Why Keyword Research is Essential to Your SEO Strategy

Keywords Concept

You have heard of SEO and you know that you want your business to be at the top of a google search for your potential customers. But, what are the steps you can take to ensure this outcome? Can you just flip a switch and Google finds your website?

At Webster Digital Marketing, we provide the services you need for your business to be found online by completing and implementing Keyword Research as a part of our SEO services. In this blog we will tackle the basics of Keyword Research and answer some of the questions you may have about the process and why it is important.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword Research is conducted for businesses who want to maximize website content by using terms – or Keywords – that potential clients would use in a Google search.

For example: for Webster Digital Marketing one of the services we want potential customers to know we provide is help with writing blogs for a business’s website. You can see in the screenshot below that we conducted the research and we can see that blogging would be an ideal keyword for us to include in our website content since it has low competition and an average 320 monthly searches. These factors combined show use that this is a keyword that would be effective for us in Google searches. We stand a better chance of ranking higher in online searches with keywords that that are low or even medium competition. Although these measures of competition for keywords are intended for Google AdWords, we have found that they also translate well into SEO keywords. If we wanted to consider some alternatives, we could also incorporate “wordpress blog,” “blog writing,” or even “blog post.” These would all be relevant keywords.

Why is Keyword Research important?

Keyword research tells you what topics people care about and how popular those topics actually are for your target client. By researching keywords that are getting a high volume of searches per month, you can identify new content you may want to add to your website and potential blog topics.

In addition, we find that some industries are full of technical jargon that may or may not be known to the public. Sometimes businesses fill their websites with these words, not knowing that the public doesn’t use those terms. Keyword research reveals this by showing us which words your potential clients are actually using in their online searches.

Elements of Keyword Research

There are three main elements to pay attention to when conducting keyword research: Relevance, Authority, and Volume.

Google ranks content for relevance. When you create website content, it will only rank in a Google search if the keyword meets the searcher’s needs. Simply adding a keyword into your content without much supporting information will not help your page rank higher. Your content should be relevant and provide value to the person seeking an answer.

Google gives more weight to websites that have been determined to be authoritative. Sites that are rich with helpful and informative content will rank higher in online searches. If a website is not seen as authoritative you have a lower chance of ranking.

Google measures volume by MSV (monthly search volume), which is the number of times the keyword is searched per month across all audiences. While a website may rank on the first page for a specific keyword, if no one ever searches by that keyword, it will not result in a website visitor.

What tools do you use for Keyword Research?

At Webster Digital Marketing we use the Google Keyword Planner. We have found this to be the most effective tool when it comes to ranking on Google since the majority of the population uses Google for their online searches. With Google’s Keyword Planner, we can search for keywords with a targeted area as large as the United States as small as Omaha, Nebraska or Council Bluffs, Iowa.

The first step is to identify the product or service you offer that you want to be ranked for on Google. The Google Keyword Planner will not only give you an idea of how a specific keyword is performing, but it can also show you a variety of options for keywords that you never considered. Once we receive this information, we will advise our clients on potential keywords and provide insight on average monthly searches and the competition.

It’s also important to note that the number of keywords a website can rank for is based in part on the amount of content the website has. We can’t just pick every keyword that has any search traffic. We must be strategic – and that’s where having a Search Engine Optimization expert can help your business.

Webster Digital Marketing can take your SEO Keyword Research to the next level

At Webster Digital Marketing we report on your chosen keywords every month as a part of our SEO services which will boost your online presence and rank on search engines. We’d love to work with you to improve your presence online! Contact us to learn more.

Annastasia Webster