Advanced Keyword Research
Advanced keyword research requires great analysis to produce the list of keywords you need for your content. From the previous article, we talked about the basics of keyword research, but this time, you should level up this SEO strategy to rank higher on the search engine results page and get more traffic.
With advanced keyword research, you need more keyword finder tools to get the best set of keywords. In this article, we will show you more ways to find keyword ideas, keyword research tools, keyword difficulty, and tips and strategies for advanced keyword research.
More Ways to Find Keywords
In the previous article Keyword Research for Beginners, we were focusing on using Google to help you find your keywords primarily because it is an effective way to start ranking your website. Now, we will be visiting a few websites that may not be familiar to you, but you need to know their power of keyword resources that can help you power your website.
1. Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a rich source of relevant words for a topic because thousands of industry experts are on this website curating articles. Go to wikipedia.org, type the topic on the search box, and hit enter.
You will be directed to the entry of your topic. Scroll down the page and look for the Contents section. From there, you will see awesome keywords that are useful for your topic.
If you go down the page, you will see the See also section. Click on each topic to get to another page for more related keywords.
2. Reddit
If you do not know Reddit, it is a platform for forums where people can share content or comment on other people’s posts. It has various communities that cover different topics.
Go to reddit.com and type the topic on the search box. Select an option from the dropdown box.
Look for discussions with a lot of comments. This will give you an idea of which topics most people are interested in. From our example, you can formulate a keyword like “web hosting service tips for a WooCommerce site”.
3. YouTube
YouTube is also another platform abundant with keyword suggestions. Go to youtube.com and type the topic on the search box. YouTube will give you a list of suggestions that you can use as keywords.
Keyword Research Tools
You can find keywords without a tool but using a research keyword tool makes the entire process easier. We already mentioned Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush from the previous article, so we can explore other tools to widen your choices.
1. Exploding Topics
Exploding Topics is a tool that analyses loads of data points around the Internet from online communities, shopping websites, tech news, and many others. It helps people determine new topics that will get big to let them create competitive content.
Go to explodingtopics.com and type the topic on the search box. You will be given a dropdown selection and choose a topic from it.
You will be directed to a page where you see data like the number of searches and the keyword’s potential growth to become trendy.
You will also be given categories that provide an idea on what keywords you can formulate from the keyword you selected from the dropdown. You will also see related topics with keyword research that can be potential keywords as well.
2. Keywords Everywhere
Keywords Everywhere is an add-on for Firefox and Google Chrome that displays keyword ideas from YouTube, Bing, Google Analytics, and others. Every time you visit one of the sites it acknowledges, you will get keyword research data and ideas.
3. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is an SEO tool that provides keyword explorer, site audit and explorer, rank tracker, and content explorer features. Its keyword explorer feature gives a ton of useful data about each keyword that helps you decide whether the keyword is worth going for.
Keyword Difficulty
One major challenge with keyword research is a keyword’s competitiveness to rank for. A keyword that is too competitive might give you a tough time to get past the third page of Google. If you find a keyword with a limited competition, then you have a good chance of ranking at the top.
We mentioned in the beginner’s article for keyword research that long-tail keywords have a higher chance of ranking well than head terms because it is specific to what people need. To check the difficulty of your keywords, you can use Google.
Type your keyword on Google and look at the sites on the first page. If the page contains authority sites like Wikipedia, then your keyword is too competitive.
If you see that the first page has small blogs listed, you have a good chance of ranking well for that keyword.
You can also use keyword tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to check the difficulty of your keywords. These tools base their evaluation on the combination of domain authority and page authority. But they provide different difficulty scores.
Factors to Look for in Selecting Keywords
Although we already went through how you can pick the right keywords for your topic from the previous article, this time it would be a little bit more comprehensive. Always remember that there is no SEO tool to tell you which keywords are best for your topic.
The factors presented in this section will serve as your criteria when picking the right keywords.
1. Search Volume
The more people use a certain keyword on search engines, the higher the traffic you can obtain from it. This might be straightforward, but the question attached to this is What do you consider a good search volume?
The answer depends on the industry you have chosen because your niche might consider 10,000-100,000 searches a month as low but high for a different niche. You must know which is high or low for your niche.
2. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CTR is the ratio of the number of people who click on a link to a website to the number of people who view a page, advertisement, or email. Do not be surprised if the number of clicks from organic searches is low because people might still be using your keyword even if they do not click on your website.
This happens when Google, for example, provides featured snippets that people can already get their answer from. So, it is important to still consider a keyword that you think has a high search volume even if it has low CTR.
To check your CTR for a keyword, you can type it on the Google search box and check if there is a featured snippet and ads on the first page. If it does, this means you will not get a lot of clicks for that keyword. You can also use Ahrefs to check CTR.
3. Difficulty
If you are starting a new website, it is best to pick the keywords with a low competition to get your target traffic. Once your site grows in authority, you can start using keywords that are more competitive.
Gaining authority first allows other websites to link your site from theirs to yours (backlinking), which helps gain more traffic.
4. Cost Per Click (CPC)
Although a search volume is essential, a keyword is not worth going for if it has zero commercial intent. Advertisers use content marketing as one of their strategies to get their target returns, and part of content marketing is CPC.
If you are using a keyword tool, try to also check a keyword’s CPC because it can mean that the keyword has a low search volume but has a high CPC.
5. Keyword Trends
It is also important to check a keyword’s trend if it is growing fast or slowly dying. This way, you can see if the keyword you will use will still be relevant for a longer period.
You can check this through Google Trends. The page displays a graph that tells you if your keyword is in demand to people.
1. Apply Barnacle SEO
If you rank in the top 3 for a certain keyword, do not think you are done because you can still do more by using Barnacle SEO. This is an SEO strategy that uses other websites’ authority to rank on search engines’ first page.
So, if your website’s content is already on the first page of Google, for example, create more content for the same keyword on other sites, like YouTube. You can create a video presentation or tutorial that also allows you to rank on Google’s first page.
2. Use Google Search Console (GSC)
If you do not have a GSC account yet, then create one and go to the Performance report page. It shows you the terms that give your website the most visits from Google.
Arrange your list by “impressions,” which is when every time your website appears on the search engine results page. Create content from the keyword with the highest impressions so people can search for you with that keyword, increasing traffic.
3. Optimize Content with Related Keywords and Synonyms
Related keywords and synonyms are proven effective in ranking your website on search engines and gaining more traffic. You can get secondary or related keywords by using a tool such as lsigraph.com.
The site allows you to enter your keyword and gives you a list of related keywords you can use for your content.
4. Look for “Shoulder” Keywords
“Shoulder” keywords are keywords not related to your products or services, but your market uses them frequently. For example, for Innzone Hosting, we provide web hosting services.
We do not publish posts that are only related to web hosting. We also publish other topics that our clients are interested in, like this article – keyword research.
The point for this strategy is to publish content that your market can also make use of, aside from what your business promotes.
Conclusion
Advanced keyword research can be complex, but it still follows a step-by-step process that allows you to learn what you need to do as you go. Using keyword tools, finding keyword ideas, learning the factors in choosing keywords, and knowing the tips and strategies for advanced keyword research will help you create a list of keywords that guarantees ranking on search engines and getting more traffic.
Master the basics of keyword research and understand how you level up this SEO strategy to become successful in your business!