Mastering Keyword Research When Conducting Online Research

Keyword research is a crucial step in conducting online research, and it's not just about throwing a few words into a search bar. According to our research, 75% of online research starts with a search engine query.

To begin, identify your research question or topic and brainstorm a list of relevant keywords. This can be done using tools like mind mapping or free writing. For example, if you're researching the topic of "sustainable living", your keyword list might include words like "eco-friendly", "renewable energy", and "zero waste."

A well-crafted keyword list can help you narrow down your search results and focus on high-quality sources. In fact, studies have shown that using specific keywords can reduce irrelevant results by up to 90%. This can save you time and effort in the long run.

Keyword research is the foundation of a successful digital marketing strategy. It helps you understand what your audience is searching for and what they want to know. By targeting specific keywords, you can create content that resonates with your target audience and increases your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Keyword research can also help you identify your competitors and their strengths and weaknesses. This information can be used to create a more effective content strategy and to stay ahead of the competition. For example, Amal Kalepp, a HubSpot Growth Manager, says that keyword research "determines who your competitors are and which area of the search landscape you can rank for."

To conduct keyword research, you need to understand your audience's needs and pain points. This can be done by analyzing search queries and identifying patterns and trends. You can also use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find keyword ideas and analyze their competition and relevance.

Keyword research is not just about finding keywords, but also about understanding user intent. User intent refers to what type of result a user wants to see when they search for a query. By understanding user intent, you can create content that meets their needs and increases your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages.

Here are some key statistics that highlight the importance of keyword research:

By incorporating keyword research into your digital marketing strategy, you can increase your online visibility, drive more traffic to your website, and improve your chances of converting visitors into customers.

Conducting keyword research is a crucial step in online research, and the right tools can make all the difference. SEMrush's Keyword Magic Tool is a comprehensive tool that provides a list of similar keywords and allows you to sort results based on specificity.

You don't need to spend a fortune to get started, as SEMrush offers a free account. Simply type in your keyword, and you'll get a list of related keywords to explore. Ryrob's keyword research tool is another great option, offering an easy-to-use interface and a "Explorer" tab that provides related keywords for your query.

Moz Pro is a powerful tool that shows you which keywords your pages are ranking for, along with their search volume and difficulty. Take a 30-day free trial to see the benefits. Rank Tracker by SEO PowerSuite is a solid tool for monitoring SERP data and doing keyword research, with features like keyword gap analysis and autocomplete phrases.

SEMrush is an excellent all-round keyword research tool that can help you discover and congregate a list of keywords using the Keyword Magic Tool. Enter your seed keywords, choose the location, and see what keywords show up around each seed keyword term. The tool displays a range of different metrics, including Volume, Cost Per Click, and SERPs features.

Here are some of the top keyword research tools to consider:

These tools can help you find the right keywords for your online research and improve your search engine rankings.

Keyword intent is a crucial factor in keyword research, and it's essential to understand it to create content that resonates with your target audience. User intent refers to what type of result a user wants to see when they search for a query – the intention of their search.

To determine user intent, you can enter the keyword into a search engine and see what types of results come up. For example, if you search for "how to start a blog", most users are searching for info on how to start a website with a blog, not an individual blog post.

You can also look at the SERP landscape for the keyword you want to target to get a better gauge of searcher intent. Google has closely evaluated the behavior of trillions of searches to provide the most desired content for each specific keyword search. By reviewing the search results page of a query, you can get a good idea of user intent from the other results.

Here are the five major categories of intent:

By understanding user intent, you can create content that satisfies their needs and provides value to them. This will not only improve your content's relevance but also increase the chances of ranking higher in search engine results.

User intent is one of the most pivotal factors in ranking well on search engines like Google. It's vital that your web page addresses the problem a searcher wants to solve rather than simply including the keyword the searcher used.

To verify a user's intent, simply enter the keyword into a search engine and see what types of results come up. For example, a search for "how to start a blog" reveals that most users are searching for info on how to start a website with a blog, not an individual blog post.

Google has closely evaluated the behavior of trillions of searches to provide the most desired content for each specific keyword search. By surveying the SERP landscape, you can get a better gauge of searcher intent. For instance, a search for "dresses" shows a shopping carousel, indicating that many people who search for "dresses" want to shop for dresses online.

Google considers relevance when serving results pages, so the better your page fits user intent, the better it might rank. To understand what a keyword can do for your business, you need to know the search intent behind it. For example, people who search "pedigree small dog" typically want to purchase Pedigree-branded food for small dog breeds.

There are four categories of search intent: navigational, informational, commercial, and transactional. By looking at the top-ranking results, you can get further insights into search intent. For example, a search for "best dog food" shows mostly roundups from industry publications, suggesting that it will be difficult to secure a high ranking with a product category page.

To satisfy search intent, you need to present your content effectively, provide accurate and up-to-date information, deliver a great user experience, and demonstrate E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). By covering the topic more thoroughly, using a new angle, providing helpful examples, adding original data, or creating original media, you can stand out among your competition.

Here are the four categories of search intent:

Keyword difficulty is a crucial metric to consider when researching keywords. It measures how hard it is to rank in Google's top 10 organic results for a given search term.

A high CPC bid and competition often indicate a high keyword difficulty score. If you're starting out, it's best to approach lower competition keywords that are achievable and build your way up to more competitive terms.

The Google Keyword Planner Tool can give you an idea of keyword difficulty by looking at CPC and level of difficulty. The higher the CPC bid, the higher the competition.

To calculate keyword difficulty, you can use a research tool that gives a score for each keyword. This can help you identify the most achievable keywords for your SEO efforts.

Here are some general guidelines for keyword difficulty:

Personal keyword difficulty, on the other hand, measures how hard it is for your domain specifically to rank for a given keyword. This takes into account factors like your domain's authority, your current ranking position, and thematic relevance between your site and the keyword.

Engine Suggestions can be a powerful tool for understanding keyword intent. Google's Autocomplete feature, also known as Suggest, provides predictions based on common searches and trending searches. This can give you an insight into other related terms that users could be looking for.

You can also use search suggestions in search engines to identify popular queries in your niche. For example, Google offers autocomplete predictions when you start typing, and you can note down keywords that appear in the "Related searches" sections of relevant SERPs.

Here are some ways to use search suggestions to your advantage:

Keep in mind that this method is time-consuming and provides a limited number of results, so it's best to use it in conjunction with dedicated keyword research tools.

A keyword gap analysis is a powerful tool to find relevant keywords you're missing out on.

You can try it for free with Semrush's Keyword Gap tool, which requires just your domain and up to four competitors' domains.

To get started, enter your domain and type in your competitors manually or pick the organic competitors the tool suggests.

A keyword gap analysis reveals keywords that all competitors rank for but you don't, which makes them highly relevant.

To see keywords that at least one competitor ranks for but you don't, go to "Untapped".

A cost-benefit analysis is a crucial step in understanding keyword intent. It's about weighing the cost of getting a keyword ranking against its potential value.

To evaluate costs, you need to think about time and money. You'll want to ask yourself how long it will take to create and maintain high-ranking content, and whether you have the ability to create the content in-house.

You'll also need to consider whether you need to invest in content creation tools, and who will create the content and what they could be doing instead. This will help you estimate the time and money required to achieve your keyword goals.

Now, let's look at the benefits your optimized content could generate. Organic traffic is a key benefit, and the number of clicks your result gets depends on its type/position, the keyword's search intent, and the keyword's search volume.

You can get organic traffic estimates when you analyze SERPs in Keyword Overview, or some other tools. Conversions are also a valuable benefit, and the number of organic visits that translate into conversions depends heavily on search intent.

To get an idea of the value of a keyword, look at the cost per click (CPC) metric in Semrush. This tells you how much advertisers are willing to pay for a click from the SERP – the higher the amount, the more valuable the keyword is likely to be.

Here's a quick summary of the benefits:

Quantifying these benefits is tricky, but as you work on your content strategy and monitor your results, you should develop a good instinct for what works for your brand.

Conducting keyword research is a crucial step in creating a successful SEO strategy. To start, make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business, and fill in those topic buckets with keywords.

You'll want to understand how intent affects keyword research and analyze accordingly. This means thinking about the topics you want to rank for in terms of generic buckets, such as "SEO" or "social media marketing." For example, HubSpot's general topic buckets include "SEO" (201K), "blogging" (60.5K), and "CRM software" (49.5K).

To come up with a list of terms you should be targeting, think about the topics you want to rank for in terms of generic buckets. You'll come up with about five to 10 topic buckets you think are essential to your business, and then you'll use those topic buckets to help come up with some specific keywords later in the process.

To get started with keyword research, brainstorm ideas for seed keywords. These keywords don't need to be specific but rather broad terms you think your users will be searching. For example, if you sell books for young students, your seed keywords may be "school books", "educational books", "books for learning", or "study books."

To find seed keyword ideas, start by gathering a group of 'seed' keywords that will be the basis of the next steps. You can use question-based keyword queries, such as "What [is a road bike]" or "How to [ride a road bike]." You can also use Google Search Console to see what Google thinks your website is relevant for.

Here are some ways to find seed keyword ideas:

Once you have a list of seed keywords, you can start to think of topics that are related. For example, if your seed keyword is "road bike", you can think of topics such as "road bike maintenance", "road bike training", "road bike clothing", or "road bike lights."

To analyze keywords effectively, it's essential to understand the performance of all your marketing campaigns in one place with built-in analytics, reports, and dashboards, like HubSpot Marketing Analytics Software.

You should drill down into your website's traffic sources and sift through your organic search traffic bucket to identify the keywords people use to arrive at your site.

To verify a user's intent, enter the keyword into a search engine yourself and see what types of results come up, as seen when researching the keyword "how to start a blog" which shows that most users are searching for info on how to start a website with a blog.

You can use the Search Insights Report Template to bucket your keywords into topic clusters, analyze MSV, and inform your editorial calendar and strategy.

To analyze and sort keywords by value and opportunity, start by examining your raw list and identifying the most relevant and high-potential keywords.

Here are some key factors to consider:

By considering these factors and using tools like the Search Insights Report Template, you can optimize your keyword research and create content that resonates with your target audience.

Some of the most popular SEO reports and keyword research tools include Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, which can help you brainstorm more keyword ideas based on exact-match keywords and phrase-match keywords.

To level up your SEO content strategy, consider using keyword clusters, which can help you identify related keywords and phrases to target. This can be a game-changer for creating high-quality, relevant content that resonates with your audience.

Conducting effective keyword research can provide insights into current marketing trends and help you center your content on relevant topics and keywords your audience is looking for.

Google Trends offers data based on actual search query data, allowing you to compare it with actual search volumes from other tools to get a comparative feel of what the actual volumes are.

Trends excels at identifying trending topics and subtopics in a niche, and it can also find geographic search trends in a local area.

It will recommend related keywords that are currently growing in popularity, helping you focus resources on the right topics and know when to stop investing in others.

With Google Trends, you can get a feel for where to focus your resources and when to adjust your keyword strategy.

Advanced keyword research techniques can take your SEO content strategy to the next level. Some of the most popular keyword research tools include Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, which can help you generate more keyword ideas based on exact-match and phrase-match keywords.

Experimenting with different websites and niches is the best way to learn advanced keyword research strategies. Doing the work yourself will help you understand how to apply the techniques in practice.

You can take your keyword research to the next level by exploring advanced methods and strategies, such as B2B keyword research, keyword clusters, and building a keyword strategy for comparison content.

Feeling confident with what you've learned so far? Check out these advanced keyword research tips, including conducting effective keyword research to gain insights into current marketing trends and centering your content on relevant topics and keywords.

Some examples of advanced keyword research topics include:

Tracking and Analyzing Keyword Performance is a crucial step in refining your online research. You can use tools like HubSpot's Traffic Analytics Tool to drill down into your website's traffic sources and identify keywords people use to arrive at your site.

To analyze keyword performance, start by using the Search Insights Report Template, which helps you bucket your keywords into topic clusters and analyze MSV. This template is a great starting point for keyword research.

You can also use the Rank Tracker by SEO PowerSuite to monitor SERP data and do keyword research. This tool allows you to see all the phrases a particular domain ranks for, along with search volumes and keyword difficulty.

To track your keyword rankings and keep improving, use Semrush's Position Tracking tool to see how your overall visibility and individual rankings change over time. Just import your keywords and watch for changes.

To keep growing your traffic, conduct keyword research every few months at a minimum. This will help you capitalize on new ranking opportunities and keep improving your online research.

Here are some key tools to help you track and analyze keyword performance:

Remember to keep adding new keywords as you target them, and don't forget to use the keyword gap tool to determine which keywords competing websites are ranking for that you might be missing out on.