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Keyword Research Course

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
174 views59 pages

Keyword Research Course

Uploaded by

Marina Shilova
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Lesson 1: Welcome to the Keyword Research Course


Lesson 2: Keyword Research Basics
Lesson 3: Long Tail Keywords
Lesson 4: Semantic Keywords
Lesson 5: Perform Keyword Research
Lesson 6: Keyword Research Tools
Copyright Information

Note: You can use the PDF Version for reference but it is highly recommended to
take the course using the online interface. Video content is not available in this
version.
Lesson 1

Welcome to the Keyword Research


Course

Introduction
Keyword research is a fundamental part of SEO and digital marketing. It is widely
known that search engines favor great content, but this is not enough. If you don’t
use the words people are actually interested in and actively searching for, you’re
missing a lot of traffic.

Keyword research is like doing ‘market research’ on the Web. It tells you
what people are interested in, and in what relative numbers.

Better yet, it reveals the actual language people are using when they think about
those topics, which provides you with insight on how to ‘connect’ with them via
your content.

That information is worth its weight in gold if you know what to do with it. And
that’s what this course is all about.

How to use this course


My recommendation is to go through the lessons in the order specified in the
menu. Even if you are familiar with the basic concepts, it’s good to start from the
beginning to refresh your knowledge and remind yourself of the basic principles
and definitions.

The most important lesson and the one to spend most of your time in is the
‘Perform Keyword Research‘ lesson. You’ll learn the steps to follow to perform
keyword research and the questions to answer to help you decide which are the
right keywords for your website.

This is a practical course and not theoretical. Don’t just read the content or watch
the videos but take each step and work through the examples. The end result
should be a list of keywords you can use in your SEO and content marketing
campaigns.

Author Information

Alex Chris

I studied Computer Science and E-commerce and after spending several years
working in the IT industry, I realized that my true passion was in blogging and
SEO and since 2002 I am working online as a Digital Marketing consultant and
professional blogger.

Over the years, I did consulting and SEO work for companies in the most
competitive niches like travel, jewelry, education, fitness, forex, software (to
name a few), and had the opportunity to experiment and learn the hard way how
the Internet works.

In my spare time, I blog about SEO and Digital marketing and my work has been
referenced by leading industry websites like Forbes,
contentmarketinginstitute.com, thenextweb.com, neilpatel.com,
socialmediatoday.com, socialmediaexaminer.com, searchenginejournal.com,
kissmetricks.com, sitepronews.com, lifehack.org, problogger.net, jeffbullas.com,
entrepreneur.com, marketingland, quicksprout.com, and others.

The best way to contact me is by email at alex@reliablesoft.net


Lesson 2

Keyword Research Basics

What is a Keyword?

In this topic, you’ll learn what are keywords and why they are important for SEO.

Let’s start with a definition.

A Keyword is a single word or a phrase that people use when searching for
information through a search engine.

By adding keywords in your content, you increase your chances of appearing in


the search results for those terms.

Keywords make it easier for search engines to understand what your content is all
about and help users find the information they need.

Why are keywords important?


As you might have already guessed, keywords are very important for SEO.

Without using the right keywords in your content, search engines have a hard
time understanding the meaning of your content. And this diminishes your
chances of getting organic traffic to your website.

The way search engines work is by matching the user search queries with pages
available in their index.

During the crawling and indexing phase, search engine crawlers visit a webpage.
They extract the information they need and add it to their index. They use this
information later during the ‘matching’ process (also known as the ranking
process).

Part of the information they extract is the keywords a web page is associated
with.

If during this process your website is associated with the wrong keywords, then
you have no chances of appearing high in the results for the keywords that matter
for your website.

Let me give you an example to understand this better.

Let’s say you want to rank for [electric bicycles]. You create a page and showcase
your products (product name, images of the products, etc.).

Unless you mention on the page that they are electric, Google will most probably
associate your page with bicycles and this not what you want.

What you should do instead is to find out which keywords people use as search
terms when they look for electric bicycles and make sure that these keywords are
part of your content.

KEY LEARNINGS

A keyword is a word or phrase that users enter into the search box.

A keyword can be a single word like ‘SEO’ or ‘shoes’ or multiple words like
‘what is SEO’ or ‘Indian restaurants near me’ or even more words like ‘what
is the difference between SEO and SEM’.

Once the search button is pressed, search engine algorithms try to find the
best pages related to the keywords used.
Different Types of Keywords

In this topic, you’ll learn about the different types of keywords.

When doing keyword research, you’ll come across different definitions like ‘seed
keywords’, ‘focus keywords’, ‘long-tail keywords’.

It will be less confusing to know about the different types of keywords before
starting your research.

Seed keywords

Also known as head, focus or main keywords, are usually one or two words search
phrases that have a high search volume. These keywords are also highly
competitive with hundreds of websites competing for one of the top spots in the
SERPS.

Here are some examples of seed keywords: ‘SEO’, ‘Social Media’, ‘Online
Marketing’, ‘diet’.

Synonyms or closely related keywords

These are keywords closely related to each other. It’s keywords that have the
same meaning but written differently.

Here are some examples: ‘how to replace a light bulb’, ‘how to fix a light bulb’,
‘how to change a light bulb’.

Long-tail keywords

Are search phrases consisting of 3 or more words. They have less search volume
compared to head keywords but their intent is more specific.

Here are some examples of long-tail keywords: ‘What is SEO’, ‘How to become an
SEO Expert’.

Semantically related keywords

Also known as LSI keywords, are keywords that are related to each other
conceptually.
For example, for the search phrase ‘keyword research’, some semantically related
keywords are ‘search volume’, ‘keyword analysis’, ’google keyword tool’.

KEY LEARNINGS

A keyword can be a single word or multiple words. In general:

One or two words – high search volume, highly competitive


Three to four words – less search volume, less competitive
More than Four words – less search volume, easier to target

What is keyword research

In this topic, you’ll learn what is keyword research.

Introduction to Keyword Research (Video by Google Digital Garage)

Note: Watch the video to get a general idea of what is keyword research and
why it’s an important SEO process.

What is Keyword Research?


Keyword research is the process of finding out which words or phrases people
type in a search box. By knowing the exact search terms, you can provide them
with relevant content that satisfies their intent.

The outcome of the keyword research process is a list of keywords you can
actually rank for and are important for your business.

You can use the list as the fuel for all your digital marketing campaigns.
Why is keyword research important for SEO?
Keyword research is important for SEO for many reasons:

If you don’t know the actual search phrases people are using in Google,
you risk in optimizing your website for the wrong keywords.

Without analyzing the potential of a keyword, you don’t know if it’s a


keyword you want to rank for.

Without doing research you cannot know for which keywords you can
actually rank for and you might be targeting keywords you will never be
able to rank well.

Keyword research will help you understand your industry and identify your
true competitors.

Keyword research will give you a list of keywords to monitor their


rankings and evaluate your SEO performance.

With keyword research, you get to know the size of your potential
audience, a metric useful in setting marketing goals and creating growth
plans.

KEY LEARNINGS

Keyword research is a core SEO task that involves identifying popular words
and phrases people enter into search engines.

Researching keywords gives marketers a better understanding of how high


the demand is for certain keywords and how hard it would be to compete for
those terms in the organic search results, offering some direction to
optimization efforts.
Lesson 3

Long Tail Keywords

What are long tail keywords?

In this topic, you’ll learn what are long-tail keywords and why they are important
for SEO.

Long tail keywords are search queries usually consisting of two or more
words that narrow down the focus of the search results and bring up more
specific results.

Long tail keywords are also often lower difficulty and lower volume.

Long Tail Keywords Examples


I know that beginners to SEO may have trouble understanding what exactly long
tail keywords are, so let me demonstrate this with a real example.

Let’s take the keyword “SEO”.

This is a very popular keyword and according to SEMRUSH it has more than
110,000 exact keyword searches per month.
Long Tail Keyword Research Example

It is also a highly competitive keyword with an average CPC of 14.82 USD (Cost
Per Click – When running Google Ads targeting this keyword).

If you search for this term on Google.com you will find in the first positions
websites like Wikipedia.org, moz.com and Google websites, which makes it almost
impossible to outrank them with a normal website or blog.

So, if it is impossible to rank for “SEO” what is the next step?

You go one step further by adding tail or tails to the existing keyword so as to
narrow down your competition.

If you add the word ‘tips’ your keyword now becomes “SEO tips”, which is less
competitive than the head keyword (SEO), but it is still very difficult to target.

Long Tail Keyword Research Example

Top results are dominated by large and well-known websites.

So, what do you do?

Add another word and it becomes “SEO tips for beginners”.

Certainly, the number of people searching for this keyword per month is less
compared to “SEO” and “SEO tips” but the benefits gained from ranking long tail
keywords are much more than the traffic difference.

Top Rankings for Long Tail Keywords

KEY LEARNINGS

Long-tail keywords are search queries that include a number of words and
generally have a lower search volume but also less competition.

This creates a huge opportunity for SEOs since they can create content to
target those keywords and actually have some chances of getting high
rankings and traffic from Google.
Importance of long tail keywords

In this topic, you’ll learn the benefits of targeting long tail keywords.

Now you’ve had a crash-course introduction, let’s run through the benefits of
targeting the long tail.

To understand the benefits of long tail keywords, you need to understand the
concept of intent.

Long Tail Keywords Match the User Intent


Put yourself in the shoes of the searcher for a moment while you think about the
customer journey.

A section of it might look something like this:

The prospect becomes aware of their need, and searches head keywords
to find out more.

The prospect becomes aware of a potential solution and searches a long


tail keyword with the intent to buy it.

This is a dumbed-down explanation, but it sums up the idea of intent nicely.

Basically, considering the intent of a keyword is considering the mindset of


someone who would search the keyword.

For example, someone looking for ‘SEO’ is probably looking for a broad definition
while someone looking for ‘SEO Services’ has the intent to click on your search
snippet listing, and buy your services.

Through the long tail specificity of their search, they’re expressing their intent to
buy exactly what you’re selling (or at least read exactly what you’re writing).

For this reason, it’s worth targeting long tail keywords because the traffic
that they bring in is targeted and will be far more likely to convert.

The searchers are no longer in the ‘discovery’ mindset. They’re ready to move
into buying mode, and even though the volume won’t be as high, it’s well worth it.

Head keywords have lower intent


What’s the intent of someone searching ‘marketing’? Who knows. It’s probably to
find out a definition or to read some kind of encyclopedic article, which shows
why Wikipedia and the Business Dictionary rank highly.

Narrow it down, however, and target ‘marketing agency London‘ (instead of just
‘marketing’) and the intent is much, much clearer. And you’re way more likely to
rank for it.

In fact, the major problem with going after head keywords is that you’ll be putting
a ton of work into driving the wrong kind of traffic. And, when you drive traffic
that doesn’t stay long on your page, you’re telling Google that you don’t deserve
to rank, and that’s all your work wasted.

A good rule of thumb is to Google the keyword you’re targeting before you target
it, and ask yourself whether your article would be out of place in the results. If it
would be, then don’t bother.

Long Tail keywords are easier to rank compared to non-long tail


keywords
Provided that you are having a high-quality web site, long tail keywords are easier
to rank especially if you choose low competition keywords.

There are more long tail keywords than head keywords


There are nowhere near as many head keywords out there as long tail.

And that means that at some point, you could theoretically run out of big meaty
keywords to target, and find yourself thinking “phew! I’ve targeted ‘marketing’,
I’ve targeted ‘SEO’, I’ve targeted ‘business’ … What’s next?”.

When you’re going after the long tail, you’re not only giving yourself more
chances to put optimized content on your site, you’re creating more pages.
It only makes sense that sites with more pages rank for more keywords and drive
more traffic, especially if they are ranking for juicy long tail keywords.

This is probably best described simply as covering your bases. Targeting both
‘green tea smoothie ideas’ and ‘green tea smoothie recipes’ in two separate posts
and getting both of them ranking is a way to make sure you’re scooping up
whichever search term variation that gets typed in.

Long tail keywords make up 70% of all searches – here’s a visual of that:

Long Tail Keywords – Search Curve

Long tail keywords have a higher conversion rate


If you think about it for a second, those users that use long tail keywords to
search for something can be considered more targeted because they already
made the effort to make their search terms more specific.

If we are talking about ‘buying’ or ‘action’ keywords then those are more likely to
convert or perform an action.

Consider the following example:

“Cars” <- General search

“used cars for sale” <- looking for used cars


“used cars for sale in Florida” <- looking for used cars in Florida

“used ford focus for sale in Florida” <-looking for used ford focus cars in Florida

Long tail keywords help you build website authority and trust
Having a first-page placement of any keyword is an indication of website authority
and trust.

One of the ways to get your website ready to target more important
keywords is to get as many first placements as you can for long tail
keywords.

Of course, this is not the only factor that will help you build authority but a
number of first place placements together with a solid SEO strategy can work
towards that direction.

You will get more traffic than the suggested volume


The various keyword research tools give an estimate of the traffic you can get if
you secure a top position for a specific keyword.

When it comes to long tail keywords, their estimates are not 100% correct. This is
because the volume for long tail keywords is low and so is their sampling so they
under-estimate.

I have many examples of long tail keywords that bring in 10 times the traffic
shown by the keyword tools so never reject a keyword because the traffic in the
tools is low.

KEY LEARNINGS

It is much easier to rank for long-tail keywords than for more common
keywords because fewer websites compete for high rankings in the result
pages of Google. The longer (and more specific) search terms are, the easier
it is to rank for the term.

Another benefit of focusing on long-tail keywords is that, although these


keywords are used less in search, the visitor that finds your website using
them is more likely to buy your service or product.

How to find long tail keywords

In this topic, you’ll learn how to find long tail keywords to use in your SEO
campaigns.

Note: The process of finding long tail keywords is also covered in Step 5 of
the ‘Perform Keyword Research’ Lesson.

There are two main ways to find long tail keywords, manually and with the help of
a keyword research tool.

How to manually find long tail keywords


Google search box suggestions

A great way is to start typing keywords in the google search box and see the ideas
suggested by Google.
Google Search Box Suggestions

When you find a nice long tail keyword you can check it with the keyword tool of
your choice (I use SEMRUSH) and decide if it is worth targeting or not.

Google ‘People Also Ask’ and ‘Related Searches’

Another manual method is to Google the topic you have in mind and check the
“People Also Ask Section and the “Related Searches”.

Google People Also Ask Box


Bing / Yahoo suggest

Bing and Yahoo also make suggestions as you are typing a search term. You can
use that as well since in almost all cases the suggestions made are different from
Google so it’s worth exploiting.

Yahoo Search Box

Reddit

Another goldmine is reddit. I headed over to /r/brewing to find out what people
are talking about.

If I was blogging about beer brewing, these people are my target audience. I’ve
highlighted some viable keywords:
Using Reddit to Find Long Tail Keywords

Quora

Finally, search for keywords in Quora. People are answering questions that you
could answer with your ads or content:

Using Quora to Find Long Tail Keywords

Note: Quora is actually a fantastic source of inspiration for blog posts, too.
You can usually just grab the questions as a title and use the content in the
answer plus your own original research to create winning content.
Competition analysis

There is no niche without competition so it’s not a bad idea to take a look at what
your competitors are doing in terms of long tail keyword targeting.

Register to their newsletter and RSS feed and if you like a keyword they have
used, check it with SEMRUSH and see if there are any variations or similar
keywords you can target.

To avoid any confusion, competition analysis does not mean copying your
competitor’s ideas or stealing their work but simply means keeping an eye on
what other websites in your niche are doing.

How to find long tail keywords using a tool


As well as being a complete platform for managing organic and paid SEO
campaigns, SEMrush has a quality keyword research feature.

For finding long tail versions of a particular head keyword you’ve researched, use
the Keyword Magic Tool.

Look at these great long tail keywords I found in just a few clicks:

Long Tail SEO with SEMRUSH

Getting started with your long tail SEO strategy


What’s the next step you can act on right now?
Pick a head keyword, find the low-hanging long tail fruit, and get targeting with
content or ads that recognize the intent behind the search term.

KEY LEARNINGS

For new websites or for not so big websites there is no other way to get
traffic and good rankings than working with long tail keywords. The
competition for high volume keywords is so huge and it is very difficult to
win one of the top positions.

The best way to start building a strong website is to provide top quality
content for long tail keywords consistently so as to start gaining rankings
and traffic and then gradually move on to more general terms and establish
your presence.
Lesson 4

Semantic Keywords

What are semantic / LSI keywords

In this topic, you’ll learn what are semantic keywords and why they are important
for Modern SEO.

Semantic or LSI keywords are simply words or phrases that are related to
each other conceptually.

For example, for a keyword like “search volume,” some semantically related
keywords could be:

keyword research

paid search

online marketing

For a keyword like “cook asparagus,” some semantically related keywords could
be:

vegetable peeler

lemon juice

baking sheet

“Semantic search” is the idea that when modern search engines look for
webpages to rank, they don’t only look for matching keywords, but they attempt
to identify the intent and deeper meaning of a search based on each of the words
used in the query.

Google is trying to understand the language on a higher level in order to


serve more accurate search results for a wider range of queries and devices
(like Voice Search).

Why use semantically related keywords in your


content?
From an SEO perspective, having more semantically related keywords means that
your webpages provide more contextual background on a topic and therefore they
can perform better in search results.

Google will be able to make connections between the semantically related topics
that your content covers and understand the bigger picture of how your
information answers the questions that are being searched.

KEY LEARNINGS

Just make sure to use semantic keywords where it makes sense, and not to
haphazardly sprinkle them whenever and wherever.

How to find semantic keywords

In this topic, you’ll learn how to find semantic keywords

There are a number of ways to find LSI keywords, the most important are
described below.
Google Autocomplete
Go to Google and start typing your target (head) keyword. You will notice that as
you type Google autocomplete makes suggestions. These are LSI keywords you
can use in your content.

For example, if you are optimizing a page for the keyword ‘SEO Audit’, you should
try and include in your content the keywords suggested by Google autocomplete.
Don’t do keyword stuffing but include those keywords that can naturally fit in
your content.

Google Autocomplete

LSI Keyword Generator


Go to LSI Graph type your head keywords and click search. Take note of the
suggested keywords and add them in your keyword list and content.
How to Find Semantic SEO Keywords

Google Keyword Planner


Login to Google Keyword Planner and click the DISCOVER NEW KEYWORDS
option.

Click Discover New Keywords

Enter your main keyword in the search box.

Make sure that ‘Include Brand names in results’ is off


Enter your domain in the filter area

Click Get Results

Find New Keyword Ideas

Find related keywords used by your competitors


Instead of searching for keyword ideas, you can use the Google keyword planner
to find out which keywords your competitors are using in their content.

Enter the URL of a page that is already ranking on Google for your target
keyword.

Select ‘Use only this page”

Click ‘Get Results’.


Get keywords ideas from Competitors

The end results will be a list of RELATED keywords you can use in your content.
Keyword Planner Related Keywords

Google ‘People also ask’ and ‘Searches Related to’


When you search for a keyword in Google, there are 2 ways to find out what
Google considers to be the related keywords for a given search term.

The first one is to look at the “People also ask” section.


People Also Ask – Keyword Ideas

And the second one is the “Searches related to…” section.

Google Related Searches

SEMRUSH
SEMRUSH is my favorite keyword research tool.

Among many other useful features, it has a very powerful tool for finding LSI
keywords. With SEMRUSH, you don’t have to go through the process of creating
an account with the Google Keyword Planner or going to LSIGraph and Google
search to find related keywords.

The first step is to create an account

Then select KEYWORD MAGIC TOOL under KEYWORD ANALYTICS.

Type in your head keyword and click SEARCH.

Click on the RELATED button.


How to find conceptually related keywords

SEMRUSH will group related keywords together.

Sort the keywords by volume and KD (Keyword Difficulty). Unlike the Google
Keyword Planner, KD refers to how difficult is to RANK for a particular keyword
in Google Search and not Google Ads.

A metric very useful since what you want is to pick the right SEO keywords that
have higher search volume and lower KD score.

KEY LEARNINGS

Tools that can help you find semantic keywords are:

Google Autocomplete

LSI Keyword Generator

Google Keyword Planner

Google ‘People also ask’

Google ‘Searches Related to’

SEMRUSH
Lesson 5

Perform Keyword Research

How to do keyword research

In this topic, you’ll learn how to perform keyword research

These are the 10 steps to follow to find keywords for your SEO campaigns.

Get to know your Niche

Write down topic ideas and create topic buckets

Find seed keywords for your topics using keyword research tools

Examine the search intent of each keyword

Find long-tail keywords

Find keywords your competitors are ranking

Choose the right keywords for your website

Convert keywords into content titles

Find Semantically Related Keywords to use in your content

Keep checking for trending keywords

Step 1: Get to Know your Niche


The first step of the keyword research process is to find out as many details as
possible about your niche.

Knowing who you have to compete with, will help you create a realistic
keyword list and an SEO strategy that can get you results.

Let’s get started.

Go to Google and start typing search terms related to your niche. Visit all
websites that come up on the first page of Google and take note of things like:

Their posting frequency (how often they update their website with new
content)

Type of content they publish (is it text, videos, etc.)

How their website is structured (what they have on their homepage,


menus, etc.).

Learn more about their social media presence (channels they are active,
how many followers they have, what they are posting, etc.)

Use tools like SEMRUSH or Ubersuggest to find out their domain


authority.

Register to their newsletter (if they have one) and add them to your Feedly
(to get notified of content updates)

The main idea behind this exercise is to identify your main competitors and get
new ideas about topics/keywords you can target.

What is important to understand before doing keyword research for SEO


purposes, is that there is a big difference between the keywords you would like to
achieve high rankings and the keywords you can actually rank high on Google.

If your website is new, some keywords might be impossible to target (usually


these are highly competitive keywords), so it’s good to know this from the
beginning to adjust your keyword strategy to go after keywords that you have
more chances of reaching the first page of Google.

Step 2: Write down topic ideas and create topic buckets


Once you are done with step 1, it’s time to get more specific by writing down (in a
spreadsheet), topic ideas.
Do your brainstorming and write down anything that comes to mind related to
your niche, industry, and products.

Put yourself in the position of the Google searcher and try to think about what
search terms they might type in Google.

If needed, revisit the websites noted in step 1 and take a closer look at their page
titles. This can give you more ideas about topics related to your niche that you
might have not thought about.

Group your ideas together to form topic buckets. Each topic bucket should
include related ideas.

Let me give you an example of how this works.

Let’s say that you are in the digital marketing niche, your topic buckets might
include the following:

Digital marketing
What is digital marketing

How it works

etc.

SEO
SEO services

How to hire an SEO

Keyword Research

etc.

Content Marketing
etc.

Social Media Marketing


etc.
Step 3: Find seed keywords for your topics using
keyword research tools
Now that you have a list of ideas, grouped into topic buckets, it’s time to convert
your ideas into SEO keywords.

SEO Keywords are the actual queries people type in a search engine that are
important for your website.

To do that, we need the help of keyword research tools.

I will demonstrate the process using SEMRUSH but you can find below a list
of alternative tools you can use.

Login to SEMRUSH and go to the KEYWORD MAGIC TOOL (located under


Keyword Analytics).

Take your first topic bucket (i.e. ‘Digital Marketing’) and start your keyword
research.

At this point, we are only interested in keywords that have a decent search
volume.

The search volume is the number of searches performed on Google per month for
a particular keyword.
How to find head keywords

Go through the list and select the keywords that are related to your business and
click ADD TO KEYWORD ANALYZER.

Make sure that you navigate through the ALL KEYWORDS menu (which groups
keywords by topic) and also the top menu (Phrase match, exact match, related).

When you finish adding keywords to your list, you can click the GO TO KEYWORD
ANALYZER button to view your selected keywords.

Get more data for selected keywords using the Keyword Analyzer
Click the Update Metrics button to refresh the metrics for each keyword and use
the advanced filters to narrow down your selection by country (Databases) and
sort the keywords by volume.

Once you are done, you can click the EXPORT to XLSX button to get the list in
excel format and update your main spreadsheet.

Step 4: Examine the search intent of each keyword


Now that you have a list of seed (or head) keywords, it’s time to examine the
search intent of each keyword.

The search intent is simply what type of information users are actually
looking for, why they search for the specific keyword.

For many keywords the search intent is obvious but for others, it needs more
investigation.

For example, when someone is searching for ‘white sports shoes for men’, their
intent is clear but when they search for ‘shoes’ it is very vague.

The best way to figure out what is the search intent is to type the keywords in
Google and examine the first page of the results.

Google is doing a great job in understanding the actual intent of the user so what
they show on the first page, is very close to what users are looking for.

You need to do this exercise to find and eliminate from your list keywords that
have a different intent than what you are offering. It’s a waste of time and
resources to go after keywords that won’t get the kind of organic traffic you want.

For example, I initially added in my list the keyword ‘Freelance Digital Marketing’
since it’s a keyword with a high monthly search volume.

When you search for this keyword on Google, you will see that the first page is
occupied with resources on how to become a digital marketing freelancer.

If my keyword research goal was to find keywords that can potentially get me,
new clients, this keyword is not a good fit since the intent of the searcher is not to
find a freelancer to hire but to learn how to become one.

Step 5: Find long-tail keywords


As you work through the list of your seed keywords, you will realize that most of
them (if not all), are highly competitive.

In other words, when you search for these keywords on Google, you find hundreds
of websites competing for one of the top 10 positions.

If you have an established website, this may not be a very big issue but if you are
starting out now, this is a huge problem.

What should you do?

Adjust your keyword research strategy and start looking for keywords that are
less competitive i.e. long tail keywords.

Long tail keywords make up 70% of all searches and it’s your only opportunity to
start ranking high on Google for keywords that can bring targeted traffic to your
website, in a relatively short amount of time.

Long Tail Keywords – Search Curve

You might think that the issue with long-tail keywords is that they have less
search volume and while this is true, less is better than nothing.
In other words, there is no point in spending your time and effort on popular
keywords that it’s impossible to rank. Better start with the low hanging fruit and
built your way up.

Once you manage to achieve high rankings for several long tail keywords, you
also increase your chances of ranking for seed keywords as well.

How to find long tail keywords?

There are a number of ways to find long-tail keywords.

You can manually search Google and look for the ‘People also ask’ or ‘related
searches’ section. You can also go to Wikipedia and Amazon and see what people
are searching for.

The fastest way is to use two SEMRUSH functions, the ‘Keyword Magic Tool’ and
the ‘Topic Research’ tools.

Revisit the Keyword Magic tool and use the ‘Advanced Filters’ to search for
keywords that have 4 words or more. Just enter the number 4 into the ‘Words
Count’ box and click Enter.

Find long tail keywords


What you see now are keywords that consist of more than 4 words. Select the
keywords that match your business, examine their search intent by analyzing the
Google results and add them to your main list.

Another way to find long tail keywords is to use the ‘Topic Research’ tool. Select
the topic research option from the menu, type your topic ideas and click GET
CONTENT IDEAS.

Find Related Keywords using SEMRUSH

Look for the ‘Interesting Questions’ section and find questions that relate to your
business and products.

Add these keywords to your main spreadsheet. You can decide later whether to
target them as is i.e. to create content to answer each question or use them
together in a pillar type article.

Step 6: Find keywords your competitors are ranking


While doing your keyword research, you created a list of websites that are your
direct competitors. You visited their websites and analyzed their content, now it’s
time to learn for which keywords they are actually ranking and the amount of
traffic they receive from Google search.

Go to SEMRUSH, select ORGANIC RESEARCH from DOMAIN ANALYTICS and


type in a competitor’s URL.

Analyze your competitor keywords

What you see are the keywords your competitors are ranking. Click on VIEW ALL
ORGANIC KEYWORDS to go to the full list and use the advanced filters to find
keywords with a decent search volume, exclude brand-related keywords and
keywords that do not fall into your line of business.
Find keywords with a decent search volume

Your goal with this exercise is to find keyword ideas that you might have not
thought before and use them to enrich your keyword list.

You can also follow the above procedure to find out which specific keywords a
competitor’s page is ranking.

In other words, instead of using the domain the search box, type in the URL of a
specific page.
Find keywords a webpage is ranking

What you see now are all the keywords that the particular page is ranking, the
monthly search volume and whether they generate traffic to the website.

Step 7: Choose the right keywords for your website


Once you reach this point, you should already have a list of keywords (both seed
and long tail keywords), you would like to rank for.

For sure it’s a big list and not easily manageable.

Now it’s time to revise the list once more and narrow it down to 40-50 keywords
you can target by either creating SEO optimized landing pages, optimizing your
homepage or creating new pages (blog posts).

To decide, which keywords to keep or discard, we’ll use data gathered so far from
the previous steps and add two more parameters to the mix, keyword difficulty,
and authority of the domains ranking on the first page of Google.
What is keyword difficulty?

It is an estimate of how difficult it would be to rank well in Google organic search


for that keyword. It is given as a percentage, the higher the percentage the more
difficult it is to rank high for the specific keyword.

Each tool has its own way of calculating keyword difficulty but in general the
lower the value, the better.

In all SEMRUSH reports, you can see the keyword difficulty of a keyword, the
column is marked as KD%.

Authority of domains ranking on the top positions

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times so far but it’s time to make it more specific.

When you search for a keyword on Google and you notice that the first 10
positions are occupied by big and well-known websites, it means that it is
very difficult for a small business website or blog to get there.

For example, if you search for ‘Digital Marketing’ you’ll see websites like
HubSpot, Moz, Wikipedia, and other giant websites.

This means that although ‘digital marketing’ is a term I would like to rank for,
Google tells me that this is not possible so I take that term out of my list and
instead look for variations (long tail search terms) that are possible to target.

How to decide which keywords are the correct keywords to target

Go through the keywords one by one and decide whether to keep or remove from
your list, by answering the following questions:

Is the keyword search intent in-synch with your marketing goals?

Is the keyword difficulty low compared to other keywords?

Does Google rank normal websites in the first 10 positions or is it only big
and well-known websites?

Is there a decent search volume (above 50) for that keyword?


Can you provide good content for that keyword?

If the answer to all the questions is YES, then keep that keyword in your list,
otherwise if the answer to any of the above is NO, remove it from your list.

If at the end of this exercise, you have a short keyword list, you need to go back
and repeat all steps and find more keywords to enrich your list.

Remember that the goal of keyword research is not to create a long list of
keywords that you will not use but to create a list of keywords that you can
actually use in your content marketing campaigns.

Step 8: Convert keywords into page titles


Once you reach this point you can relax, the difficult part is behind you. Now, it’s
time to convert those keywords into page titles and write the content.

Why pay attention to your page titles?

Good SEO practices indicate that each page or post on your website should target
a specific keyword only.

There is too much content on the Internet and Google tries to pick up the 10 best
pages for a particular keyword.

To help them in this process, you need to make sure that each page is focusing on
a specific keyword and that this is reflected in your page titles.

To convert keywords into page titles, follow these simple rules:

Search for the keyword on Google and examine the first 10 page titles

Create a title that contains your target keyword but make it unique i.e.
Make sure that it’s not the same as one of the titles that are already shown
on the first page. You need to do this because Google rarely shows pages
with the same titles in the SERPS.

Make your title interesting by adding power words (like Amazing,


complete, easy, etc.)
Step 9: Find Semantically Related Keywords to use in
your content
Now that you have your titles ready the next step is to create high-quality SEO
friendly content.

One of the things that you need to consider is semantically related keywords.

Semantically related keywords (or LSI keywords) are keywords related to your
target keywords or keywords that have the same meaning.

By adding these keywords in your content, you make the content more relevant to
search engines and this dramatically increases your chances of ranking for your
main keyword.

You can use SEMRUSH to find RELATED keywords (by clicking the RELATED
button as shown below).

How to find conceptually related keywords

While optimizing content for SEO, make sure that you add these keywords in your
copy.
Step 10: Keep checking for trending keywords
Besides the above steps, you also need to monitor your niche for trending
keywords and new keywords that rise to the surface.

It’s a fact that 30% of the queries entered into Google on a monthly basis are
NEW and keywords that Google never saw before.

This means that the keywords tools won’t show a big search volume for these
keywords or not show them at all.

Most probably it’s keywords your competitors are not aware of, so this gives you a
competitive advantage since you can rank for them faster.

I personally use this method a lot and it works great for almost all niches and
industries.

Google Trends is a tool to use for this exercise. Go to Google Trends and enter
your seed keywords.

Filter the results by area (if you are targeting specific areas), by categories and
Google search channel.

Look for the RELATED QUERIES section and drill down to get more details for a
specific query.

Related Queries in Google Trends

A piece of advice, don’t give up too soon on this tool, try different filters and
different keywords/topics and you can find some great keywords to target before
everyone else does.

Add in your calendar a reminder to repeat this exercise at least once every 3
months.

KEY LEARNINGS

Keyword research is an important process of SEO. Through keyword


research you can find the keywords that really matter for your business and
use them in your SEO and content marketing campaigns.

Keyword research is not a once-off process but it’s an ongoing process. You
do it initially when you start a new website or SEO campaign and depending
on the results, you need to go back and revise your keywords list.

The process is simple but it’s time consuming. As your website grows you
will need to find more keywords to target and this is the part that is
becoming more challenging.

You cannot do keyword research without the help of tools. While you can use
free tools like the Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest, for long term
projects you need the help of more reliable tools like SEMRUSH or Ahrefs.

Finally, if you already have an existing website with rankings then don’t
forget to use the Google search console when doing keyword research.

Through the GSC you can learn which keywords bring Google traffic to your
website now and which keywords Google believes are a good fit for your
website and content.

How to use keywords

In this topic, you’ll learn how to use keywords in your content

Performing good keyword research and having an optimized keyword list, is not
enough. In order to benefit from this process, you need to know how to use those
keywords in your content.

This is known as Content SEO, which is a subset of On-Page SEO.

Content SEO Overview

Here are some tips to follow:

Optimize your Homepage for your main keyword


Homepage SEO is very important. Search engines start the crawling process from
the homepage and follow up any links from there.

When it comes to keyword optimization, you should optimize your homepage for
your main head keywords (even if their keyword difficulty is very high).
The reason is that you want to make it clear to both crawlers and users, what
your website is all about.

Create a separate page for each of your main keywords


Let’s say that your company sells services (like my company), you need to create a
page for each of your services, each page to be optimized for a head keyword.

Look at how my services page is organized.

I have a summary page for all my services and individual pages for each of the
services we offer. Each page is optimized for a specific keyword.

Create pieces of content to target long-tail keywords


Once you are done with the main keywords, it’s time to utilize the power of
blogging and start creating content targeting long-tail keywords.

Include keywords within your content


When writing the content for both your pages and blog posts, you need to make
sure that:

Use keywords in the URL – you include your target keyword in the page URL.

Use keywords in the page title – you include your target keyword in the page title.

Use keywords in the H1 Tag – you include your target keyword (or close
variations) is the h1 tag

Use long-tail keywords as subheadings (h2, h3) – you include related keywords in
your subheadings

Use LSI keywords in your content – you include LSI keywords within your copy.

Link your pages together using keywords you want the pages to
rank for
Internal links are very powerful. Use your target keywords as anchor text and link
your pages together.

KEY LEARNINGS
Picking up the right keywords for your website is important.

Group your keywords into two categories. First are the keywords to use in
your homepage and main website pages and second the keywords to use in
your blog.

Follow the on-page SEO guidelines outlined above (explained in detail in the
On-Page SEO lesson of the SEO Course) to intelligently include keywords in
your copy.

Publish content related to your target topics to create content relevancy and
monitor your rankings and traffic.

Keyword research checklist

This is your keyword research checklist.

Get to know the different types of keywords

Understand why keyword research is important

Choose a keyword tool to use

Get to know your niche

Write down topic ideas and create topic buckets

Find seed keywords for your topics using keyword research tools

Examine the search intent of each keyword

Find long-tail keywords

Find keywords your competitors are ranking

Choose the right keywords for your website


Convert keywords into content titles

Find semantically related keywords to use in your content

Keep checking for trending keywords

Learn how to correctly use keywords within your content


Lesson 6

Keyword Research Tools

Keyword research tools

In this topic, you’ll learn about keyword research tools

These are the tools that I use and recommend.

SEMRUSH (Paid)

SEMRUSH

This is my favorite tool for keyword research and the tool I use on a daily basis for
all digital marketing tasks. It’s not free, it comes with a monthly subscription but
worth’s every cent.

For keyword research, you can use SEMRUSH to do topic research, find out seed
keywords, long-tail keywords, and related keywords.

If you don’t already have a subscription with an SEM tool, then SEMRUSH is the
way to go.

Before selecting SEMRUSH, I have tested a number of other tools but none of
them has the functionality of SEMRUSH at this price range.

You can register for a 30-Day free trial and test it yourself (exclusive deal for
reliablesoft students).

Get 30-Day Free Trial

Google Keyword Tool (Free)

Google Keyword Planner

The Google keyword tool is a free tool provided by Google that allows you to do
keyword research for PPC (Google Ads) purposes but you can also use it to do
keyword research for SEO.

The tool is free but in order to use it, you need to have an active Google Ads
account.

Go to Google Ads and register for a free account. Then, create a Google Ads
campaign but do not activate it, keep it paused and access the tool by selecting
TOOLS and then KEYWORD PLANNER.

Google Keyword Planner

UberSuggest (Free)
Ubersuggest

Another free keyword research tool that is worth exploring is Ubersuggest. You
can use it to do both topic and keyword research.

While the tool is free, the only disadvantage is that it does not allow you to create
an account to save your reports or keywords and this means that every time you
want to do keyword research, you need to start from the beginning.

This is not the case with SEMRUSH, where you have an account and all your
lists/data saved and always accessible.

Ubersuggest

Google Search Console (Free)


Google Search Console

While the primary function of Google search console is to optimize your website
for technical SEO, it’s the tool to use to optimize your pages after they are
published.

Keyword research is an on-going process and the best tool to use to find out the
actual keywords your pages are ranking is the Google Search console.

Why this is an important step?

When you optimize a page for a keyword, it does not always go as planned.

Google may rank the page for different keywords and the way to ‘correct this’ is
to find out for which keywords the page has more chances of ranking and add
those keywords in your content.

Here are the steps to follow:

Create an account and verify your website.

Access the ‘Search Performance Report’

Look at the ‘search terms’ and ‘positions’ columns

Identify keywords that are not included in your content.


Change your content to naturally add those keywords

Re-submit your page to Google.

Note: The ‘Technical SEO’ lesson of The Complete SEO Course explains in
detail how to use the Google Search Console.

Google Search Console

Google Trends (Free)

Find Search Terms using Google Trends

As explained above, another tool you can use to find out about new and trending
keywords is Google Trends.

Go to Google Trends and perform several searches, using different filters to find
out what is trending in your industry.

Google Trends
Copyright Information

Copyright © 2019 by Alex Chris (Reliablesoft.Net)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or


transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or
other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of
the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews
and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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