Five Tips for Improving Your Keyword Research

Keywords are perhaps the most critical factor in SEO success. However, it is crucial to target keywords that match your target customers’ thoughts and search habits. Keyword analysis — as the underpinning of effective SEO — is a multi-step process involving intuition and data science.

The best way to find the right keywords is to work with a Long Island SEO expert. However, it is a good idea to learn what constitutes effective keyword research. Here are five tips that will come in handy:

Figure out what is already working.

Do you already have content with a defined theme that brings more visitors to your website? Anything that ranks on the first two search results pages is a great place to start refining your SEO efforts. Use Google Analytics to identify high-performing pages and then use Ahrefs Site Explorer to analyze their keyword rankings. Google Search Console is another (free) solution for gaining insight into your keyword ranks.

Understand the competitive landscape.

Ranking in search results is a zero-sum game. Therefore, you must outperform the competition to make it to the first page. The easiest way to identify competing domains and analyze how your visibility compares to theirs and who ranks for which keywords is to use a domain SEO analysis tool such as Moz Free Domain SEO Analysis Tool. Recognizing your competitors’ strengths will help you develop a more robust keyword strategy.

Incorporate questions in your keywords.

Identifying the questions that your potential customers are asking can help you align your content with what they need. In summary, using questions in your keywords is an excellent way to increase traffic to your blog posts.

Target search intent.

If keyword research reveals "what" your potential customers are searching for, search intent reveals "why" they are searching for it. Analyze pages that rank high in search results and their target intent to improve your chances of ranking for specific keywords.

The "4Cs" is a common framework for analyzing search intent:

• Content type: Are the pages with the highest rankings blog posts, category pages, or landing pages?
• Content format: Are they how-to guides, lists, reviews, or opinion pieces?
• Content length: How many words does the content at the top of the search results have?
• Content angle: Is there a common thread running through the search results?

Prioritize keywords based on their volume and difficulty.

Search volume is a measure that indicates the number of searches for a given keyword in a given month. The keyword difficulty metric reveals how difficult it is to rank for a given keyword. Ranking for high-volume keywords is often really difficult — and the higher the difficulty, the harder it is to climb up the search ranks. High-volume keywords are also less intent-focused. When Google is left to interpret the intent of search queries, it will return a broad spectrum of results to cover its bases, making it even more difficult for your content to rank.

Analyzing keyword difficulty will help you determine whether it is worth your time and effort to rank for that keyword. Although no keyword is impossible to rank for in the long run, some are so competitive that moving the needle on them in the short-to-medium term is practically impossible.

Long-tail keywords are a great strategy to counter this. You can attract users who are especially searching for what you have to offer — and you don’t even have to enter a hypercompetitive arena.

Final Notes

Keyword research is not a one-time SEO task. Even if you are working with a professional New York City SEO agency, it will take some time to implement your first batch of keywords. But when you have successfully done that, you should leverage what you have learned from the performance of your first list of keyword groups and start the second round of keyword research.

SEO Long Island is a division of Cybernet LLC based in Long Beach, Long Island. We recognize the importance of good SEO to local and national businesses.