Keyword Research For SEO: Top Tips

Are you looking for high-intent keywords? Discover how to improve your keyword research strategy, and take it to the next level.

Want to find high-intent keywords by using proven, effective methods?

Wish you could establish a simple yet powerful keyword strategy to help your target audience find you faster?

You can — especially if you understand your audience deeply and create a solid keyword strategy based on intent.

Let’s see how some best practices in choosing the right keyword and where to place these keywords to make sure that you can increase your organic visibility.

The Heads & Tails Of Keyword Strategy Creation

Keyword Research = Discovering + Targeting Relevant Words That Matter To Your Audience

Understanding the basics of keywords and incorporating them into an intention-based strategy creates the foundation for success.

Keyword Research Tip #1: Know How To Target All Appropriate Keyword Types

To drive qualified traffic to your site, be sure you are incorporating each of the four basic keyword elements into your research, including:

1. Search Volume

Search volume is the average amount of times that someone searches for a specific phrase each month.

Typically, you would select a keyword with a high search volume. But remember: that keyword needs to be relevant to your audience’s needs.

Pro tip: Find a balance between high search volume and keywords that are relevant to your business.

2. Relevancy

Relevancy helps your website show up at the right time during the right search.

Place yourself in the shoes of your future visitors. What questions would they ask? What do they need to know before deciding to convert?

Pro tip: For the highest impact and best results, select a keyword that matches your target audience’s needs, has a moderate search volume, and matches your landing page’s intent.

3. Head Keywords

Head keywords are words and phrases that have a high search volume.

These necessary keywords are great to bring in traffic, but they can be harder to rank successfully due to high competition.

Let’s look at the keyword phrase [reading glasses], which has 116,000/MSV (Monthly Search Volume). We see that:

Pro tip: Balance both head keywords and long-tail keywords in your keyword strategy.

4. Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords typically have lower competition and lower volume, but they can be easier to rank for.

If we drill down from the head keyword phrase [reading glasses] to the long-tail keyword phrase [lightweight reading glasses], which has 480/MSV, we’ll learn:

Keyword Research Tip #2: Consider The Customer Journey & User Intent

Do the keyword phrases you’ve selected align with what your customer is trying to accomplish? Do they match where your visitors are in the buyer’s journey?

The stronger and more relevant your keywords are to your users and their place within the buyer’s journey, the higher the potential to increase your traffic.

Pro tip: You can add specific phrases to your keywords to help them match what your potential customer may be searching for. These intent phrases can help you display authority for every type of shopper in their journey.

Keyword Research Tip #3: Use Competitive Data To Discover Semantically Relevant Keywords

Sometimes it can be difficult to know which words are truly related.

Competitive Data can help increase your relevancy around a topic.

When you know what your competition is ranking for, you’ll know what keywords to use in your content to ensure that you are found.