The Comprehensive Guide to Keyword Research for SEO
Keyword research is essential for search engine optimization (SEO). Keywords help you to understand how your target audience thinks, the challenges they are trying to solve, and the solutions they are seeking.
Keywords are a foundational element for building a powerful SEO, content, and digital marketing program. They provide strategic insight and direction.
If you look at your marketing as a skyscraper, keywords are the steel and concrete beams, acting as the core of the building and carrying the weight of the superstructure. They are fundamental to the construction process, just as they are essential for strong SEO and effective content marketing performance.
Holistic Approach to Keyword Research
Even though keywords are critical to powering SEO results, many marketers are only scratching the surface when it comes to keyword research. Sure, they check Google search volume and ranking difficulty. Some analyze the keywords on which competitors are ranking. But they don’t really go beyond that.
If this is all you do in your keyword research, you’ll likely be frustrated at the results. Your SEO will often miss the mark. You’ll wonder why you don’t rank for so many of your priority keywords.
Instead, there’s a better way!
Read through this guide for a more comprehensive, holistic, and integrated approach to keyword research.
It’s time-consuming. It’s not easy.
But if you want transformative results from your SEO, it’s more than worth it. Our approach here at Stratabeat (a B2B SEO agency) has helped clients to:
- Achieve approximately $88,000 in monthly traffic value (from zero) for a brand new blog within 14 months of launch
- Generate 5X growth (50 to 250 employees) within two years
- Increase organic traffic by 7,235.7% within three years
Read on to uncover a keyword research process that will act as a powerful catalyst for your SEO results.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process of identifying topics, phrases, and words that people use to search for information online, especially in search engines such as Google.
Keywords often guide a brand’s content creation. According to Conductor’s State of Organic Marketing in 2022 report, more than 50% of organizations surveyed reported that they use search data as a foundational guide for content creation.
Essentially, keyword research falls into the following categories:
- Primary keywords – Each keyword that you choose to target with a distinct piece of content.
- Head terms – General, broad category-level keywords.
- Long-tail keywords – Phrases with lower search volumes than head terms and typically with multiple words in the query.
- Semantically-related keywords – Keywords and phrases that are related to the primary keyword conceptually. Semantically-related keywords help you to identify the underlying intent of an online search.
- Contextually-related keywords – Keywords commonly found in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for a given query.
- Competitor keywords – Those keywords that your competitors are targeting.
- Trending keywords – These are keywords for which the search volume is rising fast.
- Online questions – Questions that individuals are asking online, such as in Google, forums, Quora, Reddit, or elsewhere.
- Popular topics – These are hot topics that your target audience is highly interested in, such as commonly found in online media and publications irrespective of search volume.
- Customer pain points – The deepest frustrations and challenges of your audience. Customer pain points may have low search volume, yet the points are deeply important to customers during their journey.
Components of Keyword Research
There are several core components that come into play with keyword research, such as:
Monthly Search Volume – This refers to the number of people who are searching for a particular keyword or keyword phrase each month. This is a metric that helps you to determine the keywords that are worth targeting and the effort you should put into them.
Ranking Difficulty – This measures the level of competition for a specific keyword or phrase among websites that appear in search engine results pages (SERPs). Highly competitive keywords are much harder to rank for than those with less competition.
Website Authority – Generally speaking, high-authority websites (IBM, New York Times, etc.) rank higher in the SERPs for relevant keywords. If you want to compete for difficult keywords, building the authority of your website is essential.
Search Intent – It’s not enough to know the keywords that people are searching for. You also need to know the intent behind their searches. To rank toward the top of the Google search results, aligning with intent is essential. In addition, to create content that resonates with your audience, know why queries are being made in the first place.
Why Keyword Research is Important
There are a number of reasons that keyword research is important, as outlined below.
Identify Key Search Queries
The primary purpose of keyword research is to identify the search queries people use when they’re searching for information related to a topic. This helps you determine which topics and phrases you should target with your content in order to reach more potential customers.
If you don’t identify key search terms and include those in your content, it likely won’t appear in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Understand Your Audience
By understanding which keywords your audience uses, you can also better understand how they think and how they articulate their interests and challenges. Master marketers treat keyword research as a part of the voice of the customer (VoC) discovery process.
Keyword research helps you create content that appeals to your target audience. It also ensures that you deliver the relevant information they’re looking for and that resonates deeply with them.
The better you understand your audience, the more you will be able to give them exactly what they’re looking for when they use Google. Rather than clicking on your page and then needing to go back to the search results for more information, they can get everything they need from your content.
Identify Marketing Opportunities
Keyword research also helps you to identify potential marketing opportunities for your business. By understanding what topics are trending, which search terms are most popular, and the gaps in the market, you can spot opportunities for new content and new customer solutions.
Generate Greater Organic Search Traffic
By using relevant keywords as part of your SEO copywriting, you’re more likely to get higher rankings in the Google SERPs and thus attract more organic search traffic. This brings more qualified visitors to your website, which in turn translates into increased conversions.
Generate Greater Organic Leads
When you do keyword research the right way, you’re aligning with their interests at the precise time that they are seeking information, answers, and solutions. It’s often the perfect time to connect with them. By attracting the right audience at the right time, you’re more likely to generate more leads (both MQLs an SQLs) as a result of their visits. Of course, this means that your site actually delivers what they were expecting and is optimized for conversions.
Help Google Understand Your Content
Google uses keywords to better understand the contents of a page. Including relevant keywords in your web pages and posts helps Google identify the main focus and relevance of a page in relation to searchers’ queries and interests.
If Google can’t clearly determine what a web page is about, it won’t rank well in the search results. The more context you provide Google, the more likely it is to show up in relevant search results.
Keyword research helps to ensure that the content you create is not only relevant and of high quality, but also well-optimized with keywords your target audience is actually searching for. The inclusion of related keywords and keywords that are commonly found in the SERP for a given query also provides Google with helpful context.
Target Every Stage of the Buyer Funnel
Finally, keyword research is essential for creating content that appeals to your target audience at every stage of their customer journey and your marketing funnel.
From top-of-the-funnel content that captures attention and builds brand awareness, to mid-funnel pieces designed to nurture leads, to bottom-of-the-funnel content that helps convert prospects into paying customers, proper keyword research helps to ensure that you create the right kind of content at each stage of the customer journey.
The Difference Between Keywords and Topics
Increasingly, search engines like Google and Bing prioritize content that demonstrates topical authority, as opposed to narrowly focusing on a single keyword.
Keywords are subsets of larger topics. To thoroughly cover a topic, multiple keywords must be incorporated into your content ecosystem.
For example, “hiring new employees” is a broad topic. A list of keywords under the umbrella of this topic would include things like:
- “recruiting process”
- “interviewing candidates”
- “how to hire employees”
- “steps for hiring the best employees”
- “new hire paperwork”
- “employee onboarding”
- “employee engagement”
By understanding the overall topic and using a large variety of longtail and semantically related keywords, create a content library that provides comprehensive coverage of an issue. This means publishing a range of content. It means having content pieces that each focus on a related keyword within the topic area in a cohesive and interconnected manner.
If you expect to rank high in Google for a keyword without related content and without first attaining topical authority, you’ll likely be very frustrated with the results. By demonstrating expertise on a particular subject or domain, you will achieve topical authority, which helps you garner higher positions in the SERPs.
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Content Gap Analysis
As part of your keyword research, you should perform both an internal and competitive content gap analysis.
Internally, map the customer journey and identify appropriate topics and keywords for each stage. Look for any places where you don’t have content and plan on creating content around those topics and keywords. This process ensures that you are creating content that covers the complete customer journey.
Externally, look at the keywords and topics that your competitors are ranking for. These can give you a better idea of the kind of content that’s resonating with users. Additionally, by looking at what your competitors are doing, you can identify any gaps in their coverage and create content to fill those gaps.
How to Conduct Keyword Research Effectively
Now let’s look at the specific steps to take during your keyword research.
Find and Choose Keywords for Your Website
Start by finding relevant keywords for your website. Relevant is the key term here. Make sure the keywords you choose are related to the topics you care about and the services you offer. Additionally, it’s important that your keywords and topics are connected to your overall marketing and business goals.
Use an SEO keyword research tool like Ahrefs or Semrush to check the volume and ranking difficulty of keywords. This will give you an idea of the kind of traffic potential a keyword has.
Your goal is to find new keywords that have a decent search volume but aren’t overwhelmingly difficult to rank for. It’s common for primary keywords to have a very high search volume and a matching difficulty for ranking. Unless your website has a very high domain authority, it will be difficult to rank for these keywords. That is where longtail keywords come into play. Longtail keywords and bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) are longer phrases that may not have as high of a search volume, but they should be much easier to rank for.
Align with Search Intent
Once you’ve identified relevant topics and keywords, it’s essential to determine the search intent behind those keywords.
Search intent is the reason why a user searches for something. Are they looking to buy something? Or are they looking for information?
Typical categorization of search intent includes:
- Informational – Looking for informational content or answers to questions.
- Navigational – Seeking to get to a specific website.
- Commercial – Conducting research regarding a potential future purchase.
- Transactional – Looking to make a purchase.
By understanding search intent, you can create content that speaks directly to that need. Your content might contain all the right keywords, but if it doesn’t align with search intent, your page likely won’t rank well in search results. Plus, even if it did temporarily, visitors won’t stick around once they land on your page. So, it would be worthless traffic in any case.
Analyze the Google Search Results (SERP)
To determine search intent, analyze the Google search results page when you conduct a search. Look at the type of content that is appearing in search results for that query.
- Are they blog posts, articles, or other informational pieces?
- Are they listicles?
- Is the content appearing in the SERP scholarly articles?
- Does the SERP feature the “best” of a category?
- Are they product pages?
- Or tools or templates?
- Or something else altogether?
SERP analysis clues you into what searchers are looking for. In addition, it enables you to see what SERP features are being displayed for a given keyword. This can help you decide how to shape your content. If a keyword triggers a featured snippet, for example, then creating content that answers the question in that featured snippet can increase the chances of your page ranking.
Finally, it allows you to identify opportunities to optimize existing pages or create new ones. For example, if several image results appear in the SERP, then you can create an image-rich page that targets the keyword.
A tool like thruuu makes it quick and easy to analyze the top search results. It scrapes the top search results and then gives you detailed insights into SERP elements like commonly found keywords in the content appearing on Google page one. thruuu also enables you to uncover the average word count, SERP features, content headlines, content outlines, number of images displayed, and more.
The more granular your understanding of what comprises the content on Google page one, the better armed you’ll be to create new content that Google will place on the first page of search results.
Cover the Entire Customer Journey
As mentioned, your keyword research should span the entire customer journey. This begins at the first point an individual realizes they have a challenge or an objective. It includes all the steps involved in their journey to get answers and solutions, as well as their journey through your website and other marketing assets. The tail-end of the journey typically includes a comparison against competing offerings and extends through the purchase itself and any post-purchase behaviors.
Look for topics and keywords related to each phase of the customer journey. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach here. A customer journey is hardly a straight line. Rather, it’s often a zig-zag experience as new questions arise along the journey.
It’s important to understand your target audience as deeply as possible. Research and identify the kind of language they use when seeking information, answers, and solutions related to your types of offerings.
At the top of the funnel (TOFU) will be keywords that are broad and more informational in nature. As they move to the middle of the funnel (MOFU), look for keywords that are related to targeted product-specific topics. Towards the bottom of the funnel (BOFU), capitalize on cost- and ROI-related keywords, comparisons, case studies, relevant questions to make a purchase, etc. With BOFU, even if the keyword or question has extremely low search volume, it’s still critical from a business perspective.
Map Each Keyword to Individual Pages
Next, map your keywords to individual pages on your website. This is commonly called “keyword-to-page mapping” or simply “keyword mapping”. Some of these pages will already exist, while others will need to be created from scratch (in the case that none of your web pages currently focus on the keyword).
For each page, create unique content that targets the specific keyword. You’re only going to target one primary keyword per page. This helps you to avoid any potential keyword cannibalization by having multiple pages targeting the same keyword.
You should also look to include synonyms, numerous related keywords, related questions, long-tail keywords, and semantically-related keywords on a page. In essence, you’re striving to cover your target topic comprehensively.
Here’s a bonus tip. Use your keyword mapping to identify pages that need a content refresh. If you have a page that is already targeting a certain keyword but isn’t ranking well, it could be because the existing content isn’t sufficiently relevant or high-quality. A refresh of the content might be what is needed to start ranking.
Analyze the Competitive Landscape
Analyzing the competitive search landscape allows you to identify both strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. You can see which topics your competitors focus on. On the flip side, identify opportunities to create content that is better than what is already ranking.
- When reviewing your competitors’ ranking content, ask yourself:
- Why are they ranking?
- What types of content are they producing?
- What makes their content unique?
- Can you produce content that is better or different in some way?
- How can you deliver more value than any competing listing in Google?
Look beyond your traditional competitors to see who else is occupying Google SERP real estate for your target topics and keywords. Sometimes this may be other businesses, publications, government entities, or universities. It’s critical that you compete against all “competitors” in the SERPs, and not just limit your focus to traditional competitors.
Use a tool like thruuu to identify the title tags, meta descriptions, H1s, and content outlines of the competing SERP listings.
Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush allow you to quickly analyze the top competitors for a given keyword. You get an overview of their domain strength, organic positions, backlinks, traffic trends, and more. This can help you determine which keywords they are targeting and how to optimize your own content for those same keywords.
Related Keywords
One of the most often overlooked aspects of keyword research is the identification of phrases appearing in the Google SERP for a given keyword search. For example, if you target the keyword “keyword research”, phrases that appear often in the content ranking at the top of the SERP include:
- SEO
- Keyword research tools
- Search volume
- Optimization
- Search engine
- Keyword ideas
Regardless of search volume, it’s important to consider adding these keywords to your page targeting “keyword research”. Google clearly sees these acronyms, words, and phrases as highly relevant. Reverse engineering the top Google search results, it behooves you to factor this into your content.
Use a tool like Clearscope, MarketMuse, Surfer, or thruuu to find keywords that are semantically related to the primary keyword that you are targeting.
Discovering these related keywords helps you create content that is more comprehensive. It also allows you to target multiple long-tail and semantically-related keywords with a single piece of content.
Tree Ring Expansion Strategy
An additional method to find relevant keywords for your content is through what we call the “tree ring expansion strategy”.
- Start with the keyword you want to target.
- Identify the #1 Google search result for that keyword.
- Enter the URL into a tool such as Ahrefs or Semrush. View all the keywords on which the URL ranks on Google page one.
- Repeat the process with the #2 and #3 listings in Google.
- Then incorporate some of those keywords, as appropriate, into your new content piece.
Given that Google ranks the same piece of content for the range of keywords, incorporating those keywords into your content gives you a better shot at SEO success. It’s also an effficient way to generate higher SEO ROI from each content piece.
Google Autocomplete
Google’s autocomplete feature is an underestimated keyword research tool. Many SEOs are unaware how to fully capitalize on the data.
As you type a query into Google’s search box, a list of related query options dynamically appears in a dropdown menu, with new options appearing with every new letter entered. Many marketers limit their usage of Google autocomplete to the default dropdown menu of related terms.
Do this instead…
- Type in your keyword followed by the letter “a”. Take note of all the dynamically-generated, new autocomplete suggestions in the dropdown menu.
- Do the same thing for the letter “b”, then “c”, and so on.
- Doing this allows you to explore hundreds of additional keywords via the dropdown menu. Select the most relevant ones and add them to your target keyword list so that you can build a thorough ecosystem of content.
Review the Questions Being Asked Online
A significant number of searches are phrased in the form of a question. Identifying these questions and answering them specifically in your content not only increases the chances of you ranking for this keyword, but it also increases the odds of you capturing a featured snippet or a “People Also Asked” (PAA) answer.
Start with the PAA section of the search results. Tools like thruuu, AlsoAsked, or AnswerThePublic can automatically scrape this data. After that, manually search through popular forums like Reddit and Quora to identify additional questions being asked by users.
Google is in the business of solving people’s problems. By answering real questions that are being asked by searchers, you are creating content that is highly relevant to the user’s query and thus more likely to rank.
I suggest that you not worry too much about search volume when looking at questions. If you think a question is important in the customer journey or simply helps your audience make better decisions, then by all means include it in your content.
Research Long-Tail Keywords
We touched on it already, but it bears repeating: long-tail keywords are critical for SEO success. Broad, primary keywords tend to be significantly harder to rank for, and are sometimes dominated by established sites with extremely high domain authority.
Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, have lower search volume but can be relatively easy to rank for. These types of keywords tend to have a higher conversion rate due to their specificity. After all, if someone is searching using specific phrasing then they likely already know what they are looking for. Researching and targeting long-tail keywords is an effective way to boost organic traffic surgically.
Keyword research tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Keywords Everywhere allow you to easily identify long-tail keywords that are related to your primary keyword. Incorporate these keywords into your content as appropriate.
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Identify Popular Online Content
In addition to analyzing the top search results, you should also look at the content related to your topic that is most popular online. For example, if a particular blog post or video is getting a lot of views, that shows interest by your audience. If it’s getting a good volume of online sharing, then you know it’s resonating with your target audience.
A tool like BuzzSumo helps you to identify the content that is getting traction online. Type in a keyword and you’ll see the content that has been shared the most.
Try to determine why the content is performing so well. Is the content more exhaustive? Captivating? Is there strong storytelling? Does it make a complicated subject simple to understand? Once you identify what sets the content apart, consider whether a similar approach would be appropriate for your brand.
Conduct Voice of the Customer (VoC) Research
Part of your keyword strategy should include Voice of the Customer (VoC) research. This involves conducting interviews and surveys with your customers and target audience members to understand their needs, wants, and motivations. It’s also just as important to identify their challenges, pain points, and frustrations.
Analyzing this data can provide you with valuable insight into how people are searching for content related to your product, service, or solution – which can then be used to inform your keyword research and content strategies.
By understanding how customers think, you create content that resonates with them on a deeper level – which in turn will help boost your website’s organic rankings as well as conversions.
Include Low-Volume but High-Intent Bottom-of-the-Funnel Keywords
Bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) keywords may not have the search volume that top-of- or middle-of-the-funnel keywords have, but they tend to be more specific with higher intent, and thus have higher conversion rates. In this sense, they are important to your business.
For example, a top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) keyword might be “hr software” while a BOFU keyword could be “compare hr software” or “hr software pricing”. Bottom-of-the-funnel keywords typically have lower search volumes but the users searching for them are more likely to purchase your product or service.
In order to identify bottom-of-the-funnel keywords, focus on “how” and “why.” Creating content that directly addresses high-intent keywords will help you capture more qualified leads.
Targeting Google Page Two and Page Three Keywords
Keywords that are ranking on pages two and three of the search results are low-hanging SEO fruit.
Look for your keywords that are sitting on page two or three of the search results. Shore up your internal linking, with anchor text that reinforces what each page is about.
Then, dissect the content appearing on Google page one. Determine ways that you can update and strengthen your content such that it’s more valuable than what’s on page one.
Test title tags and meta descriptions that increase your click-through rate from the SERPs.
Conduct Keyword Research on YouTube
YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine, making it a valuable resource for keyword research whether for standard SEO or YouTube SEO. Google is increasingly including YouTube videos in search results.
If you want to own more of the SERP real estate for a particular topic, create video content in addition to blog posts, articles, white papers, etc.
Even if you choose not to create videos, their content can help you better understand what searchers are looking for with a given keyword.
First, search for your keyword on Google to see if any YouTube videos appear in the search results. If they do, take note of the titles, descriptions, content, and styles used for those videos. This can give you an idea of what type of content is most likely to get traction with that keyword.
Next, search for your primary keyword on YouTube and analyze the top videos. Who is the content geared toward? What angle do they take? Do they have a high view count? Taking note of these elements can help you create content that is more likely to engage users.
Finally, take a look at the comments and engagement on those videos. Are people asking questions or expressing an opinion about the content/topic? This can provide further insight into what users are looking for when they search for your keyword.
Factor in Profitability
When deciding which keywords to target, profitability should factor into your decision. Some keywords may get a lot of search traffic but don’t necessarily lead to sales. Others may have low search volume, but convert well.
For example, say are a consultant who specializes in helping small businesses. Your top-of-the-funnel keywords might be “small business consultant” and “startup consultant.” These have relatively high search volumes, but may not lead to a lot of sales. On the other hand, your bottom-of-the-funnel keywords might include “marketing consulting for small businesses” or “software implementation consulting.”
Another way of looking at it is profitability of your offerings. If you have a flagship product, service, or solution that is more profitable than anything else you offer, it makes sense to prioritize topics and keywords that align with the customer journey for that offering.
Prioritize Your Keywords
There is no one definitive way to prioritize your keywords. Your choices will depend on a number of factors, including:
- Overall business goals
- Marketing goals
- Relevance of the keyword to your business
- Profitability of a product, service, or solution
- Search volume
- Difficulty of ranking
- Search intent
- Amount of effort required to compete
What you want to avoid is targeting too many keywords at one time prior to achieving dominance in specific topics. Don’t try to boil the ocean. If you do that you’ll end up spreading yourself too thin and diluting your impact.
Instead, focus on one topic area at a time. Determine the keywords that will most help you achieve your marketing and business goals.
Are you trying to expand reach? You may want to focus on top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) keywords.
Are you trying instead to increase conversions and leads? You may want to focus on bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) keywords.
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Keyword Research Tools
Keyword research is difficult without the right tools. Here are some of the best keyword research tools available:
Core Keyword Research Tools
Ahrefs
This is an all-in-one suite of SEO tools that includes powerful keyword research capabilities. It allows you to quickly identify keywords with high search volume and low competition, as well as related keywords. It’s also helpful with competitor analysis.
Semrush
Like Ahrefs, this is an all-in-one suite of SEO tools. Both of these tools are industry standards and extremely useful when it comes to keyword research.
Clearscope
Clearscope helps you to identify dozens of related keywords. The tool also reveals a great deal of useful competitive insights, and includes a content optimization grader.
Surfer
Surfer is similar to Clearscope. Both tools are powerful in guiding you to related keywords and more effectively optimized content.
thruuu
Enter a keyword into thruuu and it will scrape the top Google SERP results for you, returning all kinds of helpful keyword research information. You can literally download hundreds of data points from the SERP for any keyword. Quickly see who is ranking, the most important sub-topics and headings to include with any new content piece, and much more.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a powerful, underrated keyword research tool. You can see which keywords are driving organic traffic to your website, as well as those keywords which are driving visibility in Google yet are not being clicked on. You can also see which web pages are ranking for which keywords to assess if your pages are optimized for the right keywords as well as to identify any cannibalization among your pages.
Google Trends
Use Google Trends to identify which keywords are trending, as well as compare different phrases side-by-side. You can also use it to find related topics and ideas that people may be searching for. If you want to get out ahead of the competition for new and upcoming topics, Google Trends can help you do that.
Keywords Everywhere
This is a useful extension for Google Chrome and Firefox. When you search for a term using Google or YouTube, it pulls in additional helpful data, such as the monthly volume, related keywords, trends, the keywords a site is ranking for, and more.
Tools to Uncover Questions Asked Online
thruuu
thruuu is particularly useful for identifying specific questions being asked online related to a query. Enter a search term and it will deliver the PAA results from the Google SERPs as well as other questions found in the content ranking in the SERPs.
AlsoAsked
Enter a keyword, brand, or question and this tool will pull up a list of related questions that people are asking. You can quickly see which topics have potential and which ones don’t.
AnswerThePublic
This tool helps you uncover both long-tail keywords and questions related to your topic. Enter a keyword and it will return hundreds of ideas for content that you can use in your research.
Online Content Analysis Tools
BuzzSumo
Enter a keyword or domain and this tool will show you the most shared content around that topic, indicating what’s resonating strongly with your audience. This can give you an idea of what kind of content people are engaging with, as well as which topics have potential on social media.
Ahrefs
Like BuzzSumo, Ahrefs has a content explorer function, which shows you the most popular content around a given topic. You can also use it to do competitor analysis and see which topics they are creating content around.
Audience Intelligence Tools
SparkToro
This is a tool that helps you understand your target audience better. It allows you to uncover their interests, the influencers they follow, the YouTube channels and podcasts they like the most, the content they consume, and more. This helps you to create content that resonates with your intended audience.
Brandwatch
Brandwatch is an audience engagement and analysis tool that allows you to identify and track conversations around your brand. It also lets you see which topics are resonating with your audience members so that you can create content that speaks to their interests.
Keyword Research Tools for YouTube
YouTube Suggest
The YouTube suggest function is great for uncovering popular searches related to a keyword. When you watch a video, there are suggested related videos in the sidebar. These suggested videos can help you understand what videos YouTube is ranking for a given keyword, as well as additional keywords to target.
TubeBuddy
This is an extension for Google Chrome that can help you optimize your videos for SEO. It shows you which keywords are ranking on YouTube and which ones have potential. It can also be used to track your performance over time.
VidIQ
This is another extension for Google Chrome. It offers a suite of tools to help you identify popular keywords and track your performance. It can also help you optimize your videos and make sure they are SEO-friendly.
Tubics
Tubics is a keyword research tool specifically for YouTube. It allows you to find the most relevant keywords for your videos and optimize them accordingly. This can help you make sure that your content is reaching the right audience and getting the exposure it deserves.
Summary
Keyword research should be approached in a holistic way. You can’t just focus on search volume and keyword difficulty. If you truly want to succeed with keyword research, be more comprehensive in your approach and go much deeper.
An effective keyword and topic research process is to:
- Find and choose keywords for your website
- Align with search intent
- Analyze the Google search results pages (SERPs)
- Cover the entire customer journey
- Map each keyword to individual pages
- Analyze the competitive landscape
- Find related keywords
- Use the tree ring expansion strategy
- Tap into Google autocomplete
- Review questions being asked online
- Research long-tail keywords
- Identify popular online content
- Conduct Voice of the Customer (VoC) research
- Include low-volume but high-intent bottom-of-the-funnel keywords
- Do keyword research on YouTube
- Target Google page two and page three keywords
- Factor in profitability
- Prioritize your keywords
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