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Choosing the right keyword for your business is different from simply do keyword research for your business. There are thousands (if not more) of potential keywords to choose from for your business. Among the thousands of potential keywords, only a handful might be worth pursuing.
First, you need to identify these potential keywords. How? Keyword research. Only after having a list of potential keywords you can then start filtering to find the right one for your business.
Luckily for you, we are going to go through some points for you to properly start keyword research for your business.
Keyword Planner Tools
There are a lot of free tools for keyword research out there such as Google Keyword Planner, Keywordtool, & Ubersuggest. As for the paid version, we recommend using Semrush as it comes with different tools for your SEO efforts. To start, we believe a free tool is sufficient to find the right keyword for your business. Just like its paid counterpart, free keyword planner tools will provide you with data on historical trends, search volume, cost, and competitiveness of each keyword.
Average Search Volume
This is the number of times the keyword was searched over the past year and divide that number by 12. Average Search Volume determines whether there is enough traffic for that keyword. Remember, the number provided by these tools is an estimation, not the actual number. Generally, keywords with high average search volume are a good pick, but this is not necessarily the best thing to do every time. On many occasions, high average search volume comes with a broad keyword and high competition (also known as keyword difficulty). On the other hand, if you choose keywords with low search volume, make sure that it has a high buying intent that may bring sales to your business.
You cannot choose your keyword solely based on its average search volume. On the next point, we will talk about keyword competitiveness and why you should use both average search volume and keyword competition in your keyword research to find the most optimal keyword for your business.
Keyword Competition
Often referred to as keyword difficulty, keyword competition determines how hard is it for your page to rank for a particular keyword. This metric is usually measured from a number of 0 – 100 and 0 – 1. The higher the number, the harder for your page to rank for that keyword, and vice versa. High buying intent keywords & high search volume are often associated with higher keyword competition scores.
There are countless websites out there, and some are older & more established than the other.
As a new website, it is generally very very hard to rank for a generic keyword because it is usually flooded with websites with higher domain authority.
The best idea is to find keywords with the highest search volume with the lowest competition. However, for generic keywords and high buying intent keywords, this is usually hard to find. As a new business or a new website, the best idea might be finding a long-tail keyword. A long-tail keyword is a longer and more specific search query. For example, instead of going for a short-tail keyword such as ‘yoga’, go for ‘can yoga improve your health?’
Domain Authority
Domain Authority determines the trustworthiness of your website. It measures the ability of a domain to rank in search engines’ result pages (SERPs) compared to competitors. Measured by the number of 0 – 100, a higher number represent that a domain is more trustworthy. Domain Authority was developed by Moz.
So why is it important? With higher domain authority, it is easier for your website to rank for a particular keyword. If you are trying to compete for a keyword, it is important to check other pages that rank for that keyword. If the first page of a search engine result page for that keyword is flooded with websites with a domain authority far higher than yours, it will be extremely unlikely to rank to that keyword. But remember, domain authority is not an official ranking factor, but rather a prediction by machine learning.
Read More: Understanding Domain Authority, How It Affects Your Website, & How To Improve It
Identify the intention behind a query
Search intent is the phycological reason behind why a person makes a search on a search engine. Are they looking to buy a product? Are they trying to find information about something? These intents are usually navigational, informational, transactional, commercial & local.
Navigational means that the searcher is looking for a specific product, page, service, or name. Informational means that searchers are looking for information about something of their interest. Transactional means that the searchers are looking to buy a product or service. Commercial means that the searchers are comparing different products & services. Local means that the searchers are looking for something in a specific geolocation.
So why is it important to identify these intentions? Search engines want to deliver the most relevant pages to different search intents. The closer the page is to satisfying a searcher’s search intent, the higher a page is likely to rank. This is why you want to have a specific page to satisfy different intentions. For example, your blog pages will satisfy an informational intent while your product pages will satisfy a commercial or transactional intent.
Avoid Keyword Cannibalization
When choosing a keyword for a new page, you first need to check for your website’s current keyword rankings. This way, you will find out which pages are already ranking organically for certain keywords. And if you are already ranking for a keyword that you wanted to target, you shouldn’t make another page to rank for the same keyword. Instead, you should focus on optimizing one page for that keyword. This is because creating multiple pages that target the same keyword will confuse search engines & distribute your potential traffic to multiple pages. This practice is called keyword cannibalization, and this isn’t good.
The goal is to pick new keyword phrases for new pages.
Conclusion
When doing keyword research for your business’s website, think of it as creating a campaign. First, you must identify the campaign goal, and what value can these keywords bring to your business. Second, analyze your direct competition’s pages and keywords. Third, you must understand the psychology of the searchers, and match your chosen keywords with their search intentions. Finally, it is recommended to prepare specific pages and optimized them for each keyword.
Remember, if you are a smaller or newer business, go for a long-tail form keyword, this is because short-tail form keywords are highly competitive. However, if you are an authoritative business you can get away with choosing a short-tail business.
Choosing a keyword really depends on your business’s current position and needs. By taking into consideration the points discussed in this article, you will have a better idea which keywords will be better for your business.
Read More: SEO Keyword Optimization To Benefit Your Business In The Long-term & Short-term
