Keyword Research Best Practises
In SEO, we already know that the first and most important ingredient is the keyword research. Keyword research when done right will enable you to get the best outcome with the least amount of effort needed.
But which keyword research practices should you focus on for best results, let’s get right into it.
- Search Volume and Ranking difficulty
Average Monthly Search volume is among the most frequently used metrics for keyword research. Keyword Planner from Google AdWords shows the average monthly searches for any given keyword.
Using an exact match for a keyword gives you an exact representation of the true volume of searches. To arrive at a more accurate yearly search volume, it is recommended to differentiate the monthly search volumes and manually average those keywords. The keyword planner doesn’t include search volume for keyword phrases that are auto-corrected. Alternately there are tools such as Moz, SemRush, and Spyfu to give the monthly search volume.
Keywords with high search volume will attract more traffic but will also have more competition. If you are a brand-new website, then you should target keywords with low search volume to obtain domain authority.
Domain authority is generally evaluating the authority of the website that also determines the age of a website. High-quality links are required to build a high DA website.
How to use the search volume effectively:
- Research and choose exact match keywords and conduct a small paid AdWords campaign and set to broad match type.
- If targeting geo locations, then choose the region you desire
- Average the yearly search volume
- Group related keywords together
2. Search Demand Curve
Over the years, long-tail keywords crowded the SERP with an average 1000 search terms over 10.6% of the overall traffic. Even though you choose to opt with long-tail keywords only you are bound to miss out on 89.4% of total web traffic.
3 – KOB analysis
KOB Analysis refers to Keyword Objection to Benefit Analysis. The KOB analysis will help you to find the best opportunity for conducting an SEO campaign which allows you to allocate resources efficiently.
Difficulty in ranking for a keyword can be calculated with a few factors:
- Age
- Anchor text
- On-page optimization (several subfactors)
- Global link popularity
- Local Set links
- Unique linking domains
- Exact match bonus
- Social signals
To conduct KOB analysis, one could assign scores in a range of 1-10 to each of these areas to arrive at a difficulty score. KOB analysis helps you to arrive at a projection to set a more reasonable expectation.
4 – Relevance
Beyond search volume and KOB analysis, it is beneficial to check whether your content is relevant to your audience. High relevance organic search results in higher CTR and traffic.
5 – Easy and long term wins,
A good and effective keyword strategy should include a mixture of key terms and long-tail keywords. Often key terms include generic terms that are shorter in length. Key terms are generally searched more but are often competitive.
Keep track of your progress in Google search console and as you start gaining authoring in SERPs keep updating your keyword list to include new keywords & phrases to the list. When it comes to keyword research, there is no proven strategy that works for everyone hence keep exploring until you find something that works for your business.
