I know what you are thinking, something like:
Is it true? Why is everyone writing about keyword research?
There are 4.6 million websites on the internet that talk about “keyword research”. However, most of these approaches have the same problem:
There is no practical process for selecting and prioritizing keywords for implementation!
It is time to look back on what we still believe in – Keyword Research. In this article, I will show you exactly how to research keywords that any SEO Manager at GTV needs to do when starting to receive projects.
If your website is completely new: It is very good! You can follow this entire article to standardize from the beginning! If your website is quite “old”? Do not worry, you will take advantage and optimize the source of content available on the web!
Get started now!
Part 1: SEO keyword research and 3 things about the keyword nature you must know!
Google keyword research is one of the first steps to take when implementing SEO services.
“A miss is as good as a mile”
Ignoring the issue of rankings or increasing traffic, not understanding the nature of the keyword and choosing ineffective keyword implementation leads to:
Target the wrong customer!
That is when deploying SEO to the top 1, the traffic still grows but does not bring in revenue.
If that is the situation that you are facing, you need to take a closer look at the three key characteristics of the keyword right below!
- Each Keyword hides an intention to search
When researching Google keywords, you should pay attention to your own search behavior first.
What would you like to see when you research the keyword “cheap Fuhlen keyboard”?
- Reference price?
- Buy a Fuehlen keyboard?
- Or information about the Fuehlen keyboard brand?
Do you want to find information about at least 5 types of Fuehlen keyboards and review price details, as well as their features?
Learn information about the Fuehlen keyboard
Find the keyword “cheap fuhlen keyboard” on Google. So, what about the keyword “Fuehlen keyboard sm681”?
=> You have intended to buy this product and you are only choosing a quality supplier!
From these 2 examples, you can see that:
Hiding behind every searched keyword is the intention of the user! This means: If you choose the right keywords that intend to buy the product, you will increase your conversion rate!
Determining the right search intent will help you provide Content that best fits the user’s intent (Search Intent). From there, you should target and bring content to solve their problems!
This is one of the benefits of SEO, or specifically, the keyword research carefully and accurately.
So, what do you base on to identify the search intent of the keywords?
- Keyword Modifier – Factors that determine the user’s search intent:
When digging deeper into keyword research, the Top SEO Agency in the world realized that: All keywords have the same structure!
What is keyword structure? Let me explain to you!
Diagram analyzing a keyword
A keyword will consist of 2 components:
- Head (the root): also known as Seed Keyword (keyword keyword) is the main focus of the entire search focus of the user.
Whether a user searches for “Cheap Fuehlen Keyboard” or “Logitech Keyboard”, that search revolves around “keyboard” only.
- Modifier (modifier): Modifer Keyword is a keyword that when changing it with other words or phrases, the meaning of the keyword does not change, but the user’s search intent will change completely!
- Determine Search Intent using the Modifier Keyword
Accordingly, the Modifier Keyword will be divided into separate groups suitable for different search purposes:
Use Modifier keyword to identify Search Intent
For example: “yogurt”
- Intention to find information including key words: how to make yogurt, when to give yogurt.
- Intended to review including keywords: best yogurt, vinamilk yogurt is good
- Intention to purchase includes the words: vinamilk promotion yogurt, …
Understanding this intention will help you optimize the content that best suits the user, while increasing the conversion rate of the website.
By now, you have grasped exactly:
- The structure of a keyword
- How to classify keywords in line with the user’s search intent!
The next section I will show you how to effectively research keywords by classifying, estimating conversion rates and prioritizing your keyword implementation!
Part 2: Google Keyword Research Tutorial and Deployment Classification
Not verbose, theoretical …
In this section, I will guide you in detail how to choose effective keywords, classification and estimation of effectiveness when implementing SEO for keywords.
This will help you:
- Get the most searched keywords with high conversion rates
- Distribution of keyword implementation order
- Save time and effort but still increase efficiency!
- Identify fields
To research keywords, you must first research carefully the field and audience to be able to choose keywords that are both capable of ranking and satisfying the needs of the target user.
It will not make sense if you put SEO keyword sets to the front page of Google, earns a lot of traffic but does not generate conversion value because of the wrong target market and customers.
- Identify the parent keyword
If you want to get the list of the best quality keywords, you need to identify the right parent keyword, that is, the original keyword as bait to search for other keywords.
Of course, you have to go from your own field, product, and user to select the appropriate parent keyword.
For example, if I provide SEO services, my website will revolve around the topic of SEO and SEO.
After that, I will put this parent keyword into keyword research support tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, Kwfinder, Google suggestion … to search for more related keywords.
- Check the difficulty of keyword
Keyword Difficulty is an index that evaluates the difficulty of a keyword to get to the top on Google search results.
The index in each tool is not the same. For example, Ahrefs calculates KD by the average number of domains pointing to the top 10 pages currently ranking that keyword and scoring on a scale of 0-100.
Therefore, this number gives a pretty accurate prediction of how many referring domains you need to be able to reach the top 10 for that keyword.
However, this is only a reference number, not to say anything. The difficulty of keywords depends on the field and your SEO experience.
Usually the shorter the keyword, the more extensive it is. In contrast, long-tail keywords are keywords containing more than 3 words, with specific content, so the search volume is lower, so it is also less competitive.
So, if you invest in writing a very good article about a long keyword, then you will likely beat your opponent, rank top 1 and earn a lot of traffic for the website.
This is a safe path for new websites, not high trust in the industry.
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- Keyword grouping
Buyer keyword
Buyer keywords are the terms users use when searching for products or services.
Obviously when using the buyer keyword, users already intend to buy and even know what they want to buy.
Compared to the customer purchase funnel, the user is at the end of the funnel, about the middle of the product comparison and preparation phase.
That said, the buyer keyword is the keywords that bring high conversion rates and real value for the business.
Information keyword
Most of the keywords today are informational keywords, users merely search for information and not intend to convert (at least at the time they start searching). But not so that you ignore this type of keyword because as mentioned, most users are typing to find them.
Information keywords often contain words like how, how, tips, tricks, etc.
The best way to exploit is to find keywords with high search volume and low competition. I call it the phantom keyword.
Tire Kicker Keyword
This term refers to searches that cannot immediately generate conversions.
The Tire Kicker Keyword usually contains words like free, torrent, download, for free …
For example, with the keyword “Watch movie Hai Phuong online free”, you do not expect to sell anything. Keywords like “Hai Phuong DVD” or “Hai Phuong beautiful version” will have higher conversion value.
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- Steps for keyword research
Step 1: Go to Ahrefs> Keyword Explorer> Enter your Original Keyword (head):
Keyword research with Ahrefs
Enter original keywords in Ahrefs to start keyword research
Note: Perhaps redundant but I still repeat:
The root keyword (head) is a phrase, not a word.
This term can have 2,3 or 4 words, not a single word.
Here, you can enter both the “mechanical keyboard”, the “game keyboard” and the variant keyword such as “gaming keyboard” to get the most keyword list.
Step 2: Choose Phrase Match> Export keyword list
Export keywords that match your needs with Ahrefs
Step 3: After Export, open the excel file, keep only the Keywords and Volume columns, omit the remaining columns, and add 3 columns: Sort, Convert and Funnel.
Categorize your keywords according to separate categories
Pick out the most important items to sum up
Step 4: Classify keywords based on the Modifier keyword.
In this step, you need to briefly read the keywords, then identify the phrases that are counted as the keyword modifier as I mentioned in the first part.
To avoid confusion, I usually write Modifier phrases on top of your excel frame to facilitate searching when classifying keywords.
You will see that around the root “mechanical keyboard” will have the modifier:
- Cheap
- fuhlen
- Icon
- bluetooth
- What is it
- bargains under 500k
- correction
This step will be quite time consuming, requires you to be patient (if the keyword list is too much) and need to use some simple excel techniques to be able to quickly sort.
Phrases whose main keyword is “mechanical keyboard”
Sort keywords based on the user’s search intent.
MODEL OF AIDA CONVERSION
Funnel Marketing on search purpose and AIDA
Let me explain in detail the image above:
In the stages of the traditional AIDA conversion channel above and as I mentioned, these links are quite relevant for the top 4 search groups.
Common models and modifier groups, commonly found in search purpose groups, include:
Informational:
- What
- Who
- Where
- When
- How
- Why
- Simple keyword phrases like shoes, shirts, pants, etc.
Navigational:
- Brand name
- The name of the product or service
Commercial Investigation:
- Colors: black, blue, red, green
- Size: small, medium, large, 32, 11
- Gender or age: male, female, child, etc.
- Keyword contains the word “vs”
- The best
- Location: Philadelphia, Seattle, NYC
Transactional:
- Price
- Cost
- Valuation
- Free
- Cheap
- Coupons
- Discount
- Sale
Every keyword that is searched for always has an intention behind it.
So, knowing the purpose of the customer search, tagging keywords at each stage in different conversion channels will help you satisfy the needs of users.
When users change their own keyword modifier usage, they want to go deeper into the conversion funnel.
For example: Users type “What is a mechanical keyboard” when they are at the beginning of the conversion funnel, they are looking for information – Informational about mechanical keyboard.
However, if users type the “fuhlen mechanical keyboard” to show they are in the middle of the conversion funnel, they are searching for fuhlen products and comparing the price of the product.
Below is an image of the correlation between the number of words in the keyword phrase and its conversion rate!
Analysis diagram of long tail keywords
The image above shows that keywords containing 3 or more words (usually long ones) make up about 70% of all searches, and the average conversion rate is 3-4 times higher.
After classifying the group of keywords, you copy – paste all the keywords into the Keyword Explorer search box to continue researching the most optimal similar keywords at your request.
And continue the article, here I will guide you 4 ways to research keywords for websites already available. Let’s continue reading!
Part 3: 4 Ways to research keywords for existing websites
Existing websites are inherently keyword research. Unless …
You block all robots that crawl and index the pages on your website.
Except that, you can get some data on how your site is currently classified according to contextual relevance.
However, for an existing website, before checking if the website is having standard SEO articles, you can apply the following 4 methods to develop keyword sets to find effective SEO keywords:
# 1 See your list of keywords that have ranked
At the core of this keyword research method is SEO leveraging Google Analytics (and Search Console).
Data source from “Search Analytics” in Google Search Console:
Keyword analysis of Google Search Console
Search Console shows the average position for each ranked keyword and the impact of the clicks it brings. However, it does not show monthly search volume and you are limited to 1000 keywords.
If you need more data, you can try “Organic Keyword” in Ahrefs Site Explorer feature:
Ahrefs Site Explorer feature brings a lot of utilities for keyword research.
# 2 Consult the list of keyword rankings
Ahrefs has a great feature – Site Explorer can help you in referring rankings of your competitor’s keywords. It allows you to enter any URL and automatically generate a ranking list of the keywords. This is useful for keyword research for existing websites.
Steps:
- Enter the url into the Site Explorer section
- Keep the mode “domain”, you will have keyword data files on the domain, not just that url.
- Ignoring other things on the Site Explorer page, you just focus on the Organic Keywords section.
The chance here is that your opponent has helped you with this tedious keyword research stage. So, you just need to research their ranked keywords and then choose the best keywords.
If you still do not know who your competitors are, type your seed keyword into Google, see who ranks at the top of the page.
For example, with the keyword “mechanical keyboard”, I see a top website is phongvu.vn
Results of phongvu.vn by Ahrefs
Enter the website url into Ahrefs Site Explorer and see the ranking keywords.
Sometimes a competitor may have enough keyword ideas that keep your entire SEO team busy for the whole month. But if you need more, you can go to the “Competing domains” section to find more websites of your other competitors.
And we only turn off “Competitive research loop” when:
- Enter the original keyword into Google and see who top
- Enter their website url into Ahrefs to see the best keyword.
- Search related websites through the “Competing domains” section
- Return to step 1 or 2
Note:
- The trick to extending keyword ideas is to repeat this process over and over.
- And do not forget to click on related industries. You can find many good keywords that do not need to be related to what you have to offer but can still bring potential users to your website.
You can find many good keywords from related industries
TIP # 1: A single page can rank hundreds (even thousands) of related keywords. Therefore, it is best to focus on the page currently at the top of the opponent instead of searching for individual keywords.
Hint: Set “Top Pages” in Site Explorer of Ahrefs
TIP # 2: There are some keywords that all your competitors are targeting but you are not. So, your best keyword does not bring any value.
Hint: Set “Content Gap” to quickly find those keywords
# 3 Use keyword SEO research tools
Researching effective competitors often produces a list of dozens of keyword related ideas.
But if you are one of the leaders then that strategy is not effective. You have to find out the unique keyword that no opponent has aimed at.
Therefore, to research keywords more effectively, it is best to use a keyword research tool. Luckily, there is no shortage of such keyword research tools on the market. For example:
https://soovle.com/
https://ubersuggest.io/
https://answerthepublic.com/
… and many other keyword research tools.
Keyword research is more effective by using keyword research tools
No matter which keyword research tool you choose, it always gives you good keyword ideas. Just fill in the seed keyword and wait for the keyword list and filter until you get your own “unique” keywords.
Check your keyword rankings today!
The majority of keyword research tools produce keyword suggestions from the following sources:
- Provide keyword ideas directly from Google Keyword Planner
- Automatic suggestions from Google (Google auto ‐ suggest)
- Give “similar searches” on Google.
These methods are very effective, but rarely produce more than 200 recommendations. For example, UberSuggest only produces 316 keyword ideas about content marketing
UberSuggest shows 316 keyword ideas for content marketing
The plus point of UberSuggest is that it has monthly search traffic, and I do not really know where they get these words.
I also suspect they are maintaining their stats.
And this is also a free keyword research tool with many resources that people can use to search everyday (Google, Youtube, Ebay, Amazon, App Store, …) and give you a very big list about the keywords related to your original keywords.
Through UberSuggest, you can find out in this tool what is related to the search volume and the competitiveness index of those keywords.
Keyword optimization tools (Ahrefs, Moz, SEMRush) create a database about the keyword itself and then suggest you more keyword ideas.
For example, Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer proposes 5,570 keyword ideas for content marketing.
You can easily get lost in that huge keyword list, so we can use filtering in the following categories:
- Keyword difficulty – The difficulty of the keyword
- Search volume – Search volume
- Clicks – Clicks
- Clicks per search – Click on each search
- Cost per click – Cost per click
- Number of words in a keyword – Number of words in a keyword
If you want to learn how to generate ideas for keywords through Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, you can read more about Ahrefs’s keyword research tool – Keyword Explorer.
SEO Tools: Top 29 free & most effective SEO Tools 2020.
# 4 Research effective niches
The keyword strategies mentioned earlier are extremely effective for suggesting many keyword ideas. But at the same time those strategies will limit you to a “closed box”.
Effective niches research will be a solid foundation for keyword research. Sometimes, when you research your niche, you can find many good keywords that no one in your niche market is targeting.
Here is the “out-of-box” way of thinking – to get out of this closed box:
- Put yourself in the shoes of your potential customers: who they are, what affects them.
- Chat with your existing customers, to better understand them, research the language they use
- Be an active member in social networks and communities in niche markets.
Search for the keyword “out of box”
For example, if you provide website design services, here are some of the “out of box” keywords that you should try to target:
How does google determine if a website is quality or not?
Why does the website not appear on google?
Purchasing old websites
How to solve when the website is deindex
We look for things that seem unnecessary for website design services, but these keywords are definitely easy for customers to know and buy services for.
See more:
- Guide to Learning and Making SEO 2020 to the top quickly and sustainably.
- Other useful tools Google Webmaster Tools – check your website for problems.
- A step-by-step implementation guide to our Entity Mastermind online course. Find out now!
Part 4: Planning content implementation
Once you have your keyword set categorized, the next step I will guide you is to plan the content deployment in order of priority!
I have a series of articles on how to optimize when deploying content, you can check out the information of these posts:
- Simple content optimization but offers a series of quality blog posts that attract SEOer community and users.
- List 23 Good content writing formula for even those who have no writing skills.
- Tutorial 7 The process of optimizing standard articles SEO breakthrough rankings, traffic and improve user experience.
Keyword research is just one of the methods of Onpage optimization. Find out how Onpage SEO and Onpage SEO are different from Offpage SEO today!
Check out the article: Guide to SEO website: Detailed SEO learning roadmap for beginners!