“Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start…When you read you begin with A B C. When you sing you begin with doh ray me.” And when you create a website you start with keyword research!
Effective keyword research is important for so many reasons, and if you have a business website, it needs to be based around solid, effective keyword research.
If you’re not quite sure what a keyword is, it might be better to start with this blog:
‘What are keywords and why are they needed?’
In this article, we’ll briefly look at, blog keyword research, and what effective keyword research is. We’ll also look at why keyword research is important for your business website.
what is keyword research?
Keyword research, very simply, is the process of finding the best keywords to use in your digital content. It’s done using an effective keyword research tool. (We use Long Tail Pro at Engaging Content). We use Long Tail Pro for both website keywords and blog keyword research.
Keyword research involves looking at thousands of keywords. These are words and phrases people search for on a monthly basis. And deciding which ones you’d like Google to match your web pages with.
Blog keyword research is where you link keywords to the blog topic you wish to post about. It has the same principle as keyword research for your web page. Except your blog keyword research is focused around the topic you’re posting about. This usually links nicely with your usual keywords, as you wouldn’t write about a topic your business has no relevance to!
Effective keyword research is absolutely essential for any business website! Now let’s look at 4 reasons why keyword research is important…
1. keyword research is important if you want to stand out
Ranking on the first page of Google for a search query is incredibly competitive. Any business owner knows that if they’re not ranking on page 1 for searches, they’re invisible. Ask yourself this, when was the last time you looked beyond page 1 of Google search results?
Keyword research finds keywords that lots of people in your industry are searching for. However, it also finds low-competition keywords – ones that aren’t being used by too many of your competitors. Ranking for low-competition keywords with a high monthly search volume means that your site has a better chance of ranking on the first page of Google for more Google searches.
Let’s look at an example of this. When we worked with a fantastic retailer of ladies plus-size clothing based in Cheltenham, Tia-Tia, they had based their homepage around the term ‘plus size clothing.’ However, this is an incredibly competitive search term, for which Tia-Tia ranked on page 5 of Google search results.
We instead decided to re-optimise the homepage around the phrase ‘plus size boutique’. This is a search term that sees plenty of monthly searches, but is used by far fewer plus sized clothing retailers. This made sure that Tia-Tia ranked as the 2nd result for the search, ‘plus size boutique’ in Google!
2. keyword research helps attract more of your ideal customers
Effective keyword research also helps attract more of your ideal customers and win bigger business.
Let’s say you own an artisan coffee shop. If you’re using lots of standard keywords like ‘coffee shop’ in your content, Google will match your website with people searching for this phrase. However, these people might be looking for bigger chains like Costa or Starbucks. Then, if they make it to your website, they might be turned off by the high price tag that comes with high-quality, bespoke coffee.
So, by choosing to instead target keywords such as ‘artisan coffee shop’, ‘hand-roasted coffee’ or ‘high-quality coffee,’’ you’re more likely to be found by the customers who understand and appreciate the value of what you do. Customers who are likely to want to spend more money on a premium service.
Therefore, keyword research helps you find keywords that your ideal customers are using in search engines.
3. keyword research saves you time and money
There’s no disputing that keyword research will take up your time, to begin with. And it will cost you to hire a professional. However, in the long run, it’ll save you both time and money.
Look at it this way, you wouldn’t build a house without blueprints. It’s the same for building a website! You need to do your keyword research first. After all, the whole point of a website is to drive traffic to it. And without keyword research, this will be impossible.
Without keyword research, you may target the wrong people, rank for the wrong searches, or not rank at all. This is why keyword research is important to do straight away and to do right.
4. keyword research gives you a long-term strategy
Keyword research can help you work out how you’d like your website to progress. And what you need to do to get it there. It might be that some of your larger competitors are ranking for keywords that you’d like to target. They may be too competitive right now due to your website/domain authority.
Keyword research can help you plan how to get to a point where your website gains authority. You can do this by ordering your keywords by most achievable to least achievable. Then, as your site builds up more content and ranks well for more keywords, Google will trust your site more. In turn, this will make your website more likely to outrank competitors for competitive keywords.
Blog keyword research is really important for your long-term strategy. In blogs, you can answer queries. You can highlight the importance of your product/service and help customers understand who you are/what you do.
base your website on firm keyword research foundations
Don’t fall into the trap of not using any keyword research to form your site content. And don’t think you can get away with doing little to no blog keyword research. Without keyword research, your website won’t rank in Google for anything other than your brand name. You won’t rank on the first page for any relevant searches, and you may also attract the wrong type of site visitors for your business.
This is why keyword research is important. Without it, you may as well not have a website.
Whether you carry this out internally or work with an external SEO provider, you should always use keyword research to build strong foundations for your site.
If you’d like to speak to us about your own keyword research then contact us.
Ensuring you are targeting the right keywords to attract your perfect customer needs to be done early on in your website project. Don’t wait until the end or leave it to chance. If you have questions about your keywords or need some help with keyword research please get in touch.