5 Actionable SEO Keyword Search Tips
Outrank Your Competitors on Search Engine
The legendary copywriter and author of the book Breakthrough Advertising, Eugene Schwartz, once said…
“There is your audience. There is the language. There are the words that they use.”
He’s referring to studying your target audience. Before writing a single word of a sales letter, top copywriters spend weeks or even months talking to prospects, reading their favorite magazines/blogs and studying sales letters that have worked (or even failed) with their target market segments in the past.
Why?…To find the right words.
Inbound marketers are always on active lookout in optimizing their websites to improve their SEO ranking. Keyword research remains as a fundamental part of online marketing of all sorts. Search engines favor compelling content. If you don’t use the words people are actually interested in and actively searching for, you’re missing a lot of traffic.
Well, here’s a keyword research process that could serve as your guide to help you narrow down a list of terms for targeting.
The upside?…An awesome SEO value!
5 Actionable Keyword Research Tips
1. List down your generic buckets
Come up with 8–10 terms of generic buckets and rank them according to relevance, based on how familiar you are with your business.
What type of topics do you think will your target audience search? Let’s say that the company is a financial institution, you might have general topics like “personal investment”, “stock brokerage”, “wealth management”, “online trading”, or “investor education” and the list goes on…
These keyword phrases are called Head Terms — generally shorter and generic.
2. Add keywords to those topic buckets
After knowing which topics you would want to focus on, identify keywords to be added into those Head Terms — to make them more specific to what your target audience could probably search for.
For instance, if we take the same sample from step one, we may include:
- How to choose stock brokerage firm
- Type of investment for beginners
- How to trade stocks
- Learn how to start investing
- Best online trading tool
Narrow down your list later on.
If you’re using Google Analytics, drill down into your website’s traffic sources and figure out which keywords your website is already getting found for. Aside from GA, you can also use Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner. You can also use other third-party providers like SEMRush, Serpiq and Buzzsumo where all these charge at monthly or annual rates with limited free trials.
3. “Google” it!
Take a look at related search terms that appear when you type a keyword on Google. You can take into consideration other keywords when Google suggests other search-related phrases or Long-Tail Keywords (longer phrases containing three or more words). Scroll down to the bottom of the search results to check the list out.
After typing in “beginner’s guide to investing”, here’s what I found:
4. Choose between Head Terms and Long-Tail Keywords
Having a mix of head terms and long-tail terms will balance your keyword strategy for long-term goals and short-term wins.
“Personal investment” or “How to start investing in the stock market”?
A qualified lead or prospective customer will most likely look for something specific, not unless he’s really looking for something generic.
5. See your competitors’ ranking
Now that you have a good mix of head and long-tail terms, see how your competitors are ranking for those keywords. If they rank well on certain keywords in your list, it only suggests that you need to improve your ranking on those. Also, grab the opportunity to win your own market share on terms that your competitors do not care about.
Along the way, you need to establish and execute a strong keyword strategy that helps your business get found through the search terms to outrank competition.
As closing, here’s another meaningful quote from Eugene Schwartz:
“One hour a day, read. Read everything in the world except your business. Read junk. Very much junk. Read so that anything that interests you will stick in your memory. Just read, just read, just read… There is your audience. There is the language. There are the words that they use.”
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