Is your webpage visible to audiences? Search engine optimization (SEO) has always been an essential element of digital marketing. It is the most optimal way to increase website visibility and expose your brand to millions of online visitors. Marketers have to keep up with ever-changing algorithms as they directly impact a website’s rankings. Similarly, you have to optimize your webpage for images, create a responsive design, and fix the page loading speeding errors.
But is this all you need to land on the top results of the search engine results page (SERP)?
Surprisingly, keyword research lays a foundation for SEO strategy, determining the web page’s rank and visibility. After all, users don’t stumble upon the website in this modern era. They actively lookout for information on products and services by searching on Google.
The words or phrases they use are known as keywords in the SEO world. And to make your brand visible, you have to target the same keywords that people are using.
Are you wondering how? Here, keyword research comes into play. It understands the words and phrases and measures them against the difficulty levels.
You can check potential ranking chances, search volume, competitiveness, and any other factor crucial for a website’s rankings. On the off chance that you are distrustful about it, examine.
Here we are unfolding five reasons why keyword research is the blueprint for all your online marketing efforts.
1. Determines the Search Intent
Usually, keyword research is about discovering a market, finding keywords with high search volume, and inserting in content. Although it is the most common approach, it fails to attract conversions because marketers don’t acknowledge the search intent.
For instance, a person searching for health insurance reviews may intend to purchase an insurance policy. But targeting keywords like ‘insurance near me’ or ‘best health insurance’ won’t drive any traffic or leads.
Therefore, you have to conduct thorough keyword research to apprehend the search intent. You can use the keyword explorer by SEMrush to have comprehensive analysis and assess the search intent.
If the purpose is navigational, the tool will give keyword suggestions such as ‘storage unit in Texas.’ In addition to search volume, competition, and difficulty, having a clear idea about search intent can streamline all marketing efforts.
Also Read: How to Choose the Best SEO Agency? – Important Tips to Follow
2. Keeps Tabs on the Competition
In today’s savvy world, spying on competition is inevitable to stay one step ahead in the market. Keyword research unfolds competitor’s target keywords, giving an insight into their target audience and product offerings.
However, you don’t have to copy their strategies; instead, look for ways to improve and upgrade those strategies. If they are trying to rank for short-tail keywords, you can opt for long-tail ones.
Besides this, keyword research provides valuable feedback on blogs and articles your website is competing against on the SEO. It means you can examine the weak points beforehand and generate top-notch content.
Remember, keyword placement has to be as natural as possible to ensure it doesn’t sound promotional. Believe it or not, gaining this type of competitive intelligence can go a long way, letting you win over competitors.
3. Evaluates Keyword Difficulty
Undoubtedly, digging into a competitor’s strategy is an incredible idea, but not enough to choose target keywords. After all, there is no point in aiming for those keywords if their likelihood of site ranking is zero.
Thus, marketers use keyword research to assess SEO difficulty. It measures the competitiveness of keywords on the following factors.
- Facebook Shares: It inspects the number of Facebook shares for the URL targeting similar keywords
- Backlinks: The external links using the keywords
- Authority & Trust: Keyword research oversees how many authority and trust-worthy domains or pages rank for the keyword
After considering these factors, the keyword research tool gives a difficulty score on a scale of 0-9. If the difficulty scores are above six, it is preferable to opt for a less competitive keyword.
It will give you an equal chance to compete for organic traffic while increasing the webpage’s rankings.
4. Streamlines Content Marketing Strategy
In the coming years, content marketing is not going anywhere. Instead of finding reasons to drop it, utilize the power of content to streamline your marketing efforts.
Since keywords allow search engines and users to find content, keyword research plays a vital role in content marketing. Firstly, it ensures Google spiders can crawl to your content, and secondly, it boosts visibility.
In addition to considering the audience’s preferences during content generation, research keywords for content. Here are some tips.
- Understand Your Audience: Customer segmentation always comes first. Utilize customer surveys, online polls, and feedback to get an idea about what they are expecting from your brand.
- Identify their Interests: Create customer personas to answer specific questions and queries.
- Use Informational Keywords: If someone is at the initial stage of the purchase journey, they won’t know what they want. Conducting keyword research will help you develop suitable words and phrases that you can naturally insert into the content.
- Determine Your Objectives: Brands should have unique objectives for each type of keyword. For instance, if you want to convert readers, create keywords around the product or service you sell.
5. Finds Keywords with High Conversion Rates
Surprisingly, keyword research helps you gain in-depth market insights necessary to create competent marketing campaigns.
You can apprehend when people search for keywords and get an overview of peak engagement times. You can use this information to publish your blog and update your website, increasing conversion chances.
Moreover, keyword research can unfold keywords with high conversion rates. Typically, the shorter the keyword, the more challenging it will be to rank for it. Therefore, it would be wise to stick to long-tail keywords that contain more than three words.
Since these are more specific, the conversion rates are also higher. A user searching for ‘bags for women’ will be a better lead prospect than someone searching for ‘bags.’
Most importantly, these keywords are specific to products, meaning less competition. Similarly, they are also better at fulfilling search intent, attracting high traffic volume.
Also Read: More Than SEO: 9 Ways To Increase Your Organic Site Traffic
Final Thoughts
Today, choosing the right keywords has become a primary marketing objective. However, it requires continual attention, re-tweaking, and thorough research. Once brands determine the words and phrases people use to search for their products, they can streamline every marketing campaign.
Keyword research unfolds keyword’s competitiveness, search volume, and difficulty, helping brands to target a suitable keyword. In short, it is all about putting yourself in the shoes of the ideal customer to choose the right keywords.
