How do you do "keyword research"?

samiejg

samiejg

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Hi BHW,
How do you do "keyword research"? Is that something that everyone does using the keyword planner tool? A lot of the blog posts I found about "keyword research" seem to reference to Google Keyword Tool which does not exist anymore, but then the keyword planner has taken it's place.

I tried using the keyword planner but I'm not sure if that's what I should be using or not, or if I'm using it wrong or don't know how to use it etc.

I've tried looking for some low competitive keyword phrases with higher search volume, but even after getting them indexed, the phrase is not picking up my site (even though I've included it in the title/content of the site heavily.

Would that be because I don't have a high PR? Is that the general goal? Look for high volume keyword phrazes with low competition? And then try to improve PR as long as the on-page SEO is taken care of?
 
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I use Google keyword planner because I find it to be the most accurate tool to use and then I
rely on common since to find low competition keywords with the highest search volume as
possible that is still relevant to my website.
 
GKP replaced GKT not too long ago. I haven't had a problem with GKP, it gets the job done. Check out google trends as well to see what direction your keywords are headed in, just to see if it's actually worth it in the long run.

Don't even worry about PR. Read up about off page SEO, then start getting some high quality backlinks pointing back to your site.
 
samiejg said:
Hi BHW,
How do you do "keyword research"? Is that something that everyone does using the keyword planner tool? A lot of the blog posts I found about "keyword research" seem to reference to Google Keyword Tool which does not exist anymore, but then the keyword planner has taken it's place.

I tried using the keyword planner but I'm not sure if that's what I should be using or not, or if I'm using it wrong or don't know how to use it etc.
Click to expand...

Use Google Trends, http://www.spyfu.com and do your research and learn to use one or both of these tools: Market Samurai and Long Tail Pro.

samiejg said:
I've tried looking for some low competitive keyword phrases with higher search volume, but even after getting them indexed, the phrase is not picking up my site (even though I've included it in the title/content of the site heavily.

Would that be because I don't have a high PR? Is that the general goal? Look for high volume keyword phrazes with low competition? And then try to improve PR as long as the on-page SEO is taken care of?
Click to expand...

Normally with good On Page SEO you should rank in Top 100 without any backlink but if you wan't to hit the first page you need to look into Off Page SEO and start building backlinks. Do your research both on Google and this forum about all these terms, read and practice and as time goes by you'll become better and better at it.
 
AquaticGamer said:
It's quite difficult to do your own keyword research if you don't know what you're doing. I suggest you hire someone to do it for you.
Click to expand...


I would agree here...either put in the time to do some research on how to do "keyword research"...or hire someone.

Here's one tip when looking at Google Keyword planner - the "competition" you see there is the competition for adwords. It doesn't necessarily reflect the actual competition for you to rank on the first page.

Once you find a keyword you like, you'll want to use majestic seo, ahrefs, or open site explorer to look up each of the sites that are ranking on the first page. By looking at the page authority, trust, citation flow, # of backlinks, etc, you can gauge how difficult it would be to take them out.
 
adwords keyplanner, find some keywords, google them, click on the sites, check them in ahrefs, further analyze them
 
stretch361 said:
I would agree here...either put in the time to do some research on how to do "keyword research"...or hire someone.

Here's one tip when looking at Google Keyword planner - the "competition" you see there is the competition for adwords. It doesn't necessarily reflect the actual competition for you to rank on the first page.

Once you find a keyword you like, you'll want to use majestic seo, ahrefs, or open site explorer to look up each of the sites that are ranking on the first page. By looking at the page authority, trust, citation flow, # of backlinks, etc, you can gauge how difficult it would be to take them out.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for the information guys. That's definitely helpful. I never even knew there was a site such as ahrefs to lookup competitors. So I think I can atleast use the keyword planner to find high volume keywords and then gauge how other websites showing up in the results are doing.

I'm not really too sure what all the terms like trust and citation flow mean with SEO, but I will try looking them up and hopefully have a better understanding there.
 
Since everyone is throwing tools out there, I personally have used Market Samurai and Long Tail Pro. If you want something extremely newbie proof, use Long Tail Pro with the platinum subscription. Just sign up for a month, do all the keyword research you need to do, then cancel. The platinum subscription gives you just one number to look at with each keyword in regards to competition. So, all you'll need to do is look at the number of visits for the keyword, then the competition number. If your keyword is 2,000+, and the competition number is less than 30, you have a decent keyword to start off with (assuming it has commercial viability). If you are just trying to rank a site for the first time, I wouldn't even bother with the commercial aspect of it. Just find a keyword that works, and start building a site. If you start to get some rankings, throw up adsense. You may not make any / much money, but the real value is the process of doing the steps. Once you see some money coming in, look for something more commercial, and duplicate the process.
 
+1 for ubersuggest.

Getting your our head round long tail terms is really important - if you find something like "best blue widgets for travellers 2014" that has a bit if search volume, you'll do far better than just chasing "blue widgets".
 
Write more about topics not keywords. Things are a lot different now compare to 2009. You said that you implemented the keywords "heavily"? Things are not working like that anymore. Over-optimized page may not rank and you can see pages ranking for keywords that were even not mentioned on these pages. Humminbird update changed many things, especially the longtail queries containing question words. You should not be too obsessed about keywords today, things are different than the good old days.
 
The best way to see the competition of your keyword is just put your kw in "" and do google for it you will get your exact competition.
 
I use "Google Adwords - Keyword Planner". It is best for me.
 
yes it is quite long and boring process to do keyword research. I use Google Adwords and spy on your competitors' keywords. The best ways for me!
 
I also use google keyword planner.
It's the best in service. Try it free!
 
Here's mind:

1- Use UberSuggest to produce related long tail keyword
2- Save those keywords in a txt file and check the search amount and CPC in Keyword Planner
3- Filter out some keywords which have not enough search or CPC
4- Put the keywords with good amount of search in Long Tail Pro Platinum to see the KC range
4.a- If LTP KC show low number (below 35), I then put it MOZ Keyword Competition to see what MOZ tools have to say about it.
4.b- If it seems good to go, I will analyze the 1st result page top 10 sites to see their backlinks profile.
5- I will fire up it in Open Site Explorer, Majestic SEO, Ahrefs and Link Assistant to see what kind backlinks those sites obtaining.
6- If they're not optimizing on-page as well as less authority to that pages or kind of low authority pages, It's good to.

This just some summary and each step has its own details. This my process!
 
Whatever tool you use, your goal would be to get the keyword with highest volume which has the lowest competition (not the advertiser competition though). It is not a very easy job to say the least. Keyword Planner is a good option if you don't want to spend money.
 
AquaticGamer said:
It's quite difficult to do your own keyword research if you don't know what you're doing. I suggest you hire someone to do it for you.
Click to expand...

I definitely would not agree with this. Keyword research is the most basic part of IM, and something everyone needs to understand if they actually want to get somewhere.

Say you are writing a website, with a lot of content, what are you going to do, ask someone for advice every time you need new content? You need content which is going to pull people in, and this is what you need to understand keyword research for.
 
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