A Beginner’s Guide To SEO Keywords

Jul 10, 2023

What Are SEO Keywords?

Keywords are ideas and topics which define the content. In simpler terms of SEO, it means that they’re the words and phrases people enter in the search engines to discover the range, also called “search queries”. If you break down everything, you’ll have simple words and phrases which are your phrases.

As a business owner or a website owner and a content creator, you would want the keywords on your page to be relevant to the searches that users are putting in the search engines such that they have a better chance of finding your content in the Search Engine Result Page (SERP).

An SEO Expert understands the use of SEO Keywords and their power in improving their reachability among people. Using the right keywords can improve the ranking of your website thus, reaching a larger audience.

Why Are Keywords Important?

Keywords are important because they are the link between the information people are searching for and the content that you are providing to fill in the gap. The final goal of ranking in search engines is to drive organic traffic to your site through SERPs, and the keywords that you’d choose to target will define the kind of traffic that it will bring in. The right set of keywords will attract the right audience to you and if it isn’t worked on properly, you might attract the audience with a different need.

Keywords are also about the audience as they are about the content that you are offering them. It is important to understand the need of the visitors and the language they use to type the content they seek, this can be done by contacting the customers directly, frequenting forums, and community groups, and keyword research. It can bridge the gap between content and search of the people improving the ranking and organic reach of the website.

What Are The Types Of Keywords?

Keywords, are the connecting link between searcher’s intent and the content that you are offering to them. Here is the list of various types of keywords used in SEO:

Seed Keywords Keywords

Seed Keywords are the words or phrases that unlock the other useful keywords in the keyword research process which is helpful for better SEO. Lucrative keywords are the output of keyword research based on its seed keyword input. The most common ways of finding seed keywords are brainstorming, understanding, and identifying competitors, keywords, Looking at website navigation menus, and observing language used by people on social media.

Keywords By Intent

The search intent is the intention of the search query which is the keyword. This helps to identify what people are expecting to find using their search queries in the search engines. There are four basic types of keywords in the case of keywords by intent, they are:

Informational Keywords: The searcher is trying to look for information when they are using keywords with informational intent. Example: “Who invented Zero?”

Navigational Keywords: The searcher is trying to look for a specific website or source when they use this kind of keyword. Example: “Pinterest Login”

Commercial Investigation Keywords: The searcher looks for options to buy the specific product that suits their needs or is trying to research a product that meets their needs. Example: “Samsung Latest Phone Reviews”

Transactional Keywords: This is a pure buying mode wherein they are looking for products to buy them. Example: “iPhone 15”

High-Intent Keywords: These keywords indicate that the user is about to make a purchase, it is the combined result of commercial investigation and transactional keywords.

Long-tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are search queries that get a small number of searches per month. They’ve got the name of long-tail keywords from the so-called search demand curve. Generally, the most popular searches are the short-tail keywords also known as fat heads or head terms which are followed by middle-tails and long-tails. Targeting long-tail keywords is a commonly used tactic in SEO as these have less competition when compared to short-tail and middle-tail keywords, however, these aren’t easy to rank. There are a lot of long-tail keywords, and they are usually specific such that they can attract visitors with specific intent.

There are mainly two types of keywords, topical long-tail keywords which are topics in themselves, and supporting long-tail which are less popular ways of searching the topical ones. It is important to understand the difference because it makes sense to target topical long-tail keywords over others.

Low-competition Keywords

Low-competition keywords also known as low-hanging keywords are those which are in general easier to rank. Their claim to fame is that they give faster results in the short term such that they are often recommended to new websites without a strong linking profile. The easiest and most appropriate way to find a low-competition keyword is to use an SEO tools.

Niche Keywords

Niche keywords are clear and specific topics that appeal to relatively small but specialized parts of a given market. They are easier to rank and because of their specificity, they are high-intent as well. Each niche keyword can send small but highly qualified traffic in a very short period. Together they can build a pillar of long-tail business. These keywords have a low search volume but are very specific. If this keyword is searched for then there’s a high chance that the searcher will be looking for a similar product in the market and it is quite easy to rank for as well.

Niche keywords are kind of similar to long-tail keywords, however, these keywords are not only about search demand. There is also a market aspect to it, so you will need to spend more time researching the actual thing that this keyword stands for.

Branded Keywords And Unbranded Keywords

Ranking of non-branded keywords allows a space to attract people who are searching for products or services which are related to the business but may not necessarily know your brand. Whereas the ranking for branded keywords allows a space to attract people who are specifically searching for information about a business, brand, or company.

Till the time the keyword is free of the name of the brand or product it is an unbranded keyword but the moment any such word is added to the keyword, it becomes a branded keyword.

Competitor’s Keywords

Being in a competitive market, everyone wants an edge over their competitors. The competitor’s keywords are a goldmine of topics for your website. Once the keywords from competitors are addressed then you can target the same keywords and use their keywords as seed keywords to research for more.

Primary Keywords And Secondary Keywords‘

The primary keyword is the main topic of a page. It is a single keyword that helps to optimise the page and in other words, it is a reason to do keyword research.

Secondary keywords are keywords that are closely related to the primary keyword targeted through your page. To understand this more easily, we can say the primary keyword is the title of the book and the secondary keywords are its chapters.

You can find appropriate primary and secondary keywords through proper keyword research they should have search traffic potential, search intent that can be aligned with the intention of the topic and site, business potential or adds any other value to the website, and ranking capabilities.

What Is Keyword Research?

Keyword Research is the process of finding and analyzing the search terms that are commonly searched by people in search engines to use the accessed data for a specific purpose often for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or general marketing. Keyword research can cover a vast number of queries to target, the popularity of the queries, and their difficulty along with many more aspects.

Why Is Keyword Research Important?

Keyword research helps one find the keywords that are best to target and provides valuable insights into the search queries of the target audience and their common searches on Google.

The insight into these actual search terms can help with the content strategy as well as a larger marketing strategy.

People generally use keywords to find solutions for the research that they are conducting online. So, if the content is successful in getting in front of your targeted audience as you start to gain traffic with their searches then the keyword research was done right. To outrank rivals on the same key phrase, the majority of content writers or content writing service providers who create material for businesses use keyword research.

Additionally, in the inbound methodology, content is not created on what you want to tell the people; instead, it is created such that the people would want to discover it. In simpler words, this help in bringing the audience to us.

Conducting proper keyword research can offer a lot of benefits some of the most popular are:

Marketing Trend Insights.
Traffic Growth.
Acquisition Of Customers.

Elements Of Keyword Research

Three main elements require attention while conducting keyword research, they are:

1. RELEVANCE

Google or any search engine ranks content for relevance. Here, the concept of search intent plays a key role. The content will rank for a keyword only if it meets the needs of the searcher. Additionally, it is essential to ensure that the content you are offering to the audience should be the best resource out there for their concerned query as it won’t be possible to rank the content at a higher position if already better articles would exist on the same topic.

2. AUTHORITY

Google will give weightage to sources that will be more authoritative. That means you will have to do all you can to be an authoritative source for enriching your website with helpful, informative content and promoting the content that helps to earn social signals and backlinks. If you haven’t been seen as an authoritative source in the digital space, or if keywords or SERPs are loaded with heavy sources that you can’t compete with then you preferably have a lower chance of ranking unless the content is phenomenal.

3. VOLUME

Volume is measured by the MSV (Monthly Search Volume), which means the number of times the keyword is searched across all audiences. It is possible that you might rank on the first page for a specific keyword but what if nobody ever searches for that word, in such a condition this rank doesn’t mean a thing. So, it is important to have a measure of the MSV to understand your ranking in the digital space.

Recommended read: What Is Local SEO And How Does It Work?

How To Research Keywords For Your SEO?

The step-by-step process for keyword research has been laid out here to help you come up with a list of terms that you should be targeting to stay at a better ranking position. This will help to establish and execute a strong keyword strategy such that you get more traffic for the commonly searched terms.

Step-1: Enlist Important And Relevant Topics For Your Business.

To start the process of keyword research, think about or enlist the topics that you would want to rank for. Once you’ve come up with nearly 5-10 topic baskets that are in line with your business then you can use those topic baskets to come up with some specific keywords later in the process.

Step-2: Fill In The Topic Baskets With Appropriate Keywords

Now, since you have a list of a few topic baskets prepared with you, you can identify the topics you would want to focus on and then find keywords that fall into each of those baskets. These keywords and phrases seem to be important to rank in the SERPs as the targeted customers are conducting searches using these specific terms.

Google has been encrypting more and more keywords regularly, but the other smart way to come up with keyword ideas is to figure out the keywords that your website is already being found for. For this, you would need website analytic software like Google Analytics. Research the website’s traffic sources and identify the keywords which bring people to your site.

Step-3: Understand The Intent And How It Affects Keyword Research; Analyse Accordingly

User intent is one of the most pivotal factors to rank the site well in search engines like Google. Your webpage must address the problem that a searcher intended to solve rather than simply carrying the keyword the searcher used. It is easy to take keywords for their face value, and unfortunately, keywords can have many different meanings beneath the surface. As the intent behind the search is important to identify the ranking potential, you might also have to be extra careful about how you can interpret the keywords that are targeted.

To clearly understand the user’s intent through their keywords, you can simply enter the keyword into a search engine and see what results come up. Ensure that the type of content Google is closely related to is what you would intend to create for the given keyword.

Step-4: Take Reference From The Related Search Terms In The Footer

This is a little extra and creative step that you might have already thought of during the keyword research. In this step, you can ease the process of finding more related keywords. You can look at the related search terms found at the bottom of a Google search. These keywords can spark ideas for more useful keywords that you might want to consider while working on SEO.

Step-5: Use Keyword-related Tools For Your Benefit

Except for these traditional methods of keyword research, you can use SEO tools that can help you come up with more keyword ideas based on the exact keywords and phrases that match your needs based on the ideas that you’ve generated up to this point.

You can also consider seeking help from an SEO specialist to enhance your website or business as per its needs.

How Should You Use The Keywords?

To use the keywords properly in your content, you have to perform comprehensive keyword research. Begin with identifying the head terms, body keywords, and long-tail keywords. The next step is to identify the searcher’s intent as they could be seeking information or maybe trying to navigate to a specific page. Your understanding of the user’s intent will help you find the right set of keywords for use.

You will have to identify the times how many people have searched for specific terms and how difficult it is to rank them. Furthermore, you will also have to look at SERP features which will help you to understand the page setup based on the types of keywords used.

And then you will have to identify the performance quality of the site in regards to its searcher’s intent. From this step, you can build a list of the seed keywords which can guide continued efforts and then you can later group them by opportunity, this grouping will then define the further steps of the process.

As you continue to hone the knowledge of your audience’s evolving intent and needs through ongoing keyword research, you will develop content that will be appropriate for the needs of your website or business as the audience is the priority, this improves the site with time and the search engines improves the ranking accordingly.

And You Have All The Right Keywords For Your Website SEO!

Now, you have the list of all the keywords that can help you focus on the right topics which suit your business or website and it also helps to get you short-term as well as long-term gains.

Make sure that you re-evaluate the researched keywords every few months maybe once in four months. This will help you to gain more authority in the SERPs and then you would be able to add more and more keywords in your list to tackle the work you are maintaining for your current presence, and then growing in new areas on top of that.

We, the team of Cubical SEO would be glad to help you through this process by providing you with assistance in your SEO journey!

Apart from this guide, if you want more in-depth information, then Google's SEO guide can help you.