If you are doing any sort of blogging online and you want your posts to be found and read, then you will need to learn how to use keywords effectively.
Keyword research is the process of finding keywords that are related to your niche, and then checking first the competition on your chosen keyword, and second if anybody is typing in your chosen keyword into the search engines. Never guess keywords without checking to see if people are actually searching for them, or you will be throwing valuable time away.
Is Keyword Research Really Necessary?
Keyword research is the most important and ongoing item on any blogger’s to-do list, and how to use keywords effectively should remain a top priority, especially if you intend for others to find and read your posts and more especially if you want to make money from your blogging efforts.
By simply doing a bit of keyword research before you write anything on your website will improve your resuts ten-fold.
Once you have found the keywords that will bring your visitor to your article, you will now need to use them effectively within your article.
If you know what your customers are looking for, then you will get more sales.
How To Use Keywords Effectively
Keyword research should always be done for any articles, advertisements, press releases, tweets or blog posts that you write.
Your chosen keyword or keyword phrase should then feature in the headline of your article, the first paragraph, and as a sub-heading within your article.
After that, you can write naturally with relevant content that makes sense. Be careful not to overdo the keyword thing, as Google has gotten really clever of late and can tell if you are stuffing in keywords on purpose.
Make sure you put your keywork in the alternative text of any images you want to add to your article. This will tell the search engines what your picture is relating to and help you get better rankings.
I use the Yoast Plugin to check each page that I write, as this pluggin lets you know just how search engine friendly your article is It also rates your article and your use of keywords within the article.
How To Do Keyword Research
In order start doing your keyword research, you can get ideas using the alphabet soup method with Google. Go to Google and type in your keyword and an a. For instance puppy training a, then try puppy training b etc. etc. Google will give you lots of ideas on what types of keywords people are searching for.
I also use another free tool called keyword.io. All you need to exchange to use this site is your email address. Type in your topic and it will give you hundreds of suggestions which you can download and work on in the future.
Next you will need to go to your Keyword tool to do your research. My favorite keyword tool is Jaaxy, because it is so easy to use. If you want to give them a try, you can do 30 free searches to see just how easy it is. Simply type your keyword into the tool below.
The trick is to find keywords with lots of searches and low competition. The green dots (in the Jaaxy Keyword Tool) are the best ones to go for, as they normally have low competition and are easy to rank for.
You will need to find short and long tailed keyword phrases. The shorter ones will have more competition, but the longer ones will bring you more targeted and high quality traffic, as these people have usually narrowed down their search to exactly what they want.
A good guide line would be to try and find keywords with a hundred or more searches a day, and with less than 300 directly competing sites.
If you do keyword research and know how to use keywords effectively on your site for each and every post you write, your posts will be well ranked in Google for many years to come.
Hi, thank you for this text about keywords. You are right, without a good keyword research it is difficult to get any traffic. But even knowing a lot about keywords does not guarantee success. I am struggling with traffic although I have 55 texts ranked on the top page in Google.
One remark: in the end you mentioned that a good practice wound be at “less than 1 000 directly competing sites.”. This must be some mistake. I never go above 30-40, it is simply too tough. Besides, Google usually does not give you more than 400-450 competing pages.The logic is obvious, nobody will dig so deep and search down to 400 pages.
Thank you for your comment. Yes you are right, but sometimes competing sites don’t have those exact keywords that you are targeting.
I’m familiar with Jaaxy and it does make life so much easier and simpler. I normally search for short/short keyword phrases, but you made a clear point about going the long tail route and now I can see the benefits.
I never even thought of keyword research for tweets and stuff like that, wow. It does make sense!
I’m really curious about this Yoast plugin, is it pretty low maintenance?
Yoast is a great free pluggin. I gives you a score on all your posts and tells you what you need to improve on.
Hi,
I am venturing into keyword research and article writing and am excited to try the Yoast plug in. Does it work with WordPress? Also, if I am looking for a keyword with 100 searches per day, that means 3000 searches per month. What do the Jaaxy search results for traffic show for? In the traffic column, is the number indicating searches per day or searches per month? I look forward to your response and have bookmarked your page. Thanks!
Alyssa
Good luck with your keyword research Alyssa. The Jaaxy Keyword Tool shows the searches per month.
I really enjoyed reading this article on how to use keywords effectively and I also believe that Jaaxy is a great way to find those great keywords with less competition. Also, it’s metrics are really easy to understand. Your writing is very personable so thanks for explaining. DO you think that you shouldnt get bogged down too much with the numbers?
Depends what numbers you are talking about. Some numbers you need to take notice of like competition and searches. Those are the most important.
Hello and great post. I found it very useful. Jaaxy is a great tool especially for keyword research. Once I signed up I was hooked and now I need it every time I do my keyword research. Without doing your keyword research it is kinda hard ranking for anything that way. Great post keep up the good work.
Thanks for the comment. You are right, without good keyword research, you are building your website blindly and hoping for the best.
Hi thanks for this information. It is very relevant to me at the moment. Is the Yoast plugin free? Do you recommend using it along with the All in one SEO tool and the WA keyword finder tool? I haven’t come across Yoast yet but you are encouraging me to go and check it out so thanks very much for that!
Regards, KRis
Hi Kris,
Yoast plugging is free and no I don’t recommend using it with All in one SEO. Disable the All in one SEO if you want to try it out. I definitely find it easier to use and more beneficial.
Hi Mergie, I have one problem when it comes to keyword research. Wherever I look, all good keywords are either taken or they are too competitive.
I understand that long-tail keywords are better for ranking but where do I source for them? My brain can only come up with so much ideas and Google search only provides me with 4-5 suggestions each time. I seriously need more help on this.
I type in two or three word phrases into Jaaxy, and then a whole bunch of ideas, including long tail keywords come up that I use. Sometimes I type those longer search terms into the search, and get even better long tail keywords with more searches and less competition.
Try it.
Also Google alphabet soup method is great for finding good ideas. Simply type your keyword and use letters of the alphabet behind your search term to give you even more ideas.