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Keyword Research: The First Step In Your SEO Strategy

Keyword research is the first step in the SEO copywriting process and an essential part of your marketing strategy. Before you create your website’s content, find out what search terms people are using to describe their needs or interests on Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This will help you write high-quality content that satisfies these specific needs. Here we'll take a look at how this whole process works - from deciding which keywords matter most, all the way through creating useful posts centered around those words.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is a necessary component of SEO or search engine optimization. It’s the work someone does to come up with an extensive list of keywords they would like their website ranking for in Google searches, and it can be tedious but rewarding! To obtain such a list, one needs to dig into desired audiences by learning what terms people are using when looking for products/services on google- this way websites owners know which words they should include in content that will attract more high quality traffic. Keyword research never ends; repeating it regularly helps narrow down your audience even further so you don't miss out on potential customers who may not have been searching specifically enough before while also increasing site visibility through different mediums including social media and video sites.

Why is keyword research important?

Your business's audience is made up of individuals with different interests, needs and perspectives. The more you understand what your customer wants to search for, the easier it will be to come out on top in their searches. Proper keyword research means understanding how people talk about things that matter most - including problems they face or a solution they're looking for!

Sometimes marketing departments decide to give a product an uncommon name. This can be smart because people could remember your product more easily, like when you rent out vacation cottages instead of vacation homes. But beware: Very few people search for [vacation cottages]. If you optimize your text for this term, though, and rank well on it specifically—even if that means sacrificing other keywords in the process—you’ll probably generate less traffic than with terms such as "vacation home" which many more potential customers are searching for online.

You’ll want to search for keywords and phrases that your target audience is using by conducting thorough research. This will ensure you use the same words as your potential customers, making this whole process more worthwhile. In addition, looking at Search Intent gives you a clearer idea of what exactly people are searching for on Google which should result in quality content being created for those queries - serving them better than any competitor out there!

Essential concepts of keyword research

Keyword research is important because it’s the foundation for any type of SEO strategy. Keywords or phrases are used to match your content and pages with what people search online, so it's absolutely essential you have a full understanding before jumping into anything else in this process!

Think of keywords as the foundation for your site. They are a vital part in getting you ranked high up on Google searches, and it's important that they're focused to one specific page so people aren't distracted by other things when searching for what they need.

Focus keyphrases will be present on only certain pages while support keyword sets should all contain words/keywords related but never found together - this way, people looking specifically for these terms can find them easier without having their search spoiled with unrelated material. By paying attention to how much time is spent focusing on each type of keyword set during preparation stages (be sure not too overdo any particular section), success becomes definite moving forward; once successfully completed always be sure to use every.

Long-tail keywords are an invaluable tool to get more targeted traffic for your business. If you were a restaurant with multiple dishes, some of them might be head items and others may fall under the long tail category - lower ranking but higher sales potential, or vice versa. Even if there is less competition in terms of number of search results per keyword phrase that matches what your company provides (as opposed to broad searches), it's still important to make sure they're optimized so visitors can easily find content on topics relevant their needs!

Your keyword strategy can be the difference between profitable and unprofitable projects. When you are ready to start your project, it is important that you make tough decisions about where to invest your time in order for success later on down the line! For instance: what content will I create first? Will I focus on writing a post or making an infographic? The former might help me rank better than latter but they both require quite some work before we see any results (compared with other methods).

Your content should provide a solution to the searcher’s problem. This is also known as content design and digging into search intent is key here: you have to discover what a searcher actually wants or needs. You're not just looking at keywords, but the underlying goals of what a searcher wants to know, do or buy which can be discovered in part by knowing who they are - their demographics (age range), location (city/state) and interests list on social media platforms like Facebook etc., if available.

How is keyword research done?

Let's take a look at 8 crucial steps to keyword research. In this guide, we'll go through the process step-by-step and give you practical tips on starting your own research:

  • Determine your mission
    Planning your keyword strategy is like cooking a delicious meal. It takes time to mix all the ingredients together and prepare it properly before serving, but once you do everyone will enjoy what they taste!

  • Before starting anything, think about your mission: What is the main goal of your business or organization? What makes it special? Who exactly are you trying to reach? And lastly - what promises do you make on your website that can be found in detail through careful research into each customer’s needs as well as their search habits online for similar businesses/organizations such as yours.

    When it comes to ranking your mission in the search results, there is no such thing as an easy market. If you’re competing with big companies that have a huge marketing budget and rank high on Google, then success will be tough-going for sure.


    One of the best ways to ensure your business succeeds is by catering specifically for a specific audience. If you sell cruises, then perhaps it would be beneficial to find out what makes their service unique and offer that as well- this could make all the difference in making sure they are successful!

    It's a tough road to success, but it can be done. If you're launching into the competitive market of cruise sales in Hawaii and want to advance your company up the totem pole, then start out small with just one part of that niche - like cruises for singles over 30 who are looking for an exciting vacation they won't forget anytime soon! Once people know about your business and what you have available within this smaller group (trying different things than their friends), those same customers will eventually become more receptive when trying new ventures outside of their comfort zone. You'll need time before being able to sell these trips as broadly as other companies do now; however there is great potential down the line if handled properly from day 1.

  • Make a list of keywords
    Build a list of keywords that are pertinent to your product or service and use them as the foundation for building out search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. When you have an idea in mind, brainstorm with friends about what words would be relevant to their problems.

  • The first step is coming up with a mission statement--a clear vision for how your business will meet its goals while making sure it stands apart from others who offer similar services or products. The second step is creating a list of keywords related to both yourself and potential customers’ needs so they can find you when searching online; this should ideally help form the basis of any SEO strategy moving forward.

    Research your keywords


    Now that you've sufficiently researched your chosen keywords, it's time to dive a bit deeper into the words themselves. Luckily for us there are some tools out there which make our research just a little bit easier! The first is something we probably all use on day-to-day basis: Google itself. Simply search the keyword(s) and see what suggestions pop up while typing in those precious few letters - this will tell you exactly what people were asking about when they made their original query (Google suggests these as well). It may also be worth considering using other helpful sites like AnswerThePublic or Yoast SEO; both of them offer related keyphrases which can help broaden your reach even further!

    The tools on this list will provide you with all kinds of variations from your keyphrases, synonyms and related keywords. Check them out to find the perfect fit for your content strategy! In our post about keyword research tools, you'll get more details about how to use these types of applications and other ones as well.


    Don’t forget the long-tail


    Standing in a sea of competitors, small businesses typically find themselves drowning. With all the other big fish hogging up head keywords and long-tail ones alike, it's easy to get discouraged by how difficult SEO can be for smaller companies. But that doesn't mean you should let your business go down without at least trying or giving yourself a fighting chance!

    Know the difference between a head term and long-tail keyword. Head terms are short, general words that can be found easily on Google by typing them in as you would any other search engine. Longer tail keywords often have more specific meanings than their shorter counterparts, may include modifiers like "positive" or numbers ("Labradoodles IN Amsterdam"), and take time to rank high for using basic SEO tools alone - but not necessarily! Using specialized techniques will allow your content to stand out among its competition so it rises within SERPS (search engine results pages).

    When you're building out your spreadsheet, don't forget to add in the long-tail keywords too. Put all of your head terms into column one and then create columns for each search term that's a little bit less specific than what came before it. This will help with site structure later on; if something is more specific like "chocolate chip cookies" but not as popular at any given time, we want to make sure its landing page belongs higher up within our website so visitors can find it easily when they're searching around!


    Analyze the competition


    Leveraging long-tail keywords is a great way to boost your SEO, especially if you have little competition. For example, let’s say that the keyword “cute dogs for sale in New York City" has only one other competitor on page 1 of Google results: "petsmart dog breeds". You may be able to rank high with just this single term!

    Your company is now one of many. You are in good company with global firms and well-known brands, but you need to keep your eye on the competition because if they have more resources than you do then it will be quite difficult for them to lose their place as a search engine result page leader. Use these top keywords that came out of your keyword research report and see how high up there website ranks when compared against all those others who also use this same term or phrase.

    When you're competing against sites with strong brand names, the stakes are higher. But it's not impossible to rank high! Check out your competition and see if their content is well written and optimized-if they have poor content, there might be a chance for you to get ahead of them by ranking even higher than before.


    When competitors in any industry establish themselves as an authoritative source through TV or radio commercials, it can make things difficult when trying to rank on search engines like Google or Bing because these brands already enjoy recognition from potential consumers; this makes people more likely return back again after coming across one of those branded websites instead of clicking over onto another lesser known site that may offer better price points (which could result in increased sales). However

    Google is the world's largest search engine, but with all of these ads and services popping up on Google there can be a lot to look through. We've looked into some keywords that have high Pay-Per-Click rates which usually translate to hard ranking in organic results!

    This means it may take longer for your website or blog post about this topic to rank higher than others who are advertising more heavily.

    Take a closer look at search intent


    There are over 500 million questions asked to Google each day. After the advent of search engines, people have been able to answer their most burning queries without having that awkward conversation with someone or browsing through an encyclopedia and finding a section on what they’re looking for. Every question deserves its own specific solution, but there is one type in particular we should be focusing more attention-why?


    Today's SEO strategies should focus on answering the many types of "questions" searchers enter into search engines every day because not only do these searches yield answers (the “what is...?"), they also provide insight as to who will use your site by providing information about recent trends and interests.


    Are you struggling to determine the intent of your audience? Try using Google's Keyword Tool. Just type in a keyword related to your business and see what happens! You'll be able to tell if they are looking for more information, trying to get somewhere on their phone (navigational), or ready right now transactional).

    Google's search results give you a ton of clues about what people are looking for. If the pages that rank well match up with your interests, then it might be worth focusing on those topics. But if they don't seem to line up at all or Google is suggesting products instead of informational content, then maybe you need to rethink how and where yo're going about building links

    Google has always given us hints in their web ranking algorithms by telling us which type of page should outrank another (i.e., product pages vs informative blog posts). However, lately SEOs have been throwing these signals off when trying new strategies such as publishing videos or solely linking back to social media accounts rather than developing sites themselves which can also cause confusion among marketers.

    See which keywords are giving you the most traffic and focus on them first. There might be some that don't seem to work at all, but it's always worth exploring those anyway! After a while of seeing what works best for your business or blog topic, just keep going back periodically to see if anything has changed in regards to performance with any particular keyword groupings.

    Determine a keyword strategy

    You have used data to create a keyword strategy. What you need is an informative, creative and engaging summary of this passage that will make it more interesting for the reader.

    You should now have enough information about how people search online in order to come up with your own keyphrase strategies!

    The internet is becoming more and more competitive, so it's important to focus on the most popular keywords. If you're not in a head term position already- don't worry! Longer tail words are easier for your site to rank for due how they have less competition than those top terms. Once you've managed long tails successfully, try aiming at some of those specific phrases that will get traffic coming into your store or blog with relative ease


    Now think about this question: How does my website hold up compared to the websites in the SERPs? Are you of equal size and marketing budget - go ahead and focus on those head terms if not then try focusing on longer tail keywords first


    The best marketers are the ones who know what their audience wants, but also understand how to create content that nobody else has. To make your own marketing more successful and engaging for potential customers, you have to go beyond just creating copycat or unoriginal blog posts – instead focus on providing unique solutions in a way no one else can!

    Start constructing landing pages


    Building good landing pages will take time and effort, but they are the key to ensuring traffic comes from your website. To create a new page quickly in WordPress with Yoast Duplicate Post plugin simply designate a keyword or topic you want this post to rank for on Google and then input that keyword into every field of the duplicate screen except ‘name’ which should be left blank so it is unique.

    Creating awesome landing pages can seem like an insurmountable task at first glance; however, by using methods such as building quality content using keywords designated through long-term efforts (keyword strategy), we can make sure our goal posts get plenty of visitors!

    For your most important keyword phrases, you'll make cornerstone content articles that provide the best possible content about these keywords - authoritative and all-encompassing. All of your supporting long-tail articles will link to this centerpiece article as part of an internal linking strategy for search engine optimization (SEO).

Tips for keyword research

We’ve laid it out pretty well for you, but we know it’s a lot of work and easier said than done. When put to practice, you might bump into some common issues or questions. WD Morgan Solutions is here to help with any issues you may have.

Prioritize your keyword list

There are many factors that dictate how much keywords you should have. We can't tell you exactly what the perfect number of keywords is, but we know it's a lot! You'll need enough to cover all your bases and ensure customers find the products they're looking for on your website. A good starting point would be at least 200-300 relevant words with 2 or 3 variations of each word in order to avoid getting penalized during search engine optimization (SEO).

You can create a site full of content in an instant, but you want to make sure it's the right kind. Make your priorities clear and plan out what pages need to be created first so that they'll rank high for appropriate keywords once published.

A focus keyphrase and its synonyms only need one page

The days of each keyword getting its own landing page are over. Today, search engines have become so sophisticated that they can answer questions with the best content for searchers by using search intent and understanding subtle differences between keywords. For example if you were looking for synonyms to a word like "fetch," then your results would include pages about other words such as “retrieve” or “get."

Add related keyphrases to help Google understand your text

To paint a complete picture of your focus keyphrase, make sure to use related phrases in the text. The more you can expand on and clarify what is being said about any given topic or idea, the easier it will be for people to understand and remember that information.

To find related keywords that will help you rank, think of a few and use SEMrush. This integration by Yoast SEO suggests keyphrases to boost your ranking with the focus keyword- even showing search volume trends for every word! For complete accuracy in finding relevant words to generate content from, this is an excellent strategy.

Check out results for singular and plural keywords

Should you aim for the singular or plural keyword? This depends on how Google searches your query. As they learn more about search intent of what you’re looking for, it can better guess at what is appropriate to show in response. For instance if I type "book" then a different result than when I write books as my topic (Google thinks that in one case I am searching to be educated and get information but with others it assumes its just me trying to buy). So make sure everything on your page fits well with where people are coming from based off their queries online.

Use a keyphrase only once

A search engine's ranking algorithms can't tell the difference between posts with similar keywords so it might rank less-relevant articles higher.


One of Google’s methods for determining page rankings is through a process called “Googlebot,” which crawls content on web pages to help them understand what they should promote and then bring those results back up in their searches. This crawling includes parsing your article text as well as looking at how often you use certain words throughout that post or blog article (this process is known as keyword cannibalization). If your focus keyword shows up too many times near each other—within two paragraphs of one another, say--it could negatively affect your site's performance because Google will have trouble telling whether they're

Try, evaluate and try again

When optimizing your article, do a thorough analysis of the probability that you'll rank. Then write an awesome and optimized piece for it! Hit publish and share on social media or in your newsletter to attract some backlinks; make sure not to push it off until later because Google ranking updates happen very often. Check out whether or not articles are popping up first page results - were they worth all the effort?

If you’re not able to rank on the first page of Google, don't worry about it! Try writing another article focused on an even more long-tail keyword. Make sure your content is a little bit more specific and niche than before. Just keep doing this until you hit that coveted number one spot in SERPs (search engine results pages). Good luck with all your future SEO endeavors!

Quick keyword research

You have to be a jack of all trades in this world. You make one mistake and you're done for! In the real world, keyword research is more like an arms race than anything else - with your competitors actively trying to outsmart you every step of the way. Landing pages are nowhere near as important anymore because people don't end up on them much (unless they come from social media), so it's just about building content that ranks high enough within Google search results or through things like Facebook ads instead these days...but even then there's no guarantee at how long someone will stay interested before clicking away again.

In reality, SEO has become less about playing nicey-nice "kumbaya" games where everyone tries hard not

You may think that you can't write a well-crafted blog post with your slacking keyword research, but we're here to tell you it's not always necessary. Sometimes bloggers will just sit down and start writing without analyzing the topic enough beforehand. That doesn't mean they won’t have killer articles like this one!

There are many ways to rank for a keyword strategy that doesn’t fit your current one. For instance, you might try ranking in the top ten results on Google Trends or another search engine by using keywords from your list as long-tail phrases. You could also use this content piece to rank for different but related terms within your campaign's focus: e.g., if it is difficult getting traffic backlinks with competitive rankings and other factors against us (ease of access), then we may need alternate strategies like adding more analytics tracking code snippets throughout our site so people can follow up after they leave through email marketing campaigns.

Ready? Start writing!

Keyword research is imperative for any successful SEO strategy. One of the most important steps, it will generate a long list of keywords you want to be found under in search engines. However, this process comes with an added challenge: writing all that content! To get started on your keyword-writing journey check out our Ultimate guide to SEO copywriting today!