Importance of Keyword Research

When it comes to online marketing, keyword research is one of the important aspects that everyone has to consider. By undertaking this very important detective work, you will not only get to learn which terms and phrases to target with SEO but you will also get to know more about your customers in total. The usefulness of keyword research therefore cannot be ignored.

By doing accurate keyword research on your industry, you can know and predict any shift in demand; you can also respond to changes in market trends. This very information can allow you to produce products, services and content that web searchers are already actively looking for. Keyword research therefore gives you a low entry barrier in understanding the motivations of consumers in virtually every niche.

Additionally: Effective keyword research improves ROI significantly because it aligns your content with what users are already searching for, reducing guesswork and content waste.

Choosing Realistic Keywords

The major points you need to remember when starting your keyword research and should be your guiding principle is the fact that you always have to aim for realistic keywords that will guarantee your conversion in your niche market. You do not have any business ranking for keywords like “Real Estate” or “Business,” which are normally geographically tied to a location. What good will it serve you for your local company in Thailand to rank internationally for the keyword “Real Estate”? Unless, let’s say, there is a prospect to expand your market globally.

Understanding Head, Torso and Tail Keywords

In researching keywords, there is the head, torso, and tail keywords to be considered. The head keywords are one or two words that are general and also pull an amazing number of searches per month. A keyword like “Business” is one such example. To rank for a term like that is almost next to impossible but only possible with a very huge budget.

Torso keywords are two or maybe three-word keywords that have much fewer searches per month. This actually means less competition. For example, the term “business magazine” is the torso. Here the tail can come out to be a three or more-word keyword in the form of “New York Business Magazine.” Bear in mind that the last one bears the smallest number of searches, but rather targets a specific area or niche and may bring highly targeted traffic.

Case Study: Long-Tail Keywords Driving Targeted Visitors

A digital marketing agency in Singapore targeted the extremely competitive keyword “SEO services.” After months of effort, rankings did not improve. They shifted their strategy to long-tail keywords such as “affordable SEO services for small businesses in Singapore” and “local SEO consultant Singapore reviews.” Within six weeks, organic traffic increased by 64%, and lead quality improved drastically. This demonstrated that long-tail keywords outperform broad terms both in conversion and ranking difficulty.

Power of Long-Tail Keywords

Head keywords though may seem to have the greatest number of searches per individual basis, over 70% of all the searches made is from long-tail keywords or dozens of long-tail keywords. This will cause more serious traffic to your website with much less effort. This in a way serves as the theory behind keywords which allows you to do small but aim big.

Additionally: Long-tail keywords also help reduce bounce rate because users searching them have very specific intent, meaning they are more likely to stay and engage with your content.

Using Customer Data for Better Keyword Insight

To really ensure that you have the maximum possible coverage for your keywords, you may want to use any available source of customer data you can find. These will be the region of your own knowledge; you should be aware of at least one important word that your product or service is associated with. Talk first to your customers and see if they in a way associate any words or phrases with your products and services and finally check your competitors’ website for more such keywords.

Use Multiple Keyword Tools

Do not limit yourself to only one keyword tool but meddle with other search engines like Google Keyword Planner Tool, Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, Overture, etc. Google Keyword Planner Tool, for instance, can give you keywords related to your website. You can do this by selecting the appropriate tab and this will pull out a wide selection of phrases that real people have typed in.

You can take advantage of Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery’s free versions of keyword research tools. They give you a list of keyword phrases with your embedded keyword. Their system also provides estimates of keyword popularity but there is a minimum subscription fee of about $50 for complete access to full data.

By using Wordtracker, your data will be pulled from meta search engines whilst Keyword Discovery obtains data in an entirely different manner. Bear in mind also that Overture doesn’t use exact results as well, so it may be used only as described above.

Final Thoughts

By considering the tools mentioned above, it is prudent if you are running a low budget to start with the free version of WordTracker because their system seems to offer enough data to sift through. This is followed by Google’s External Keyword Tool which offers lots of related words and phrases!

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