Give yourself a pat on your back! 

You’ve successfully made it to Part 3 of our comprehensive SEO course. 

Now that you know how search engines generate the SERPs, it’s time you take your first step towards securing your position there. 

We are talking about Keyword Research - the foundation of SEO. This section of our SEO series will guide you through a comprehensive keyword research strategy. 

Let’s get started. 

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the process of finding a list of keywords relevant to your industry and analyzing their competitive advantage for SEO. It involves a series of steps from shortlisting the top suggestions to finalizing exact search terms. 

5 Steps of Keyword Research

Know your niche better

Start understanding your business from a customer’s perspective. Monitor your existing customers and find how they describe your brand. What phrases do they use while talking about your product or service? 

It allows you to gain in-depth insights into your niche. 

List topics based on your niche

Find out topics that describe your business better. These can be the major areas in your business that you want to rank for. Keep your buyer personas ready and think of topics that revolve around your product or service. 

If you’re a marketing company, your topics can revolve around:

• Search Engines

• Lead Generation

• Marketing Strategies

• Branding 

Fit keywords in your topics

Now, when you have a range of topics to educate your audience on, it’s time to feed them with relevant keywords. These keywords will be the exact search terms that online users may be using while searching for information online. 

Brainstorm keywords for every topic on your list. For example, “marketing strategies” can contain keywords like - “b2b marketing strategy”, “how to create a marketing strategy,” “social media marketing,” and so on. 

Google search your terms

With your list of keywords, head over to Google search, and start typing your keywords. You will see many suggestions in the drop-down list. These are the search terms that searchers have already used in their search queries. Find the most relevant keywords for your niche. 

Click on any one of the suggestions and scroll down to the “Searches related to” section. There you will find a bunch of keywords that match your entered phrase. You will also find long-tail keywords on the SERPs that are less competitive, and it’s easy to create content around. 

Use keyword research tools

You may want this to be the first step of your research strategy, but searching for keywords around your brand’s perspective can allow you to rank for the exact search terms. Also, this gives you a broad view of your industry. 

To refine your keyword strategy, use tools like Google Keywords Planner or the Keyword Tool to get traffic insights on specific keywords. Blend your research with Google Trends to discover which keywords are trending and give you an edge over your competitors. 

Visit your keyword list from the beginning. Try to combine different phrases to get keywords apart from the exact search terms. These combinations can help you curate unique content with less competition while securing top rankings in the SERPs. 

If you want the SEO team at Iron Marketers to conduct comprehensive keyword research for your brand, give us a call at (855) 908-4766 or write to us at info@ironmarketers.com.