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Keyword Research: How Important is it in Your SEO Strategy?

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Having a good strategy for your SEO efforts is essential for any business that has an online presence, and one major aspect of SEO is keyword research. A lot of businesses usually don’t give much attention to keyword research as they don’t see the many benefits that can come from having extensive research completed, but in reality, it can be the deciding factor that makes or breaks their SEO efforts. Let’s review the true benefits of keyword research and why it should be one of the most important parts of your SEO campaigns.

Popularity and Difficulty

Understanding how popular a keyword or phrase is will help you determine how much potential traffic might come from that channel. If you are researching a keyword that is used 75,000 a month, compared to some other similar keywords than are only used 20,000 a month, then you can make a better informed decision on which one you want to target.

Just because a keyword has a lot of uses does not mean you should go for it. Usually the more popular keywords are also the most difficult to market for because of how competitive it might be. A lot of keyword research tools help gauge how hard it will be to rank for certain terms, which gives you a much better understanding of what it will take to get that specific keyword to work in your favour.

The ideal keyword is usually semi-popular that doesn’t have much competition. It would take less resources to work on 4 or 5 of these types of keywords than 1 extremely popular keyword.

Getting Quality Visitors

Doing research will also help you target a certain type of customer. For example if you have a website that sells shoes, you would much rather target a phrase like “Fairly Prices Quality Shoes” instead of “Beautiful Shoes”. The reason behind this is the person who is looking for good prices on shoes is more likely to actually spend money than someone who is just trying to look at what types of shoes are beautiful. The more research you do, the more you will learn about which terms are more effective for your type of business.

Keyword Trends

Keeping on top of keyword trends that are related to your industry could really improve your traffic and overall profits. If you see that your target audience is starting to use new search terms to find products similar to yours, you could shift your focus to that keyword and get an advantage over your competition. The sooner you start to work on a specific search term, the better, so if you notice the trend before all of your competitors then you will have the advantage.

Pay Per Click Advertising Information

Whether or not you actually use pay per click services, this information can be useful. Certain search terms are going to be used by programs such as Google Adwords more than others, which is a good thing to know. Don’t underestimate the power of pay per click advertisements because they do steal a good chunk of people that use the keywords. If you notice that a keyword you are researching has a lot of advertisements attached to it, you might want to stay away from it because unless you are highly ranked, you could continue to get minimum results.

At the same time, if you are using pay per click programs, then finding keywords that are not popular can get you really good prices, while the more popular search terms are much more expensive.

More Effective the More you Get Used to it

Keyword research is one of those skills that continue to get better and better as you do it. After a while, you will be able to spot a great keyword from a mile away and make it profitable. It might be a little hard to understand and might be frustrating at first, but don’t give up because it will all be worth it in the end. If you don’t want to spend the time to do this, then you should really think about hiring a professional to do it for you. In the end, you just want to make sure this is an important part of your strategy.

About the author

Vikram

Vikram is a Digital Media Strategy Consultant who helps small business owners grow their
business. He is passionate about blogging, digital marketing, and emerging technologies.

4 Comments

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  • Hi Vikram, thank you for linking to Sprout Geek’s compilation of keyword research tools.

    Not performing any keyword research before diving into SEO is like driving while you are blindfolded. You have no idea about what people are searching for on the Internet and how competitive the keywords that you are trying to rank for. And yes, I do agree with you that a marketer will tend to get better with keyword research when they start doing it over and over again.

    Thanks again, Vikram.

  • I’m now not certain where you’re getting your info, but great topic.
    I must spend some time learning more or figuring out more.
    Thank you for fantastic info I was in search of this info for my mission.

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