Finding keywords in SEO can be difficult if you are new to the subject but is one of the foundational building blocks of helping you start to rank highly in SEO. We’ve put together an article that teaches you how to choose the right SEO keywords for your website in six easy steps. Here they are.
1. Brainstorm around your industry
Think about the most common ways a person might search for whatever it is that you do. If you work in website design, keywords such as the website builder software you use are a good start. If you custom code, then more keywords around this. Some tools such as SEMRush also offer questions surrounding a keyword to help inform your headers and blog titles. This can also be a great inspiration for helping you focus on creating the content you intend to rank for.
Also think about keywords for any equipment, style of working, unique selling points, and location. (Location more if you are trying to increase your local footfall or optimise your local seo). An example of this could be ‘Website Designer Doncaster.’ This term includes the field of expertise ‘website design’, your potential role ‘website designer’ and a potential area that you cover.
2. Find an SEO software system that works for you
Some free tools you can use include the keyword tool in Google ads. Most SEO software sites offer a free limited range of tools you can try per month. These may have variations of names but typically include ‘keyword tool’, ‘keyword magic tool’ and so on. Some leading SEO keyword research providers include SEMRush, Moz, Ahrefs,
3. Enter your keywords and interpret the data
There are a variety of factors you should take into account when conducting keyword research, however your main considerations should be:
- The search volume – you need to rank in searches people are actually looking for.
- The level of competition – it’s better to start out looking to rank for less competitive keywords as this will increase your domain authority. You can’t expect to rank for a 100% competitive search term such as SEO without a longer term SEO strategy and SEO specialist to help you get there. Unless you’re in a very new niche but then your issue is encouraging people to use your search term in the first place.
- The search intent. There are 4 types of search intent behind your website visitor’s search. It can be helpful to answer an informational search intent to attract visitors to your website and then convert them which can sometimes work better than focusing on Transactional or commercial intent. This can also help to boost your Navigational intent and attract longer term website visitors and subscribers.
4. Perform competitive research.
This again can take many names depending on the software you use. You could use a domain overview, competitor overview, or organic keyword rankings section for instance. This will show you what keywords your page one rivals rank for and help inform your own keyword strategy or at the very least give you some inspiration of other search terms you could try to rank for.
5. Think longer term
When it comes to creating SEO content or copywriting, your keywords will often be the first word in your headers or bodies of text. Think about how easy it will be to create website content or copy to incorporate this. If you need to use a keyword such as a connective word at the beginning of a header or first paragraph of text, you might want to choose something more semantically related.
6. Answer the question
Last, but not least remember these keywords should be helping you create content that answers the question to provide more access points for website visitors to find you. The most recent Google update places a heavy emphasis on designing and crafting content that helps rather than keyword stuffing your page.
SEO keyword research is just the beginning, how you build your domain authority, backlinks and online visibility requires a much deeper understanding of how SEO works. We hope this helps you in selecting the keywords that you wish to rank for in your industry.