How to do keyword research to help you rank in the search engines

In marketing we often talk about content marketing, corporate blogs and other similar tools. Even so, all of them must be accompanied by a good search engine optimization strategy to reach our target audience. Creating valuable content is not going to do much good if we are not able to make it really reach people.

For our brand to appear in the first results of Google, we must develop a good SEO plan within our inbound marketing strategy. This should include the most relevant terms for which we want to position ourselves as a company and that will help search engine algorithms index us better. But the question is how can we know which terms to choose for our SEO strategy?

Next we will talk about what keyword research is, how to do one for your company and some tools that can help you.

What is keyword research

A keyword research is basically to detect which keywords or search terms can benefit us as a brand to position us in Google. The goal is to appear in the first results of search engines when users search for information about those specific keywords. Thus, keywords are the basis of any SEO strategy.

Our keywords must have some specific characteristics in order to be useful to us:
- They must be relevant and related to our company.
- They must fit our objectives (conversion, awareness, etc.)
- They must have a good number of searches.
- There must not be much competition for these keywords.

The keywords that meet these conditions will be ideal for our SEO planning.

We must also distinguish between long tail and short tail keywords. Short tail terms are more general and consist of a maximum of two words. Being more generic and broad, short tail keywords have a large number of searches, but also a lot of competition. Long tail terms, on the other hand, are more specific and consist of more words. They have less search volume, but are usually more relevant and effective.

How to do keyword research for your company

Once we have explained what our keywords should be, let's see what steps to follow in order to do a successful keyword research.

Looking for ideas 

Now that we know how to discern between the different types of keywords, we must start to build our own list of keywords including some short tail and some long tail. To create this list, we can first brainstorm with the whole team. Without limitations, together we can think of keywords that can fit in our SEO strategy. Secondly, we can also use our buyer personas as a source of inspiration: through their needs, we can foresee which keywords may be the most suitable for them.

Analyze competition and searches

After this first brainstorming, we have to start choosing those proposals that can be really effective for our company. To do this, we will look at two fundamental aspects: the number of searches for the keyword and its level of competition.

First of all, we must take into account the volume of searches that each keyword receives per month. Ideally, it should be at least around 50, since that means enough traffic for our created content to be profitable.

On the other hand, it is also very important to know the competition for that keyword. There are several platforms that tell us if the chosen terms have a lot of competition, that is, if there are many websites trying to position themselves for the same keyword. The less competition, the easier it will be to get positioned in the first results of Google for that term.

The key, then, is to find keywords that have a lot of monthly searches and, at the same time, low competition. If this is difficult for your sector, you can start by selecting long tail terms that, although they do not appear in many searches, have little competition.

Best tools for keyword research

For any keyword study we can use different online tools. Some of them are free, but to obtain more specific data, it is very likely that we will have to resort to a paid version. Here are some websites that can be helpful for keyword research.

Ubersuggest

One of the best known tools in the SEO world is Ubersuggest, by the well-known marketer Neil Patel. This website is free, although with limitations, and can be used without registering. Ubersuggest is used to search for the quality of keywords and suggest others of similar long tail. The site also shows trend data and the number of searches for that keyword.

 
Semrush

Another very famous SEO tool with which we can do our keyword research is Semrush. It has many functions beyond keyword research and allows us to see how many visits each keyword has and the existing competition. Semrush also has a very useful function to do keyword research focused on content marketing: a synonym keyword finder.

Google Trends

Google Trends is another Google tool that, although not directly related to SEO, can be useful to know what the search trends are.

The reality is that Google Trends does not provide us with data such as the competition of a keyword or the number of monthly searches. However, this website allows us to see which terms are growing in Google and will be trending in the long term. For example, we can see the popularity of a search term, compare it with others and see its evolution over time. Finally, it gives us the possibility to know the most popular keywords in a country and the interest they generate in each sub-region.

Google Keyword Tool

Finally, the most classic tool for keyword research is the Google keyword tool. It is necessary to have a Google Ads account and enter the payment data on the platform, although it is not required to have any campaign running (with which to spend budget) to use the tool. With this Google website we will get much more accurate results than with other tools, since it is the original source of the previous tools, although it has its limitations versus the options offered by the previous ones.

 
In summary, there are several websites that can help us to do our keyword research. Even so, it is important not to forget the premises for finding a good keyword: that it has a good volume of searches and that there are not too many competitors for the same term. Keywords, then, are the basis of SEO strategies, content marketing and inbound marketing methodology, and can considerably improve the position of our website in search engines.

We recommend you to keep up to date with the latest trends and acquire the right knowledge. I invite you to take a closer look at the Specialized Online Course SEO & SEM and Analytics.