Keywords are the backbone of SEO. If you are wondering how to do keyword research for SEO, look no further.
Why Do You Need To Know How To Do Keyword Research For SEO?
Yes, you can just write blog post after blog post of whatever comes to your mind and hope that eventually someone will find your website.
However, without using good keywords, your website has little chance of reaching its potential. Keywords must be chosen carefully, and a vital step in this process is doing keyword research. Here is a quick guide on how to do keyword research the right way.
Keywords are not only one-worded, but they also consist of sentences that people are typing into the search engines to find information to help them. For instance, an example of a keyword phrase is “how do I get rid of my fat tummy?”
The first thing to look for when choosing keywords is how many times they are searched forĀ in Google per month, on average. The more people who use that keyword, the more traffic you will potentially attract. A good starting point is fifty searches per month, minimum. This may seem low, but keywords that are used more often also have higher competition, making it more difficult to rank for them. An advanced keyword tool will help you find out the number of searches a keyword receives.
This is an example of my keyword search for the above phrase on Jaaxy – my favorite keyword tool.
As you can see my term of “how do I get rid of my fat tummy” is not a good keyword to write around as I have less than 10 searches a month.
“Get rid of belly fat fast” a little down the list looks great as it has 9218 searches per month, which means that if I get to the top of the search results for this term, I could be getting an additional 1568 visitors to my website each month. Looking at the QSR, it seems there are only 48 other sites competing for this exact keyword so Jaaxy recommends this keyword as great to use with a score of 89. The closer the SEO score is to 100 the easier it will be to rank for that specific keyword.
If you look further down the list, how to lose belly fat quickly is another great keyword to target. Jaaxy has given me all these ideas simply because I typed in “how do I get rid of my fat tummy?”
Don’t discard “what to do to get rid of belly fat” totally, because even though there are only 64 searches for this a month, there are only 26 competing sites and the SEO score when I click on it stands at 93, so it will be a relatively easy keyword to rank for. Ranking for these types of keywords is great for new sites to get them seen quickly. You can always go back to the more competitive keywords later once your site is established.
If you haven’t started your website yet, Jaaxy will also tell you whether or not the domain name that you are after is available or not. You simply hit search under the domain column to see.
Try Jaaxy Keyword Tool below. You can open a free account and get thirty searches free. I love Jaaxy because it shows you what competition you are looking at as well as telling you which keywords you should and shouldn’t target by the use of green, yellow, and red lights. The green ones are good to go. You can read more about Jaaxy Keyword Research Tool here.
If you are lucky enough to be a member of Wealthy Affiliate, Jaaxy is included free of charge.
The competition is a very important aspect to look at if you are trying to rank for a specific keyword. This is the number of websites that use that exact keyword. If you look in the QSR column in Jaaxy, it will tell you what the exact competition is and you can work out whether it is worth using that keyword or not.
A simple Google search will not reveal this information; rather, you must use a keyword tool like the one above. The lower the competition, the better, but it should not be more than a few hundred at most competing websites. Under 100 is ideal.
By aiming for the highest amount of monthly searches and the lowest number of competing websites, you can come up with some very high-quality keywords. A keyword tool will often show you similar keywords to the one you are researching, revealing many potential long-tail (more than three words) keywords you can use. This makes a good keyword tool well worth its weight in gold.
So if you want to know the best way on how to do keyword research for SEO, a keyword tool is definitely something any internet marketer needs in order to be successful with their websites. Otherwise, nobody is ever going to read all that great content you are churning out.
Hi Michel, I am using Jaaxy for keyword research and so far I am very happy with it. It’s really crucial to do proper keyword research before writing content in order to have the best chances to rank well in search engines.
Besides Jaaxy, do you know use any alternatives for keyword research?
I used the free Google one for years until it was changed and no longer user friendly, then I used Long Tail Pro. It was also good, but not as easy to use as Jaaxy.
Hi Michael, I’ve read your article “How To Do Keyword Research For SEO”.
It’s really crucial to do proper keyword research before writing content in order to have the best chances to rank well in search engines.
Your article was really useful and helpful for me.
You did an amazing job!
Congratulations! Keep going!
Thank you for taking the time to comment Rosalia and glad to be of help to you.
Hi Michel, you are definitely right when it comes to keyword research for search engine optimization.
This one area in Wealthy Affiliate that is given full attention and there is a module that talks about it in the WA training for new website developers.
The Jaaxy Keyword Search Tool is also one available tool that is used freely on the Wealthy Affiliate platform. In fact, all the tools I need for my website are there, so thanks for the reminder of just how important it is to do keyword research for each article you place on your website.
Absolutely Joel, the only thing I think Wealthy affiliate needs now is an autoresponder and funnel builder.