How to do keyword research: A step-by-step guide

Understanding how to do keyword research is crucial for achieving success in any digital marketing campaign, even though it can be quite complex. With the right walkthrough, fortunately, beginning to understand keyword marketing is a very doable task.

In this guide, you'll learn the basics of keyword research, including definitions, best practices and strategies for success. We’ll also look at the most important concepts and tools that any successful keyword research project must include.

To finish, we'll introduce IFTTT, our free automation platform that offers hundreds of solutions for your SEO and keyword research needs. Whether you browse our millions (yes, millions) of user-created integrations, or build your own, you are guaranteed to find your perfect keyword tool.

An easy definition: What is keyword research?

Keyword research is a fundamental practice in search engine optimization (SEO) where you identify popular words and phrases people enter into search engines. Depending on what combination of words the user enters into the search bar, the search engine will yield a unique list of results.

If you are a business or brand that wants to gain the most visibility possible, you want to be the first, second, third, or fourth website displayed for your specific niche. Since people searching on the internet view the top results as the most popular, highest quality, and best respected, they are always going to choose higher-ranked pages.

Understanding these demand patterns can help inform content strategy, and marketing strategy more broadly. Keyword research can uncover queries to target, the popularity of these queries, their ranking difficulty, and more.

It's not just about getting visitors to your site, but about getting the right kind of visitors - those who are likely to become leads or customers. Therefore, effective keyword research requires an understanding of your target audience and how they are searching for your content, services, or products.

In essence, keyword research is about understanding the language of your potential customers and applying this knowledge to your SEO strategy.

Understanding different types of keywords

Not all keywords are created equal; exactly which types you focus on can have an impact on the performance of your SEO campaign. To understand these different types, you'll need to look at the differences between primary and secondary keywords, as well as other common variations.

Primary keywords

These are the main keywords that most closely describe the content or product/service offered. They are the focal point of your content and should be included in key areas such as the title, headers, and meta description.

Secondary (or related) keywords

Secondary keywords relate to the primary keyword. They help to support and give context to your content. Including secondary keywords helps search engines understand the full scope of your content.

Long-tail keywords

These are longer, more specific keyword phrases that visitors are more likely to use when they're closer to the point of purchase or when they're using voice search.

Long-tail keywords are highly valuable because they tend to result in higher conversion rates, even though they get less traffic overall.

Localized keywords

These are keywords that include specific locations. They are crucial for local SEO and businesses that have a physical location or cater to a specific geographic area. Example: "Best Italian restaurant in Brooklyn".

Using tools for keyword research

In the world of SEO, there are several tools available to help with keyword research. Each has its strengths and can provide valuable insights into your keyword strategy. Let's take a look at some of the most popular ones:

Free:

Google Keyword Planner: This is a free tool provided by Google as part of its advertising platform, Google Ads. It allows you to find keywords related to your business or industry, see how often certain keywords are searched, how their search volume changes over time, and understand how much competition there is for these keywords.

Paid:

SEMrush: This is a comprehensive SEO tool that offers advanced keyword research features. SEMrush provides detailed information about keyword difficulty, the number of organic search results, and competitive density. It also shows the phrases that your competitors are ranking for.

Ahrefs: Ahrefs is another robust SEO tool that provides extensive details on keywords including search volume, keyword difficulty, relevant keyword ideas, and how many backlinks you might need to rank on the first page of Google.

Moz Keyword Explorer: Moz’s tool offers keyword suggestions, SERP analysis, and a 'keyword difficulty' score. It also provides a unique metric, 'Potential', that combines all keyword metrics (Volume, Difficulty, CTR, Importance) into one score.

Using these tools, you can identify which keywords are most effective for your SEO strategy. Remember, the goal isn't just to increase traffic, but to attract quality traffic that aligns with your business goals.

Step-by-step guide to doing keyword research

Everyone will have a different strategy for implementing good keyword research, but here is a step-by-step walkthrough that many experts follow. This is a perfect example of a path to follow for first-timers simply looking for a guide on how to do keyword research. As with most things, mastering keyword research is difficult.

1. Understanding Your niche and target audience

We cannot emphasize enough how important this step is. Before you start keyword research, you need to fully understand your niche and who your target audience is. What topics are they interested in? How would they describe your product or service?

2. Brainstorming initial keyword ideas

Start by brainstorming a list of topics related to your business. Then, think of keywords that your audience might search for related to these topics. You can type the first letters or words of your keyword string into Google and see what others usually look up.

3. Using keyword research tools to find keyword volume and competition

Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz to find out how often people search for these keywords (search volume), and how many other websites are competing for these keywords (competition).

4. Analyzing keyword difficulty and search intent

Not all keywords are created equal. Some are more difficult to rank for than others. Keyword difficulty is a metric usually provided by SEO tools that gives an estimate of how hard it would be to rank on the first page of Google for a particular keyword. Also, consider the intent behind the keyword - is the user looking to buy something, learn something, go somewhere, or do something?

5. Selecting the right keywords for your content

Finally, choose keywords that have a good balance of search volume, competition, and relevance to your business. Remember, it's not just about getting traffic to your site, but about getting the right kind of traffic.

6. How to apply keywords in your content

Once you have your list of keywords ready, you need to apply them in the right places in your content. You should aim to use primary keywords in titles, headers, and meta descriptions. Secondary and long-tail keywords can be used throughout the body text or placed into subheaders. Localized keywords should only be used if your business is targeting a specific geographic area.

You should always strive for naturalness and readability in your text. Stuffing keywords into your content will not only make it difficult to read, but will also hurt your rankings instead of helping them. It’s better to use a few relevant keywords than cramming as many as possible. By using some of the keyword tools above, they can analyze your writing and alert you of any readability or cramming issues.

Make sure you're using keyword variations and synonyms as well. This is important for ranking high in search engine results and helps to keep your content from feeling repetitive.

By following these steps, you’ll be able to create a comprehensive keyword strategy that will help you reach your SEO goals. Good luck!

Keyword research made easy with IFTTT

By pairing your newfound knowledge about keywords with IFTTT's easy-to-use tools, you can become an unstoppable SEO powerhouse. We offer hundreds of automations that you can use to quickly and efficiently do keyword research.

For example, you can use our integration that sends you an email every time there is a significant change to your website’s ranking on Google or Bing. This way, you'll know immediately when something needs to be optimized or tweaked for better results. You won't find this functionality with any other tool.

Read on to hear about our mission, and our top picks for free automations to start leveling up your keyword game.

What is IFTTT?

IFTTT, an acronym for "If This Then That," is our free web-based service and mobile app designed to boost productivity by automating tasks. It works by creating connections between popular apps and services, allowing them to work together seamlessly.

The basic idea behind IFTTT is to create "applets" or sets of instructions that trigger when certain conditions are met. This can be turning on the lights automatically when you enter your house, for example.

Founded in 2011, IFTTT has been used by over 25 million individuals to automate both business and home tasks, saving time and increasing efficiency. It's commonly used to connect disparate services and systems, making all products and services work well together in a way that instills user confidence. Best of all, it's free and only takes a couple of minutes to set up.

Top keyword Applets with IFTTT

Subscribe to any RSS Feed and receive an email when a new entry includes a keyword you choose

With this automation, you can create your own email newsletter from any RSS Feed URL you paste in the field below. Enter a keyword too and this Applet will send you an email for every new entry that matches.

Text me if a tweet matches these keywords

Looking out for what's popular, or what competitors are doing in your sector? Use this Applet to text you an alert if there a Tweet that matches your chosen keywords.

Generate an outline for a topic

Are you writing a blog post, article, or ebook? Use our AI tools to generate an outline for the topic using keywords and relevant data. This Applet will create outlines by pulling in titles and subheadings straight from accredited sources for your chosen topic.

To access these Applets and millions more, try IFTTT for free today!