The 6-Step Guide to Effective Keyword Research for Your Blog or Website

Keyword research is the key to ensuring that your content or website ranks at the top of search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! (just to name a few). So if you’re working on optimising your site and hoping to increase your search engine ranking, keyword research should be one of the first things you consider doing.

To make keyword research as easy as possible for you, we’ve put together this straightforward 6-step guide on how to do effective keyword research for your blog or website.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the process of finding and choosing the right keywords to target for your blog or website. The goal is to find keywords that are relevant to your topic, have a good amount of traffic, and are not too competitive.

Use the Google Keyword Planner Tool.

The Google Keyword Planner Tool is a great way to get started with keyword research for your blog or website. Simply enter a few relevant terms and it will provide you with a list of related keywords and their monthly search volume. You can then use this data to choose the best keywords to target in your content.

Generate your own keyword ideas.

The first step in effective keyword research is generating your own keyword ideas. To do this, brainstorm a list of potential topics related to your blog or website. Once you have a list of potential topics, start thinking about what keywords or phrases people might use when searching for information on those topics. Try to be as specific as possible, and write down any relevant keywords or phrases that come to mind. If you are blogging about vegan cooking, for example, some keywords might include vegan recipes, vegan chilli, easy vegan dinners, and vegan desserts. Don't forget to think outside the box: consider synonyms (e.g., substitute vegetarian for vegan), misspellings (e.g., switching the letter "s" with "z"), and questions (e.g., What are some vegan substitutes?).

Target your competitors' keywords

To find the best keywords for your blog or website, start by targeting your competitor's keywords. This will give you an idea of the keywords that are already being used in your industry, and which ones you should target. You can use a keyword research tool like SEMrush to see what keywords your competitors rank well for. Once you've identified a good keyword to target, it's time to do some research! It's important to know how people are searching for information related to your blog topic before deciding on a keyword. Use tools like Google Trends, Google Adwords Keyword Tool, and Ubersuggest to get insight into the most popular keywords related to your content.

Use Ubersuggest to find long tail keywords.

Ubersuggest is a great, free tool that can help you find long-tail keywords related to your topic. Just enter a seed keyword into the search bar and Ubersuggest will generate a list of related keywords. Look for keywords with low competition and high search volume to get the most bang for your buck.

Use SEMRush and Ahrefs keyword research tools.

If you want to find the right keywords for your blog or website, you need to use the right tools. SEMRush and Ahrefs are two of the best keyword research tools on the market. Here's a five-step guide to using them effectively. 

1) Navigate to SEMRush or Ahrefs. 

2) Enter one of your competitors into the search bar (in this case, let's enter a wealthy affiliate). 

3) Click on Keywords in the left sidebar and then click "See All." Scroll down until you see all of their most popular keywords in order from the highest number of searches per month to the lowest. The idea is to go after the low-hanging fruit first: keywords that have more than 10,000 monthly searches but less than 100,000. We can tell which ones these are because they're bolded at the top of the list. Let's say I wanted to rank to buy an Apple watch online, as an example. I would make sure that my post includes these words and possibly includes other words like watch, online, shop, etc., depending on what my post is about. That way, people searching for where to buy an Apple Watch online will be able to find me easily. That's why it's important to think about your target audience when picking keywords. 

4) Once you've found some good keywords, go back to the main screen and check out their competition column. You should also take note of how many Google results there are for each keyword since sometimes even low-competition keywords might not provide enough traffic if there are too many pages competing with yours. 

5) Repeat steps 2 through 4 until you've generated a list of around 20 keywords that have both high enough monthly searches and high enough competition (less than a 50% chance of ranking #1). Then save your list so you can reference it later.

Conclusion

1. Define your goals. What do you want to accomplish with your blog or website? 

2. Make a list of relevant topics. What topics are related to your goals? 

3. Brainstorm keyword ideas. What words and phrases come to mind when thinking about your topic? 

4.Do your research. Use a keyword research tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner or MozKeyword Explorer to get search volume data and further refine your list of keywords. 

5. Prioritise your keywords. Now that you have a comprehensive list, figure out which ones matter most. Do they correspond to what you're trying to achieve with your site? Are they searched enough that they're worth targeting? Figure out the level of competition by looking at the number of paid ads on an average SERP (search engine results page). And consider whether these keywords would make sense as tags on a blog post. If so, use them as part of your SEO strategy to increase visibility. 

To summarize: be clear about what you're trying to accomplish, brainstorm related terms and concepts, research search volumes using a keyword research tool, prioritise which keywords best align with your goals, and tag posts accordingly if it makes sense to do so.