How to Choose the Best Keywords for an SEO Campaign

The truth is, the visibility of any content would suffer greatly if it weren’t for keyword research, a process that can make or break your entire campaign.

This guide will take you through the process of keyword research and show you how to pick the best keywords for your business, thus increasing your website’s traffic.

Finding Keywords

When most people think of keyword research, they think of a couple of words thrown into a Google Keyword Planner and some mighty powerful keywords popping out as a result. Well, guess what? This is a big no-no. Google Keyword Planner can’t do the thinking for you – it’s just going to give you a couple of hits related to the keyword that you put in, which won’t help you one bit with finding new keywords.

This is why you need to start with identifying your niche topics first.

What Are Niche Topics?

Niche topics are broader terms than keywords. Think of it as taking a step back in order to see the bigger picture. The idea behind this is to actually find the keywords that are less competitive but just as good as the most popular ones. These keywords are goldmines and they can sometimes be really hard to find. The best way to find them? Through the smart use of niche topics.

So, how do you begin? Brainstorming. You need to put yourself in the shoes of your potential customers. What would you type in the search bar if you wanted to find content related to a certain topic? Create a list of at least 5 different niche topics your target customer might be interested in.

Keyword Types

When you’ve identified a number of niche topics, you can move on to finding actual keywords related to them. It’s important to know the three main categories of keywords:

• Head Keywords – These are single word phrases, like “cars” for example. They are extremely competitive and don’t actually target searcher’s intent really well. Someone searching for “cars” might be interested in buying a car, selling their own car, or they just watched the newest Fast and Furious movie. You can’t know that, which is why it’s a really bad idea to even try ranking for these keywords. What’s the use of people getting to your website if they’re not going to convert?
• Body Keywords – These keywords consist of 2-3 words and they are already way more specific than head keywords. “Sport cars,” for example, already narrows down a lot what the searcher’s intent is all about. Body keywords have lower competition than head keywords, yet they are precise enough to get the right people to your website.
• Long Tail Keywords – Longer phrases with more than 4 words, long tail keywords are most often put on the pedestal of keyword research. They are extremely precise, which makes their conversion rates the best out of the three. “Sports cars manufacturer West Australia” would be a good example of a long tail keyword. However, they too aren’t without flaws. Long tail keywords usually have a really low number of searches per month, so you’ll have to create a ton of articles for many of these keywords to get lots of meaningful traffic.

Conclusion

Keyword research and keyword mapping are the backbone of any SEO campaign and the first step any SEO company should undertake when starting a new project, so it’s important to do it properly from the get-go. Don’t just run your Google Keyword Planner and expect awesome results, because it won’t do the thinking for you. Brainstorming is absolutely essential for coming up with the best keywords, and low competitive keywords that still drive a lot of traffic can boost your business immensely.

If you use the steps we described in this guide, you’ll undoubtedly improve your keyword research, which will directly affect your traffic, conversions, and revenue.