SEO Basics: Keyword Research Made Easy

When it comes to optimizing your website for search engines, knowing the best keywords for your brand is critical. It's an essential tactic for developing a powerful content strategy, targeting pay per click advertising campaigns and improving search engine optimization. But sometimes the process of researching your keywords can get out of hand. A keyword, or keyword phrase, is an easy way of referring to the queries into the search bars of their favorite search engines.

When conducting your keyword research things like keyword competition or keyword search volume is importance. But forget all of that for a moment. The only keywords are the keywords your customers are actually typing in to their search engines.

There are a few different ways you can find these keywords:

  • Google's "Related Searches". You can conduct searches for each of the individual keywords Then scroll down to the bottom of the all results. There, you should see a separate section where Google lists other keywords that are related to your original phrase. If any of these keywords are relevant to your business, they deserve a place on your keyword list.
  • Look in Google Analytics. If you have Google Analytics installed on your website, you must look login and the "Traffic Sources" menu. There, you'll be able to separate your organic search visitors and see a list of the keywords they used to get to your website. Unfortunately, a large number of your results will come up as "Not Provided" (thanks to anonymous browsers and Google's proprietary reasons), but add the phrases that you do see to your growing keyword list. It is advantageous in this regard. You can also find similar information in your Google Webmaster Tools account.
  • Use your customer research knowledge. You can start writing out a list of all the different keyword variations relying on keyword generating tool. Following our previous example, a pet grooming keyword list might include "pet haircut Bloomington, Ill," "dog grooming Bloomington, Ill" and "pet grooming Ill."

You move your brand your rightful place in the internet world. If you have an initial keyword list compiled, you can start thinking about keyword search volume and keyword competition. Good Luck!