Keyword research is a very important thing for anyone who wants to enter the world of blogging,
an essential point because a good keyword research allows you to grow your blog in the best way and indeed a keyword research done in the best way to make your blog grow faster than the others
in this article I want to explain how to do Keyword research, I will show you step by step how to do a keyword research by performing one from start to finish here with you
Here are the steps to do the keyword research
- Brain storming on your niche
- Write the main keywords and long tails
- Competitor analysis
- Sort keywords by search volume and difficulty
- Analyze the editorial plan
1. DO BRAINSTORMING
The first thing you need to do when doing a keyword research is to brainstorm
what does it mean to brainstorm?
It means using the knowledge you have of the niche in question and reflecting on what are the main issues, which are the topics most frequently treated and which are the sub-categories of this niche
this brain storming work will allow you to put your first keyword ideas on the table,
and once you have identified the first keyword ideas, what you need to do is mark them on an Excel sheet
create a table like this:
KEYWORD | COMPETITION | SEARCH VOLUME |
Racing horses | … | … |
Horse racing | … | … |
Race horses Breeds | … | … |
the niche I chose for this example is that of racehorses, to fill the Keyword Excel table the first thing I did was to reflect on my basic knowledge on racehorses
two things immediately came to mind: Horse racing which is the discipline of horse racing and the different breeds of racehorses
after entering the first things that came to my mind about my niche
I moved on to more analytical research
I opened Google and searched the search engine for “racing horses”
Here’s what I found:
Google gives me a hand right away by directing me to the most frequently asked questions people have asked
Questions like I take and insert in my table
another important point to consider when searching for keywords on Google are related searches, which are the suggestions that Google puts at the bottom of the page
See Image
once I have entered them in the Excel table I find myself with about thirty keywords,
the first things that come to my eye are the fact that there are so many questions about the speed of racehorses and so many questions about racehorse breeds
this analysis allows me to create the first sub-categories to be explored
2. WRITE THE MAIN KEYWORDS AND THE LONG TAILS
Once I have filled the Excel table with the various keywords I can start making the difference between the main keywords, which are generally generic and shorter keywords such as:
- Race horses breeds
- Racehorses jockey
- Race horse names
and the Long Tail keywords , which are generally the longer ones and the more specific ones such as:
- How to recognize an English thoroughbred horse
- How to become a racehorse trainer
- Are racehorses more expensive when they are born?
you have to imagine the difference between generic keywords and long tail keywords as the difference between two types of people
Genetic keywords are usually questions or information that people who know nothing about the niche need
while Keyword Long Tail are questions or information that people with more experience in the niche ask themselves
long tail keywords are usually the most difficult keywords to find
Here is where I suggest you look to find the Long tail keywords for your niche
ANSWER THE PUBBLIC
Answer the pubblic is a totally free keyword tool that displays Google’s questions and autosuggestions on a given topic
KEYWORD EVERYWHERE
and the other keyword tool is Keyword everywhere which is a Chrome and Firefox extension that allows you to see different parameters of a keyword
see image
3. DO THE COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
Analyzing your competitors can help you make the best decisions for your blog
competitor analysis allows you to understand the online landscape of your niche and to identify the major players in the niche in which you operate
it also allows you to understand which topics have not been best covered
and allows you to identify which topics to focus more on because they are not covered enough by the rest of your competitors
in simple terms, the competitor analysis allows you to see the weaknesses of your competitors and the information gaps of the niche in which you operate
there are several software to do competitor analysis but the best in my opinion are SEMrush and Ahref
If you don’t want to use the Tools you can always do the competitor analysis using Google
what you have to do to do the analysis with Google is to open the pages of your competitors and read the articles of your competitors
of each article you are going to read, evaluate the length of the article, evaluate if all the topics have been covered, evaluate the presence of images, evaluate the fluency of the text and ease of reading
article analysis allows you to decide whether to create a more in-depth article or if the articles present are already of a satisfactory level
4.SORT THE KEYWORDS BY SEARCH VOLUME AND BY DIFFICULTY
the next step is to rank the keywords you entered in the table
at this stage the tool you need to use is SEO ZOOM
SEO ZOOM is an Italian SEO tool that allows you to have the difficulty and search volume data for each keyword
very important data to create a functional publishing strategy
This analysis will allow you to order your keywords
Then, after taking all the search volume and keyword difficulty values, what you have to do is sort your keywords from the least competitive (low Keyword difficulty) with the highest number of searches (high Search volume) to the most competitive and with the lowest search number
5. ANALYZE THE EDITORIAL PLAN
Once the classification is finished, what you find in your hand is a real editorial plan
this document will allow you to start your career as a blogger with an effective keyword research that will allow you to move forward quickly in the creation of your content without having to stop and think about the strategy
try to follow the editorial plan as much as possible because only in this way will you be able to grow your blog in the fastest way possible
the contents you write at the beginning are those with little competition, contents that will allow you to position yourself in Google searches as quickly as possible
once you have a good number of articles positioned Google will begin to give more and more importance to your blog and this will ensure that the subsequent contents are taken into more consideration by Google
ATTENTION : while searching for keywords it may happen to find duplicates, do not write articles that deal with the same topic,
what I advise you to do in this case is to create an article that includes all the similar keywords
Where to look for keywords
There are several software that allow you to search for keywords for your niche, below I put the list of my favorites
The best tools to search for keywords are:
- Google (Related searches)
- Keyword Surfer (chrome extension)
- Keyword Everywhere (chrome extension)
- Ahref Seo Toobar (chrome extension)
- Answer the pubblic
- Keyword Shitter
- Google Search console