We use search engines on a daily basis to search everything from shopping for toothpaste to looking up the best places to buy a house. What you find on there isn’t magic, it’s found because the site had the right keywords and was blessed by the algorithm. These algorithms are what determine placement on the pages of places like Google and Bing. To have the right keywords, and have organic high placement on search engines you must do keyword research. This can be done using multiple methods both offline and online, but before conducting either one you must know the three secrets to this research.
1.) Relevancy
The very first secret to keyword research that must be observed is relevancy. If your site is ranking in a category you do not specialize in it will not benefit you or your site. For example, if your site ranks on a search about camping but you sell refrigerators that ranking will not get you sales and every visitor will be irrelevant. So how do I make sure my keyword research is relevant? To start with the obvious, keywords should relate to content, and content should be relevant to your site. If our hypothetical refrigeration company made content about camping then the keywords used in the article and in the tags should be about camping, however, unless the article is about some super niche camping refrigerator or cooler there should not be content about camping on that site. Key point of relevancy in keyword use and research is that your keywords should always represent your product, if that can be done not only will keyword research be successful, but your entire campaign will be.
2.) Traffic
Think of your website as a travel destination. Every person that visits your website is a car driving to experience the awesomeness that is your website. If there’s a lot of people at your destination then you have high traffic my friend. How do we achieve the beautiful site of website traffic being high? Unlike in the real world we have to build the road that leads them there. Each slab of asphalt we put down is another keyword. When doing keyword research it’s important to capture phrases that bring high traffic and volume, it is all about what people actually search. If mention our hypothetical refrigeration company again, Hypofridge Inc., we will rank and get traffic for keywords like, “minifridges for college” but if we use the keyword “Hypofridge” it’ll rank, but because our brand is not known no one will search it and that will be a barren road until our name gets more popular.
3.) Competiton
The very last secret is that if you want traffic, you don’t build your road where everyone else does. This means that your keywords should have low competition and if possible high volume. How can you find this out? In my personal experience I’ve used the SEMrush keyword research tool, but I know there are plenty of other keyword tools that do the same thing. On the keyword tool you should be able to see its competition rate as well as its usual intent and Cost Per Click. If you can find a keyword with low competition but a high demand it may be the perfect candidate for some good old fashioned search engine optimization. All of this information is simplified, but getting into keyword research you will find out through trial and error that if you aim for the three factors mentioned you will find yourself with a very successful SEO campaign.
