Performing keyword research

Keyword research is the process of finding words and phrases (aka “keywords”) that people use in search engines, like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

First thing you need to bear in mind when doing keyword research is to know what we call your user's 'search intent'. A search intent is the motivation or the goal of your users in performing any search queries on search engines.

To understand this and have an idea how to get started we recommend the following:

• Know your audience’s problems – You need to think of the issue or the question that your users are asking so you can give them the solution from your website.
• Use their language – Unless you are focusing on an industry item that attracts users who are familiar with industry jargon, don’t use it. Speak the language of your audience, using terms they can relate to.
• Search like a user– This simply means doing a search yourself. Try to be on a users shoes and enter in a keyword or phrase you want to focus on in your SEO and see what pops up. This can help you get new ideas for your keyword list from websites that ranks well for your chosen keywords.
• Take note of the important topics – You will have to understand and know the topics related to your products and use terms relevant to those topics to attract users. Being well informed not only helps your SEO, but it makes you a better resource for users coming to your website for help and information.
• Take advantage of local business – If you’re a small business, you have a special SEO advantage that others don’t. The most effective way to do this is to do keyword research to determine what other local businesses in your area are focusing on as far as keywords are concerned you may use the plugin to add these businesses you consider as your competitors.
• Choose low competition keywords – Keywords that are common or that everyone is using them will not benefit you. We recommend you choose keywords with lower competition, preferably around 1,000 searches per month so you may have a better chance of getting ranked and getting clicks.
• Know trends – Different trends can greatly affect your keyword strategies. If you have a product or service that’s seasonal, or if you can market it as such, utilize keywords that play into seasonal sales, like “Christmas,” “Mother’s Day,” “Independence Day,” “Summertime,” etc. it will help a lot in finding the keywords that you can use.

Where to get inspiration for focus Keywords

While doing keyword research, it helps that you look into different resources that could inspire your search. Here are some of the places to check to get more inspiration for your keyword search.

1. Your competition – We’ve mentioned this before, but do not neglect to scope out your competition! They’re a mine field of valuable keyword information and can seriously help you expand your lists. You can also 'Add your competitor' directly with the SEO Plugin to monitor them and the keywords they have that are similar to your website.
2. **Google –**Google itself can help you broaden your keyword lists. Instead of only using the predictive text like we mentioned above, input your keyword followed by “most popular site/articles.” You’ll stumble upon the best-of-the-best sites using your keyword. See what other keywords they’re using, then add them to keywords list.
3. Amazon – Amazon is a great place to discover what users are searching for. To check the keywords popular for Amazon. You need to input a product related to the services or products you offer. Then check the product description, FAQs, and even other ads to get ideas for new keywords.
4. Wikipedia – Search for your industry, then see what kind of keywords and phrases are used on the information page of the article.
5. Quora.com – You can type in your specific industry or product, look over questions and answers, and see what people are asking. Plus, you can even answer questions yourself, providing a way to get your name out to the people who could be potential customers.
6. Search other than Google – Google is not the only search engine there is! You can check out Bing, Yahoo and others and utilize their predictive text algorithm to see what people are already searching for. You’re tapping into a different market of users, so you’re certain to get different keywords that you haven’t gotten from Google.
7. The Thesaurus – Users’ approaches to searching are as varied as they are. Input keywords into a thesaurus to see how many ways you can say the same thing.

How to perform Keyword research using our SEO Plugin

1. Once you have created new content, scroll down at the bottom of the page to access the SEO tool.
2. You will see an option to 'Add a focus keyword'.
3. Click on the 'Choose a keyword' to search for a keyword. Enter the keyword you would like to use for optimising your content. For example: 'restaurants in london'.
4. When clicking 'Search', you'll be shown in the Search Results a list with different alternatives to your keyword.
5. Once you have selected your keyword, the plugin automatically reads the content and checks if the keyword exists along with checking other relevant tasks to fully optimize the content for your selected keyword.