Keyword Research
Step One
Every good SEO plan starts with keyword research.
Keyword research is the map that you’ll follow throughout your SEO efforts. It can inform your menus, meta tags, and urls, but it can also be a long term plan to follow for content creation.
Our one time keyword research can be utilized for months or years of SEO work.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process of finding keywords to target on your website, and is usually the first step of a thorough SEO campaign. By analyzing competition, evaluating search volume, and researching trends, we’ll choose dozens of core keywords and hundreds of supporting keywords that will guide your on-page and off-page SEO efforts.
“But I only care about one keyword…”
Although you may associate one core keyword with your website, in reality every website has the potential to bring in traffic through dozens or hundreds of keywords. Even if you think that “Evansville Plumber” is the only keyword you need, “Evansville Toilet Repair,” “Broken Sink Evansville,” and “What To Do About a Leaky Faucet” may all bring in traffic to your website.
As more people engage with your site, your site will gain ranking power for “Evansville Plumber” BECAUSE of your progress in related keywords. Or you may find that your other keywords are bringing in so many conversions that you no longer care about that One All-Important Keyword that inspired you to start SEO!
A Well Rounded Keyword Strategy
CORE KEYWORDS
Core keywords are what people think of when they think of keywords. These keywords might be more obvious and belong in your page titles and URLs.
Choosing core keywords might be dependent on search volume.
SEMANTIC KEYWORDS
Semantic keywords are support for your cores. If my core is SEO, then semantic keywords might include marketing, analytics, and Google.
Semantic keywords back up your cores and give them more power.
LONG-TAIL KEYWORDS
Long tail keywords target specific phrases and might be optimized for local or voice searches.
If I’m selling SEO, a long tail keyword might be “who is the best SEO provider in Evansville?”
Our Keyword Research Process
1. Analyze Competitor Sites
We start by analyzing your top competitors on a local and national level. Our tools allow us to quickly discover what keywords successful websites are targeting, allowing you to implement the same strategies that top competitors are using to succeed in your industry.
2. Assess Competition Levels
Certain keywords may be unwise to target because of high competition levels. If your website is small or mid-sized, you’ll want to find low competition keywords to target early on in your campaign. Rather than wasting your time optimizing your site for impossible goals, you may find novel ways to bring in potential customers.
Competitors are a useful starting point, but there may be valuable keywords that they’ve missed. We research real search terms being used on Google and find keyword opportunities that aren’t being targeted in your market. These low hanging fruit are an important part of your keyword strategy.
4. Assess Search Volume
It’s easy to come up with a list of hundreds or thousands of possible keywords, but not all keywords bring in views and conversions. We assess recent search volume to ensure that your final keyword list represents targets that will make your business more successful online.
5. Choose Core, Semantic, and Long-tail Keywords
Your final keyword list will include core, semantic, and long-tail keywords. Core keywords can be used in menus, title tags, and URLs. Semantic and long-tail keywords should be integrated into page content. Your keyword list will have hundreds of keywords that you can utilize to drive your online strategy.
Feature
Want to Learn More About Keyword Research?
Click the link to read how we use Micro-SEO to target low competition keywords that give you quick engagement wins.