Keyword Research Guide: The Complete Beginner’s Guide

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If you are just getting started into the world of blogging, then you know that a good keyword research guide is an arsenal that you truly need.

While there is a plethora of content online that seems to complicate this whole process, you must know that it is not rocket science.

In this article, I’ll be showing an effective way to do keyword research. In fact, this keyword research guide is all you need to level up your keyword research process.

Let’s begin…

Ultimate Keyword Research Guide

In this keyword research guide, I will be going over how to perform keyword research and uncover several hidden keywords using different platforms and beat your competitors in their own game.

Just sit tight and see how to uncover dozens of potential keywords that not even your competitors know about.

1. Knowing Your Seed Keyword

Seed keywords, often known as ”main“, “primary” or “head” keywords, refer to the baseline keyword that your post is about. Consider these your foundation, or “ground zero,” for the topic or article you’re about to publish.

Before you start creating an article for our websites, you normally start by discovering seed keywords and then building on those keywords by locating supporting keywords.

You can develop long-tail keywords by combining a few appropriate seed keywords with modifiers after you’ve identified a few necessary seed keywords for your website.

Keyword research” is an example of a seed keyword. Modifiers like “keyword research for beginners” or “best keyword research tools” can be generated from the term “Keyword research“.

See Also: Why Keyword Research Is Still A Crucial Part Of Your SEO Success

How to build a seed keyword list

Let me cut to the chase. The best ways to come up with a humongous list of seed keywords are:

i. Your instinct

This is the surest way of getting dozens of seed keyword ideas. The best part with this method is that there is literally no competition when it comes to this method.

If you are really knowledgeable about your niche, you will start noticing that ideas are jumping up and down in your head.

Most times, when you plug these ideas into Google, to your utmost surprise, they will have some sort of search volume.

ii. Reverse engineer already established blogs

This is another best way to get a list of targeted seed keywords. To begin with this process, just make a list of the top websites in your industry.

Let’s say that you are in the blogging or make money online niche, top five websites in this niche are:

Now just pick each of these blogs and head straight to Google keyword planner. For this example, we shall be going with Brian Dean’s Backlinko

On the page that shows, switch to the “start with a website” tab, enter the URL of your chosen website and click on “Get results“.

Finding seed keywords blogamigo

Once that is done, you will be greeted with a list of dozens of seed keyword ideas which you can plug into any keyword research tool to generate long-tail keywords.

Seed keywords from backlinko blogamigo

2. Search for Long Tail Keywords

After listing down your seed keywords, the next thing to do is plug those keywords into a keyword research tool to search for long-tail keywords.

In fact, while using the second method above to search for seed keywords, you will also come across lots of medium to long-tail keywords in the process.

The following methods below will help you to uncover more long-tail keywords to target.

i. Using Google Keyword Planner

The Adwords PPC network includes Google’s Keyword Planner. While it’s great for finding keywords for sponsored advertisements, it’s also great for organic search.

It’s been available for about two decades and is absolutely free to use. With only a few scores of advertisers in 2000, Adwords has grown to contribute 95 percent of Google’s income.

How does it perform as a keyword research tool? Let’s have a look.

When you’re looking for keywords to employ in your campaign, you may use Keyword Planner to get suggestions for relevant terms. This is useful if you don’t know where to begin when it comes to identifying keywords for your sites.

You must have an active Google Ads account to use Google Keyword Planner. After that, go to the Google Ads dashboard and click on “Tools” in the upper-right menu to access the tool.

Locating Google keywords planner from adwords blogamigo

It will bring you to the page below. While here, choose “Discover new keywords“.

Discover new keywords in Google keywords planner blogamigo

After that, you have the option to either start with keywords or to start with a website. Just go with “start with keywords“. Provide your seed keyword and click on “Get Results

Discover new keyword research in Google keywords planner blogamigo

What you will get afterward is a bunch of keywords that the Google keyword planner tool will spill out. Most of the time, these are keywords you never thought existed.

Google keyword planner search results blogomigo

ii. Soovle

Soovle keyword research tool blogamigo

It’s simple to get started with Soovle. Simply go to the website and type in your search terms or keywords. Soovle will show you keywords that have been searched with your search query. Soovle pulls search phrases from a variety of sources, including Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yahoo, Wikipedia, and even YouTube.

When you’re seeking keywords to employ in your blog articles or website content, this tool can help. Soovle is also useful for breaking the tendency of utilizing the same words over and over again in your work.

Get out of your writing rut and check what words people are Googling for that are comparable to your standard keywords. As a result, your audience will be more diverse, as your content will be more likely to appear in those searches.

iii. Google Trends

Google Trends Homepage Blogamigo

Google Trends is a search trends tool that displays the frequency with which a specific search phrase is entered into Google’s search engine in relation to the platform’s total search volume over time.

It could be used for keyword research comparisons and to spot peaks in keyword search volume caused by events.

Google Trends offers keyword-related data, such as a search volume index and geographical data on search engine users.

Many marketers rely on this information to learn more about their customers’ habits. This enables you to examine how interest in a topic has evolved over time, what terms are associated with it, and even when attention in a topic tends to peak or decline annually.

However, understanding how well the tool gathers and interprets data from Google’s search engine is also required in order to use it successfully.

Let’s say that you want to see the trend result for the term “keyword research”, just plug it into Google Trends and the tool will do its magic.

Google Trends search result Blogamigo

As you can see, it is a pretty much-searched term with a consistent search trend over the past 12 months.

So, how do you then uncover keywords with it? Just scroll down and you will find breakout keywords under the “Related queries” tab that are yet to get popular.

Google Trends Breakout Keywords Blogamigo

Let me make a confession right now, I never thought I would come across the term “keyword research services“. That is the power of using Google Trends for keyword research.

iv. AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic homepage blogamigo

If there is one tool I rely on to spill out a bunch of keyword ideas for me, then it is AnswerThePublic.

AnswerThePublic is a tool that aggregates questions and queries done online into one platform. Due to the fact that these are questions that people are asking online and not your regular information-based keywords, they are long-tailed and less competitive.

In order to use AnswerThePublic, just head over to the homepage of the website and put in your seed keyword in the search bar.

AnswerThePublic keyword research process blogamigo

After that, just wait for it to do its job. When it is done, it will spill out dozens of keyword ideas for you.

AnswerThePublic search results blogamigo
AnswerThePublic search results cont blogamigo

Scrolling further down the page will get you to the section where all the keywords it was able to generate are arranged in alphabetical order with respect to your seed keyword.

AnswerThePublic search results arranged in alphabeticals blogamigo

v. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest homepage blogamigo

Ubersuggest is a freemium keyword research tool from Neil Patel. This tool was formally totally free to use but has now switched over to a freemium model of operation.

This means that you are allowed to make just a few amounts of searches per day before you will be locked out of the platform unless you decide to upgrade.

Now to the meat of the matter, just head over to Ubersuggest and punch in your seed keyword.

Ubersuggest keyword research process blogamigo

What you will notice is that Ubersuggest will provide you with some basic information about the keyword you’ve entered.

Information such as average monthly search volume, SEO difficulty, paid difficulty, and cost per click.

Ubersuggest keyword research detailed metrics blogamigo

To get dozens of keyword ideas, scroll further down and click the “view all keyword ideas” button located right under the keywords ideas section.

Ubersuggest view all keyword ideas feature blogamigo

Doing so will get you to the keywords ideas tab from where you will uncover dozens of more keywords.

Ubersuggest suggested keyword ideas blogamigo

Do know that if you are using the free account, you’ll only be limited to just 30 keyword ideas. In order to see more keywords, you’ll need to upgrade.

Not sure of how things will pan out when you upgrade? Just take advantage of their 7-days free trial just to test out their service.

See Also: How To Create Content Calendar For Your Blog

3. Check Keyword Search Volume

After you’ve established your list of long-tailed keywords, the subsequent step is to look into their search volume.

The volume (or amount) of searches for a specific keyword in a given interval is referred to as keyword search volume.

To give advertisers a basic indication of a search term’s competition and overall volume, keyword search volume is often averaged across a given timeframe.

This information is frequently interpreted within specific times so that SEOs, bloggers, and marketers can evaluate how specific keywords generate traffic over time.

Considering keyword search volume while developing your content strategy is critical because it represents the relevance of the query.

Finding long-tail keywords with low competition that appeal to your target demographic might also be a good technique.

Fortunately, most of the keyword research tools listed in this article will calculate search volume for you. That way, you won’t need an extra tool to carry out this task.

Do keep in mind that keyword search volume varies slightly depending on the tool you’re using to conduct your keyword research.

So, what keyword volume should you aim for?

While there is no right or wrong answer to the above question, the specific keyword you wish to target will be determined largely by your content strategy.

However, to give a straightforward answer, if your site is brand new, go for the low competition keyword. Consider going for medium competition keywords if your site is more than a year already ranking for some keywords. While you can compete for high competition keywords if you already have an established site.

4. Competitor Analysis

Do you recall the advice I offered about the optimal keyword volume to aim for? It should be regarded with caution.

Why? It is simply because the final metric to look at before picking any keyword to target is to look at what is already out there.

Now, let’s look at these two keywords. I picked them out from reverse searching Backlinko using method two in our seed keyword research above.

  • Best tools for keyword research
  • SEO outreach

After putting the first keyword into Google, this is what I got.

Best tools for keyword research blogamigo
Best tools for keyword research cont. blogamigo

Just to put things in the right perspective, below is the summary of my result from blogs ranking on the first page.

  • themeisle.com, DA – 65
  • backlinko.com, DA – 64
  • wordstream.com, DA – 80
  • wpbeginner.com, DA – 78
  • ahrefs.com, DA – 78
  • zapier.com, DA – 76
  • keywordtool.io, DA – 64
  • semrush.com, DA – 87

A search for “SEO outreach,” on the other hand, yielded

SEO outreach keyword research blogamigo
  • seo-iberica.com, DA – 34
  • seo-iberica.com, DA – 34
  • straightnorth.com, DA – 48
  • respona.com, DA – 37
  • seeker.digital, DA – 31
  • searchenginepeople.com, DA – 61
  • digitaluncovered.com, DA – 59
  • varn.co.uk, DA – 39
  • outreach-lab.com, DA – 23
  • reputationx.com, DA – 46

As a content creator with a fairly new website, which of the two keywords will you want to go with?

Now you see that until you have done your competitor analysis, the final decision on which keyword to target cannot be properly ascertained.

See Also: Why Keyword Research Is Still A Crucial Part Of Your SEO Success

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the process of researching common search terms that people enter into search engines like Bing, YouTube, and Google and strategically incorporating them into your article so that it ranks higher in search engine results pages.

Regarding search engine optimization, keyword research is a crucial step.

Picking a topic for your post that is centered on a group of targeted keywords that you want your article to rank for is the first step in the keyword research process.

2. Why do you need to do keyword research?

The main goal of keyword research is to obtain a better understanding of your target audience, including how they perform searches online, which topics they find most interesting, and which brands they interact with.

Your content will be less important to your audience if you don’t have a keyword plan in place, which can eventually hurt your search engine rating.

To put it another way, keywords act as a compass for SEO initiatives, indicating where you should go and whether you’re progressing.

Conclusion

At this point, I want to believe that you now have the best keyword research guide at your disposal?

As you have seen, keyword research is not difficult to perform, you only need the best guide on how to go about it.

Just as I have stated in this post, before finalizing on any keyword, look at your competitors. All you just have to do is to plug in your keyword into Google in order to see what is already ranking.

Once you have a fair idea of what is ranking, that will help you to determine if that keyword will be easy to rank for or not.

Again, don’t just rely on keyword research tools to provide you with all of the information you need, you must put in the work as well.