Timotheus Update: This post was originally published on 5 July 2019 on this website – Passive Online Revenue. Due to rebranding and consolidation of the two sites, the post is now on this website – https://timotheuslee.com/digital-marketing/how-to-find-the-best-keywords-for-your-website/
Keywords are an important part of your digital marketing strategy. And as a digital marketer or an online business owner, you must know How to Find the Best Keywords For Your Website.
In this article, the expansion of the main article – How to Learn Digital Marketing Online – The Ultimate Guide – I will discuss with you about Keywords and how to do Keyword Research so that you can use them effectively for your website, your ad campaigns, and any online marketing efforts.
What are Keywords?
When people use a search engine to find things, they type a word or phrase into the search field. Then they click search, and the search engine will find websites or web pages related to that search. And the search engine will produce a pages of lists of these websites or web pages.
The word or phrase are called Keywords. The pages of search results showing lists of websites or web pages are called Search Engine Results Pages. They are commonly referred to as SERP.
The Oxford English Dictionary says that currently there are 171,476 English words (as of the date this article was published). Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, claims there are around 470,000.
Whichever is correct, the fact is there are billions of keywords. This is because of how the words are combined in use, and also the permutations of the combinations. And this is not counting the keywords in other languages. (we will focus on English keywords here)
Video – Keyword Mastery – Keywords are the Foundation of Your Success
Hey, I know. This is a pretty long article. No time to read? Sure, here is a video – Keyword Mastery – Keywords are the Foundation of Your Success (click on image below) to explain about Keywords and Keyword Research.
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After you watch the video, do come back to finish reading this article. You will not regret it. I have added information about the latest trend for Keywords – Conversational Search Keywords. Keep reading.
Why Are Keywords Important?
As illustrated above, keywords searchers use keywords to find what they are looking for. And what they are looking for could be your products, services or brand.
Keywords enable searchers to find your website or web pages promoting your products, services or brand. As such, you must find the correct and relevant keywords for your website or web pages that people are using. So that they can find your website or web page.
This is done using a Keyword Tool to do Keyword Research.
After you find the best keywords for your website, you use them on your website or web pages. It can be on the site title, page title, headers or even the image alternative text tag. In other words, you do On Page SEO.
On Page SEO techniques will help your website to get ranked high on Search Engine Results Pages. Ranking high increases online visibility, which will enable consumers to be aware of your brand.
Of course, the best situation would be that your website or web page is ranked on the 1st Page of Search Engine Results Pages. It is known that 91.5% of people searching on search engines will click on a link that is on the 1st Page.
When searchers click on your website or web page link that is on the 1st Page of search results, they go to your website. As you can see, this means that keywords can help drive traffic to your website or web page.
When people go to your website or web page, you have the opportunity to convert them to customers. And that would result in increased sales.
Essentials to Perfect Keyword Research
Now that we have established the importance of keywords, let us discuss the Essentials to Perfect Keyword Research.
Your Unique Brand
You started a business. You created a brand. You spent valuable time, effort and money to build and grow your brand. And it is important that people see your brand, recall your brand, and have good association with your brand.
To achieve that, you need to do keyword research and SEO to gain online visibility for your brand. Further down, I discuss the importance of Brand Keywords.
Products or Services You Offer
Besides your Brand Keywords, during the Keyword Research phase, think about what you are offering to the consumers. Is it a product? Is it a service?
What kind of product are you offering? What kind of service are you offering. Is it something that your target audience needs? I am sure you must have found something that they really need, right?
And if it is, you must deliver it to them. And keywords are a way for your target audience to find your business on search engines.
Keywords That Match Your Products or Services
So now, put yourself in your target audience’s shoes. What words would they type into a search engine to find a product or service like yours?
Think of as many as you can. Write them down. This will be your initial list of keywords.
Next, you have to find out whether the keywords are the best and suitable for your website. What do I mean by this?
Well, you will need to use a Keyword Tool. Enter the keywords into this keyword tool. Find out if the keywords have a good amount of average traffic using this keyword to search.
Then find out how competitive is this keyword. This will help you get a clear picture of whether the keyword can rank high, and even on 1st Page, easily. Also, it helps you with online ad campaigns. Competition affects whether your ad is delivered as well as the advertising costs.
Types of Keywords
There are various types of keywords. Each has its unique use in your digital marketing strategy. You will need to understand each of them to decide how to use them in your marketing efforts.
Brand Keywords
Say, for example, you attend a networking event. You introduce yourself and the business and brand that you either own or represent. Everyone whom you met would know of the brand. And some may like to know more about your business.
To find out, they would go to a search engine, type your brand name, and do a search. Ideally, your website and anything other online assets (e.g. Facebook Page) should appear on the list of search results. The person can then click on all these to learn more about your brand and business.
As you can see, it is very important that for the above to happen. It improves your brand’s online visibility. Do make sure you use Brand Keywords, and also check once in a while to make sure that your brand website and online assets appear on the 1st Page of SERPs.
Generic Keywords
Generic Keywords are words that have a relatively wide scope. For example, words like Dog, Cat, Business, and Training. Notice that Generic Keywords are usually just one word.
As such, Generic Keywords usually have higher competition. And due to the higher competition, there can be lower conversion rates. Plus, using Generic Keywords for ad campaigns can be very costly.
Long-Tailed Keywords
In contrast, Long-Tailed Keywords are when a searcher types in three or more words into a search query. Sometimes, the words can form a phrase. For example; Organic Dog Food, Best Cat Toys, How to Start An Online Business, or Where Can I Learn Digital Marketing.
As you can see, when someone uses Long-Tailed Keywords, they are looking for exactly what they have intent to learn more in detail. Studies have shown that the intent to buy is higher. In almost every case, when you use a Long-Tailed Keyword for your article, it can result in higher conversion to sales.
Low Hanging Fruit Keywords
Speaking of higher conversion rates, you can raise the chances of getting more sales by using Low Hanging Fruit Keywords. What are these? Think of fruits that are hanging lower on a tree than those higher up. Isn’t it easier to pluck them?
It is the same for Low Hanging Fruit Keywords. These are keywords that have relatively reasonable amount of traffic, low competition, and high chances of getting ranked on the 1st Page of SERPs.
To know what are these keywords, you will need a very good keyword tool that can give you those exact data. I know of such an excellent keyword tool. And it is the same one I use for all my websites and web pages. And it is also why I can get many of my web pages ranked on 1st Page.
I share about this excellent keyword tool further down this article. Keep reading.
Local Keywords
Many people search for local businesses using various apps such as Google, Bing, Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc. It is then very critical for you to optimize your website and web pages with Local Keywords to attract these searchers.
Local Keywords can be a country, city, borough or even a district. For example; Bakery in Singapore is using country as a search term. But this can be a little too broad, and may not help you get ranked high.
Try a more local keyword. For example, in Singapore there are many districts and neighborhoods. If the bakery is actually in a district called Ang Mo Kio, then a good Local Keyword to use would be Bakery in Ang Mo Kio.
This is just one of the many permutations that the pet store can consider. The pet store can try other Local Keywords such as Best Bakery in Ang Mo Kio, Healthy Organic Cakes and Cookies in Ang Mo Kio, or even Bakery near Ang Mo Kio Central.
Conversational Search Keywords – Latest Trend!
The advent of voice interfaces and sophisticated AI (Artificial Intelligence) have created a new type of keyword – the Conversational Search Keyword.
Today, consumers can speak a natural speaking sentence into a device, and the device can reply with a full sentence. This is now applied for searches too. In the past, searches mostly analyzed individual keywords. Technology today looks at the entire string of words.
For example, in the past, we may use keywords such as Car Dealer Singapore. But today, for reason of Conversational Search, it is better to use Where Can I Find The Best Car Dealer in Singapore?
Comscore reports that voice search is on the rise in 2019, and will make up at least 50% of searches in 2020. Can you afford to ignore Conversational Search Keywords?
Which is the Best Keyword Tool to Use?
Now that you understand more about keywords and the importance of keyword research, the next thing you need is to know which is the best keyword tool to use? Let’s start with a bit more details about what a keyword tool is.
What is a Keyword Tool?
A keyword tool helps you to find out if the keyword you plan to use has good amount of traffic, whether it has high, low or medium competition, and many other data to help you decide if it is suitable for your web page or ad campaign. The tool uses Google tools such as Google Autocomplete and Google Suggest to do the keyword research for you.
The Google Suggest extracts keyword suggestions for you. What this means is that the keyword tool will produce a list of more keywords for you. This list are suggested keywords based on the main keyword you have started with.
For example, if you type Restaurant in Singapore, the keyword tool will show you how many people are using this search term, what is the competition for this keyword, and many other useful data. In addition, it will show you suggestions such as Best Restaurant in Singapore, Chinese Restaurant in Singapore, Good Food in Singapore, etc. These also show the traffic, competition and other data. The data is to help you decide if the original keyword you intended to use is perfect, or maybe one of the other on the list is better.
What are the Keyword Tools Available?
There are many in the market. For example; there is the popular Google Keyword Planner, ahrefs, and SemRush.
To be honest, I have tried many, including the few mentioned above. And I found them lacking. The data provided is either too vague or lack enough information to help me decide if the keyword is the best for my website or web page.
For example, Google Keyword Planner gives a range of numbers for the Average Monthly Searches. When I did a search for Womens Watches, it returned the numbers as between 1K to 10K.
I mean, come on. Is it nearer to 1K or nearer to 10K? The difference is huge, and can affect how successful my online marketing campaign will be, right?
What is the Best Keyword Tool?
After years of research, I finally found the Best Keyword Tool. It gives you the exact number of Average Monthly Searches, and the exact number of Average Traffic.
It also advises you how many competitors are there for that keyword, and how many other websites are ranking for that keyword. The latter tells you what are the chances of your website or web page ranking on the 1st Page.
Isn’t this awesome? In fact, I wrote a review of this tool. Check this out – Jaaxy Keyword Tool Review – Truly Awesome!
In this review, I share more info about Keywords, Keyword Research, and even a link to Jaaxy where you can do some Free Keyword Research. Don’t miss this!
What Do I Do Next with the Keywords?
After you have found the right keywords, you are ready to do some On Page SEO and Off Page SEO. This means placing your keywords strategically on your website. For more details, read my article about 12 On Page SEO Techniques for 1st Page Rank.
You should also use keywords for your Off Page SEO efforts. My article – 11 Off Page SEO Techniques for 1st Page Rank explains all about Off Page SEO.
We have come to the end of this article. I will be writing more digital marketing blog posts soon. Please do join my mailing list to receive updates when I publish them.
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If you have ANY questions or comments about this article, ANY at all, please submit them as comments below. I will be happy to help out.
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Timotheus
I really appreciate all the informative posts regarding digital marketing. Thanks for providing such great information on the use of keywords, I have used both Google Ad words keyword planner and have used Jaxxy and find that Jaxxy seems to be extremely easy to use and targets better keywords, while providing the information that I need to decide if it is a good keyword for my site. I love that it gives insight on how much competition the keyword has and provides accurate search and traffic counts.
You’re welcome, Dena. I will be sharing more things I learned from past & current experience, as well as from Wealthy Affiliate. As a digital marketing expert, I really do recommend the Wealthy Affiliate University. The program really teaches a lot.
Thanks for your feedback on Jaaxy. As you have read my article, I totally agree with you. Jaaxy is Awesome! Every digital marketer should use this keyword tool. It truly helps improve a digital marketing strategy.
Keywords is the key to success when marketing through content marketing, so knowing as much as you possibly can is one of the most important skills you need to acquire to succeed.
Well said, Jeff. And I hope this article helped you and many readers know how to use Keywords effectively for a successful digital marketing strategy. 🙂
That was very explicit and detailed. I have been in the online business for a while but have always had problems with this keyword thing. But your post has helped clarify things for me a bit better. Before I knew only about ( low hanging fruits and long tail, I never knew about the generic keyword and the rest but now i do and i even know how to pick the right one for my niche.
Thank you for such an educative post. This will help a lot of people out there.
Keep up the good work.
You’re welcome, Eric. And thank you for sharing how much this post has helped you.
I am very happy and grateful that my article clarified much for you. And you also learned more than just low hanging fruit and long tail keywords. It is very important to pick the right one for your online marketing strategy. And Jaaxy is the best tool to help you with that.
I will be sharing more. Please do join my mailing list to receive updates when I publish new articles. 🙂
Very informative post! As I am new in the internet marketing world, I didn’t know there are many kinds of keyword type. I am now learning low hanging keyword. Personally, conversational search keyword attracted my attention. Keyword has to meet human sense, that is what I learned recently. And, now I understand why it is so important.
Great to know my blog post helped you t learn more about Keywords, Koichi. And welcome to the Internet Marketing world. You have found the perfect website to help you learn more about digital marketing that can help you do better and succeed in a career as a digital marketer or with your online marketing efforts for your business.
Yes, Conversational Search Keyword is critical now. Especially with AI and Voice Search rising. I will write more about this in the future. So please do join my mailing list and receive updates when I publish them.
Proper keyword research can be very overwhelming and confusing at first.
Your article has broken down each step very clearly which is great for a beginner.
I also agree with using a keyword search tool as it’s just as important to use keywords with plenty of searches and low competition. This information can be very hard to find when first starting out unless you know where to look.
There’s no point having a great website with lots of cool content if no one visits it!
Thanks for writing such a great, thorough article and I look forward to reading more.
You’re welcome, Helen. And you are absolutely right! There is no point creating a great website that is unable to attract good amount of traffic. There was once I met a business at a trade show. They proudly showed me that they are on the 1st Page of Google. I quickly did Keyword Research and found that the keyword they were using had ZERO TRAFFIC. I pointed that out to them. The marketing manager was embarrassed and quickly walked away. A pity. If they had only had the sense to ask me for help. I would be glad to help them.
Glad you agree that a very good keyword tool is important to find keywords with good amount of traffic and low competition. And Jaaxy does an awesome job of that. I truly hope more people will know about it and will use it. It will definitely help their online marketing efforts be successful.
Thanks for this wonderful post. I will utilize this information on my blogs.
You’re welcome, Ebuka. Glad to know the information will be useful for your blogs.
Please join my mailing list as I will be updating with more useful info, and you can receive updates when I publish them.