. These might include the following:

marketing automation tools
how to use marketing automation software
what is marketing automation?
how to tell if I need the marketing automation software
lead nurturing
email marketing automation
top automation tools

That’s not all either; the list goes on and on. For the sake of this stage, you don’t need to come up with a final list of keyword phrases. The goal is to come up with a list of words and phrases that you believe potential clients could use when looking for information in that specific subject area. To keep things manageable, we’ll whittle down the lists later in the process.

Keywords are becoming more and more encrypted by Google every day, but you may still come up with some good ones by looking at the ones that already lead to your website being found for your website’s existing keywords. Analytics software such as Google Analytics or HubSpot’s Sources report in the Traffic Analytics tool is required to complete this task. Use your website’s traffic sources and search engine traffic buckets to find out what keywords people are using to get to your site.

You can do this as many times as you like. To help you come up with appropriate search phrases, talk to your colleagues who work directly with customers, such as those in sales or service, and ask them what terms and questions their clients commonly use. For keyword research, these are frequently good beginning points.

Step 3: Understand How Intent Affects Keyword Research and Analyze Accordingly.

User intent is now a critical component in how well you rank on search engines like Google, as I said earlier. In today’s world, it’s more crucial than ever before that your web page solves the problem that a searcher was trying to solve when they came to your site. So, how does this affect your keyword research?

Although it’s tempting to take keywords at face value, it’s important to keep in mind that they might actually imply a variety of different things. You must be extremely cautious when interpreting the keywords you target because the searcher’s intent is so critical to your ranking potential.

As an example, if you’re writing a post on how to start a blog, you might search for the keyword “how to start a blog.” “Blog” can refer to a single blog post or the entire blog website, and the searcher’s intent will influence the content of your post. Is the searcher looking for information on how to create a personal blog? Alternatively, are they interested in learning how to really set up a blog website domain? Prior to deciding whether or not to use the keyword, make sure that your content strategy is aimed at those who are interested in the latter.

Step 4: Research related search terms.

If you’ve been doing keyword research, you could have already considered this step. A wonderful way to fill out those lists, if you don’t already have one.

The related search terms that display when you enter a keyword into Google can help you think of additional keywords that people could be searching for. There are some similar searches that appear at the bottom of Google’s results when you key in a term and scroll down. These keywords can help you think of more keywords to use in your search.

Step 5: Use keyword research tools to your advantage.

Using the concepts that you have developed up to this point as a starting point, keyword research and SEO tools can assist you in developing additional keyword ideas based on exact match keywords and phrase match keywords.

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