Keyword research is one of the first steps to take when crafting your SEO campaign. For this to work, you need to set some benchmarks to be able to measure against and verify your progress.
Finding high volume search terms will allow you to come up with a strategy for link building and then see how you can rank for those search terms in your niche.
If you want to craft a good SEO campaign, do not skip this step!
If you do this right, you will be able to rank your pages higher and get more traffic on your website.
Proper Keyword Research
Proper keyword research can help you figure out how to optimize your content to better suit your audience. You most likely have most of your keywords already included in your content but a quick research can help you find words that you might have completely forgotten about. Keyword research will give you a great insight into what potential visitors are typing in to search engines by giving you the exact words or phrases they use while searching for information.
Based on statistics, only 5% of traffic comes from organic social media since 2014. And the majority (53.3%) of organic traffic comes from Search Engine Optimization . This shows how important using high ranking keywords has become. The only challenge remains how to consistently appear on Google’s first page.
That’s why coming up with the best keywords to support your SEO efforts is vital.
So, how can you begin your research and find the right keywords for your SEO strategy?
Let’s get started!
Come up With Relevant Categories
For starters, you should write down the main topics that your want to talk about on your webpage content. Come up with about 5-10 topics that are important to your website or blog and then use these main themes to come up with specific keywords later.
These may include topics that come up regularly on your show or the topics you blog about frequently. Put yourself in the mind of your target audience – what topics would your they search for that you want your content to rank for?
Lets say your podcast topic is True Crime, for instance, you may have general topics like:
- ted bundy crimes (3858)
- serial killer podcast (3288)
- true crime stories (2803)
- best mystery podcasts (2788)
- conspiracy podcasts (1202)
The numbers in parentheses to the right of each keyword represent their monthly search volume. These results will help you decide how important each topic is to your audience, and how many sub-topics you may need to create content on to be successful with that keyword.
Fill Your Topics with Keywords
Now that you have selected a few general topics you may want to focus on. Identify keywords that fall into those categories. These are keyword phrases you think are important to rank for since you have established target audience is searching for these specific search terms.
For instance, if you choose the second topic for your podcast – “Serial Killers” – brainstorm a few key phrases that you think people would search for related to that topic. These may include:
- worst serial killers
- female serial killers
- serial killers in california
- serial killer movies
- recent serial killers
The goal of this step is to come up with the final list of keyword phrases. You want to brainstorm a list of phrases you think potential listeners might search for. If you don’t want to end up with a list that is too broad, narrow it down.
After getting your initial list, you can use keyword explorers such as one found on MOZ to discover which keywords you’re more likely to rank high for.
Research Related Search Terms
If you’re having trouble coming up with more keywords, go to popular search engines and look at related search terms. Think about when you are searching for something and suggestions come up, they might help you find what you are looking for.
Use this to your advantage and look at what search engines recommend when you put in your keywords, you might be surprised with some of the predictions.
After typing in your search terms, got down to the bottom of the search results page. You’ll be able to find more suggestions for searches related to your original input.
The People also ask section is perfect since it might give you ideas for related searches that happen on the same topics. You might even be able to come up with more specific keywords that your target audience is searching for.
Long-Tail Keywords and Head Terms
You should also know the difference between head terms and long-tail keywords. Head terms are shorter, generic keyword phrases. Usually they are made up of a maximum of three words. Long-tail keywords are longer keyword phrases that contain three or more words and are more specific in nature.
| Head term (Generic) |
| Movie Review Podcast |
| Long-tail Keyword (More specific) |
| Japanese Independent Movie Review Podcast |
It’s essential to make sure that you have a mix of both when you decide on your keywords since they will both help to balance your keyword strategy. Head terms will be much harder to rank for since many websites are fighting for them. Long-tail Keywords on the other hand can be easier to rank for and will end up making for more specific conversions.
When it comes to it, long-tails are MUCH less competitive than their shorter counterpart and they also make up a large chunk of all Google searches.
Think about it, the traffic you’ll get from long-tail keywords will usually be more desirable since people that search for more specific terms know already what they are looking for.
Your next step is to include those keywords in every piece content that you will be putting out. Blog posts, episode summaries, transcripts and YouTube descriptions. Remember the reason you want your content to appear and for people to see it when it is searched for.
Using keywords effectively
Make sure your keyword list is well diversified and includes both head terms and long-tail keywords. You will quickly see the advantages that long-tail keywords offer but ranking with the more difficult head terms will also set you up long-term success.
SEO is definitely an interesting strategy to use when promoting or marketing your content. There is still a lot of opportunity to do so as well since according to Ahrefs, 90.63% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google.
Useful Links
Ahrefs – https://ahrefs.com/blog/category/keyword-research/
Moz – https://analytics.moz.com/pro/keyword-explorer/
Search Response – https://searchresponse.io/people-also-ask
Google Trends – https://trends.google.com
Word tracker – https://www.wordtracker.com/
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