How to Research
Keywords: It’s about Knowing What Keywords Are and Which Tools to Use
The importance of keyword use in digital marketing is hard
to deny.
In fact, an entire branch of modern marketing expertise, search engine
optimization or SEO, is based around the effective identification and use of
keywords in marketing copy.
However, you cannot set an effective SEO or digital
marketing strategy without choosing keywords and then researching those
keywords to make sure they are the right ones to use.
Therefore, learning how
to research keywords is Marketing 101 for the 21st century.
Understanding Keywords
Before we go any further, it is important to take time to
clearly define what keywords are and what it means to research keywords.
For
starters, Wikipedia explains that keywords refer to the “essence of the topic of a document” and goes
on to list synonyms such as subject heading, descriptor, subject term, and
index term.
Basically, a
keyword defines the topic of an article, page, or business.
Users looking for
information then use these keywords to locate information or products/services
through search engines.
Researching keywords means discovering the relative
usefulness of each word or phrase in search.
That is, do users actually use
these words when looking for that information? There are two steps to use in
accomplishing this.
First, pick a keyword tool, then pick a method.
Step 1: Using Tools to Research Keywords
Keyword research
will uncover the actual words that customers use to find your site.
Your job as
a digital marketer is to discover what those keywords are and then used them effectively.
This is done through the use of tools designed to help users to research
keywords.
All of them have merit, so which you use will depend on your budget
and industry. Here are a few examples:
·
Google Ad Words: free service offered by Google;
used to determine the relative competition and known synonyms for a particular
term.
·
Social media search tools: free from sites such
as Twitter; offer search tools that will unlock specific language used on those
sites.
·
Scribe: paid-for SEO program; keyword data is
actually built in to this service
·
Google Trends: free service; displays popularity
of a particular keyword at a given time
Once you have decided which tools or tools to use, learning
how to research keywords is more an exercise in using those tools and then
properly applying the information they generate than any specific set of
directives.
This includes picking keywords, determining their popularity, and
then taking those keywords you have chosen and compare them to others in
similar niches.
Step 2: Types of Keyword Research
As a marketer, you
have the choice of designing a page and then determining the keywords you need
to employ or choosing keywords and then designing a page around them.
Which of
these strategies you use will depend on your role in an organization and the
type of business you are trying to conduct.
Therefore, you must not only choose
a tool to use, but a method to employ.
Remember, because the concept of
keywords as such is easy to understand and because we all use search engines every
day, most people make the mistake of thinking that they know what these
keywords are without researching them.
But that’s not always true; your lens as
a website owner is different than that of a customer which is why learning how
to research keywords is so important.
Talk soon,
David Slabon
