HOW TO GET STARTED WITH KEYWORD RESEARCH
By: Michael Johnson
Many business owners become paralyzed in their marketing efforts because they don’t know where to begin. When developing strategies for clients the process starts with keyword research. It’s one of the first steps to take in helping a brand succeed in search engine optimization (SEO) and Google Ads™. In order to know what keywords to target you need to understand the following:
- What your audience is searching for
- The different ways they search for it
- What phrases get searched the most
Many business owners become paralyzed in their marketing efforts because they don’t know where to begin. When developing strategies for clients the process starts with keyword research. It’s one of the first steps to take in helping a brand succeed in search engine optimization (SEO) and Google Ads™. In order to know what keywords to target you need to understand the following:
- What your audience is searching for
- The different ways they search for it
- What phrases get searched the most
This is where keyword research comes into play. Keyword research is something you’ll want to continually do in order to discover new opportunities to connect with an audience. Yes, the first step on any journey is always the hardest! So we’ve put together this guide on the basics of keyword research to get you on your way!
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process of identifying what “key” words you should use to optimize your website and ad campaigns. It involves market and competitor research to see what is currently being searched in your industry and how your competition optimizes for it. This allows you to see what’s working and can also help you identify gaps that you can utilize.
Why Do You Need To Do Keyword Research?
Here’s an example of a conversation with an actual business owner on how important keyword research for a brand or company:
SEO Expert: How do you feel about your current SEO efforts?
Business owner: Great! We always show up when we Google our business name!
SEO Expert: That’s great! But how do people, who aren’t familiar with your business, find you on Google?
Business owner: Oh…
Keyword research is critical to find opportunities for non-branded search traffic. Non-branded simply means that a company name or business is not mentioned in the query. Good keyword research happens when there’s a strong understanding of what people are searching for and what questions they ask at each stage of the buyer’s journey, including the initial research phase. This will help you to identify more opportunities to get in front of your audience, no matter what stage they are in.
Why Do You Need To Do Keyword Research?
Here’s an example of a conversation with an actual business owner on how important keyword research for a brand or company:
SEO Expert: How do you feel about your current SEO efforts?
Business owner: Great! We always show up when we Google our business name!
SEO Expert: That’s great! But how do people, who aren’t familiar with your business, find you on Google?
Business owner: Oh…
Keyword research is critical to find opportunities for non-branded search traffic. Non-branded simply means that a company name or business is not mentioned in the query. Good keyword research happens when there’s a strong understanding of what people are searching for and what questions they ask at each stage of the buyer’s journey, including the initial research phase. This will help you to identify more opportunities to get in front of your audience, no matter what stage they are in.
Here’s another real-life example:
Provide real-world applications for the discussion points and concepts. It helps to paint a clearer picture of what can happen when a specific concept is implemented and what it actually means for a business. Here’s a look at local brand:
Redline Rec Toys – in Boise, Idaho. Redline is an awesome company that offers a unique way to access outdoor recreational vehicles. An examination of their traffic shows they are currently not ranking for much outside of searches that include their company name. This means that, unless someone already knows who Redline is, they likely won’t find them in organic search. So how can a strong keyword research strategy help Redline?
“RedLine Recreational Toys is revolutionizing the convenience, ease, and cost of family fun and recreation! RedLine provides a way for families to enjoy competition wake boats, pontoon and fishing boats, PWCs, ATVs, UTVs, motorcycles, snowmobiles, campers, toy haulers, motorhomes, and more, without the high costs of renting or the hassles of owning. With RedLine you get All of the Fun, None of the Hassle!
The concept of Toy Sharing allows Members of RedLine to enjoy ALL the recreational Toys. Toy Sharing eliminates the hassles of maintenance, storage, insurance, taxes, licensing and registration. Why buy, rent or lease when you can Toy Share?”
So they offer boat, ATV, UTV, motorcycles, snowmobiles, and RV rentals. They service the Boise and Treasure Valley area. Now, let’s Google these phrases in conjunction with the location Boise.
First thing to notice, there is another local company called Intermountain Power Sport Rentals.
Now look at how they’re optimizing their site and why that’s lead them to good rankings on Google.
Right away, it’s clear that they have created an entire page on their site dedicated to boat rentals. They use their H1 & H2 tags to target different kinds of boats and even include “Boise” in one of them to help establish local relevance. Most importantly, they use the title tag “Boat Rentals in Boise.” This tells Google that their page is all about boat rentals in Boise. No wonder Google is returning them as the top result!
So what can Redline learn from this:
- Create pages for each type of vehicle they rent out.
- Use a title tag that optimizes for the keyword + location
- Use their H1-H3 tags to target different variations of the vehicles they offer or they can use them to ask and answer FAQs that their audience might have when searching for recreational vehicles.
How does Keyword Research help my business?
The ultimate question here is what does this actually mean for my business? If Redline asked this question, a suggestion is utilize a great tool to help you answer this question: SEMRush.
SEMRush allows you to see how much traffic your competition is driving from their different digital marketing efforts. Looking at Intermountain Power Sports, we find they are currently driving 2,500 visitors per month from non-branding search. That means that Redline could increase their own traffic by 700% by successfully implementing their findings from keyword research. Imagine what this means for their business? Up to 2,500 potential customers getting introduced to their company each month!
Redline:
This provides a great roadmap for the keywords that present the best opportunities for Redline. They could go through this list and see which of these vehicles they offer, then look at the page that Intermountain Power Sport uses to target those keywords, and how those pages are optimized to rank well. This is a simple, yet effective way to start the process of keyword research. As shown above, it is huge opportunity!
Let us help you with your keyword research. Seeing the opportunity and seizing the opportunity are two different things. At times, both can be difficult, but Resolve is here to help! Reach out to us today, we’d love to discuss how you can grow your business online! We’ll walk you through how to develop a plan that drives results for your company!
Contact Us to Get Started!
