What is Keyword research and why is it important in SEO?

Keyword Research and its Important

Search engines are like libraries for the digital age. Instead of storing copies of books, they store copies of web pages. When you type a question into a search engine, it searches all the pages and tries to give the most compatible results. 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of editing a website or webpage to increase the quantity and quality of its traffic from a search engine’s original results.  

Google analyzes a variety of factors to figure out how to rank web pages. What’s the content you’re posting on your website, how relevant it is to the topic you’re trying to speak about etc. Similarly, many factors contribute to where google ranks your website or your content. So, it’s important to optimize your web content according to it. 

With that in mind, technical optimization is enhancing your website to be user-friendly. Maintaining a good site speed, using relevant tags, configuring server response codes are some examples of ways in which you can technically optimize your website for search engines. “Keyword” is a popular term that we’ve all heard, but if you’re new to SEO you might be confused as to what keywords are and why they’re so important.  

What is Keyword research? 

“Keyword” is a term that’s used to refer to the words and phrases that people enter into a search engine to find information that they’re looking for. If a user’s search keywords match the keywords on your site, your site will show up in the search results. A keyword can be one word or many words (often referred to as a “long-tail keyword”). Keywords are important because they make it easy for search engines to look through your website’s content.

When you are launching a new SEO strategy for your business, it can tempt you to skip the keyword research. It’s your business, so you must know the keywords people are using to find you online, That sounds about right? After keyword research, a surprising thing you may explore is that sometimes the result can be quite different from your assumptions. 

To give you the most relevant information, search algorithms look at several factors first, including the words in your question, relevance, and usability of pages, the competence of sources, and your location and settings. How each factor rank varies depending on the type of nature of your question – for example, determining how fresh the content plays a better role in answering questions about current news topics than it does about dictionary definitions. 

Why is keyword research important? 

Keyword research is the process of finding the keywords for your business and recognising how you are ranking or could rank for these keywords on Google. Another important point to keep in mind is that keyword research is an ongoing process.  You should check your keywords frequently to find out how you are ranking compared to your competitors. Here are some points that highlight the importance of keywords for online growth:  

• Knowing the keywords for your brand helps you to understand your business better. What are you selling? What are your services? Knowing your keywords can help you to understand your brand identity better. 
• Keyword research can gather important information, such as where you rank for keywords, which keywords are easy to rank for, and which keywords your competitors are using.
• Search engines can only benefit your website if they know what your business is. Targeting keywords on different pages of your website helps Google rank you for those keywords. 
• Keyword research can tell you what people are actually searching for, rather than what you think they are searching for. 

How to use keywords? 

It’s not just about ranking for any keyword, though. Ranking for relevant, quality keywords can result in the right kind of new visitors that enhance brand awareness and increase sales. Here are some tips for the right use keywords for proper Search engine optimization: 

Focus on your Audience 

Nothing will get you results if you forget about your customers. Start with your end-user – who is your target audience? What are they looking for that you can provide for them? 

Rather than concluding what people are searching for, do proper research to find out exactly what they’re looking for.  

Keep in mind that you’re acting as a partner in their project. Hence, it’s your project too. Answering questions through your content educates the consumer and provides an opportunity for them to explore your site further. 

Do thorough research  

So, now you have a fair idea of what people are searching for. Now, you’ll need to create a list of keywords to target for your brand, according to your SEO strategy.

Keyword research can be easily done through multiple channels, so you’ll want to find tools that work best for you. You can enter the terms into the Google search bar and see what other suggestions pop up as you type. And thesaurus can give ideas for similar words that people may search for as well.

Avoid unnecessary Traffic 

Even though a keyword has a lot of traffic, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’ll work for your particular brand. If you are confused about a keyword, run a Google search with it. See what sites come up. Would your site make sense with those results? Are there ads on the results page? Are many of your competitors using the same keyword?  

Conclusion 

Regular keyword research helps you get ahead of your competitors and continue to attract traffic. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be surprised by how easy it can be. Once you have the fundamentals down, it may be tempting to put your foot on the brake. However, SEO is an ongoing and intuitive process.  

People are creating new content every day. Hence, google rankings change almost every day. That’s why regularly checking how you are performing with SEO and your chosen keywords is important. If your keywords are not performing well anymore, go back and edit your content.  

We can help: 

Do you want help finding your keywords? Then get some help from our experts at Trendy Online Solutions. You will receive personal guidance and advice about how to increase sales and leads for your business. 

If you’re not sure how, or simply don’t have the time for SEO, then also we’re here to help. We offer a monthly SEO package to help raise your profile/ranking in Google and drive traffic to your website. 

Just give us a call anytime!