How to do keyword research is one of the most highly discussed topics in the SEO community. And because it is such a highly discussed topic a lot of confusion can also come as a result.
One can say that there is a dividing line in this topic between quantitative approaches and qualitative approaches but in the article I will put forward how I do keyword research.
Phase 1: Analysing Competitors
The first step should be to analyse main competitor’s websites and look at what already is ranking and what core keywords drive the most traffic to their websites.
This strategy allows you to assess what the market really is searching for. What your potential customers want. It gives you’re an edge in the sense that it allows you to have a broader understanding of your market.
This is very easy to do and this video will certainly help in the process. Ahrefs is the weapon of choice for this strategy. And from it a list of high volume keywords can be generated.
However, these are the difficult keywords of your market. A smarter search should identify other opportunities.
Phase 2: Identifying Secondary Messages
The first thing one needs to identify is what the secondary messages of a particular project are. By secondary messages are all the topics that we would like to include in our keyword research.
Imagine if you have a forex website. Then the secondary messages could include not only the world forex but also other related words such as forex courses, forex brokers, forex signals, forex trading, social trading, automated trading, etc.
Secondary messages are, therefore, all the ideas you would like to stress when building a particular project.
Phase 2.1: Selection Process: Keywords with Commercial Intent
During phase one the goal is to understand what the main categories/secondary messages are that we aim to target. These are broad terms that aggregate by themselves a lot of searches.
Explore Buyer Keywords
What are buyer keywords? Here is a list of all buyer keywords we should focus on:
- Discount
- Buy
- Order
- Purchase
- Trial
- Coupon
- Deal
- Bargain
- Bonus
- Cheap
- Delivery
- Price
- Promotion
- Rent
- Save
- Shop
- Sale
- Shipping
- Voucher
- Wholesale
Explore Informational Keywords
- Reviews
- Review
- Tutorials
- Tutorial
- Best ___
- Top ___
- Latest ___
- Script
- Template
- Download(s)
Phase 2.2: Selection Process: Competition and Volume
When exploring keywords we need to have some criteria in mind. Actually, there are two main criteria that make for a perfect keyword to be part of our content plan. These two criteria are very simple and they are:
. Low competition (meaning the number of backlinks from competitors that target that particular keyword is very low)
. High/medium volume of searches
If we find low competition keywords with a relatively high volume of searches, then we are on to an easy to rank keyword.
Ahrefs can be used for this strategy:
Another tool that can be used is Long-tail Pro:
