Keyword research is a very important part of your SEO strategy. It helps you create content that’s relevant to what your target audience is searching for. It also boosts your visibility online, because Google and other search engines rank the most relevant content at the top of search results. But conducting keyword research isn’t always easy—before you jump in, ask yourself these three key questions.
Three Questions to Drive Your Keyword Research
1. What Are My Business Goals?
Whether for specific departments or the company as a whole, your business goals can give you a sense of direction and focus. They will also help guide your keyword research. For example, if one of your company’s short-term goals is to “increase website conversions by 10% in the next 3 months,” you need to conduct keyword research that will help you achieve that goal.
This is how to set good business goals for keyword research:
- Start by deciding what your long-term goals are.
- Take those broad, long-term goals and break them down into smaller, short-term goals.
- Break those short-term goals down into smaller, actionable steps.
- Make sure that those actionable steps or objectives are measurable.
- Assign tasks or objectives to be completed in a specific time frame.
- Measure your progress and make adjustments as needed.
2. Who Is My Target Audience?
Your target audience is the specific group of people who will want to purchase your product or service. Their needs should be driving your entire marketing strategy. You can identify your target audience by creating buyer personas. Buyer personas are fictional characters you create based on information about your ideal customer. Start with basic demographics, like their age, gender, income, location, and interests.
Here are a few more ways to get to know your target audience:
- Conduct surveys and interviews
- Engage with your followers on social media
- Check out who engages with your competitors
- Stay up-to-date on industry trends
3. Which Topics Are Relevant?
SEO keyword research should also help you determine relevant topics for your content. You want to find keywords with high search volume and an easy to medium difficulty level. When a particular keyword is searched hundreds to thousands of times a month, it could make a good topic for your blog or social media content.
As you conduct your keyword research, pay close attention to the search volume and difficulty level for each term. Make a list of the keywords and phrases that have a high search volume. Then, you can choose your potential topics according to search difficulty. Keyword research may seem challenging at first, but the more you work on it, the easier it will become.
How to Conduct Keyword Research
As we stated above, keyword research can help you increase your online visibility and drive more traffic to your website. But how do you get started? Once you’ve answered the questions above, here are the next steps to take.
- Think about search intent—what is your target audience searching for? Write down a list of possible keywords based on search intent.
- Make a list of long-tail keywords (phrases with three or more words) as they are more specific to your target audience.
- Shorten your list of keywords to the ones that best suit your products or services and that have medium to high search volume.
Need Help with SEO Keyword Research?
Conducting keyword research can be a time consuming and challenging process, especially if you’re new to online marketing. If you need help with SEO, contact the experts at New Wine Digital. As the preferred marketing agency for small businesses, we can take care of all the keyword research, content creation, social media ads, and more. Schedule a consultation to find out how our online marketing services can help your business grow.
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