Get Your Website Found with the Best SEO Keywords

Search keywords are the lifeblood of any successful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Keywords help searchers find your page – and they can give you some insight into what your customers want. To draw search traffic from users who want to find websites like yours, you need to use the right keywords – and that takes some research.

Keyword research helps you figure out what search terms your potential viewers are using to find websites and products like yours. It can provide valuable insights into the minds of your customers. And it can help you bring in traffic that isn’t just searching for a specific keyword, but actually wants to be on your site specifically. Here’s what you need to do.

Brainstorm a List of Topics Relevant to Your Site

Start by brainstorming a list of broad topics relevant to your business, industry, or specialization. These will be the categories of keywords you will generate. Come up with five to ten categories. They can include things like “blogging,” “raising farm animals,” “social media,” “healthy cooking,” “auto maintenance,” or whatever is relevant to your business.

Brainstorm Some Keywords for Each Topic

Now it’s time to start generating your keyword list by brainstorming some keywords under each category. For example, if one of your categories was “auto maintenance,” you might jot down keywords like “how to change a tire,” “how to change oil in a car,” and “when to change car oil,” for example. Just go ahead and brain dump anything that comes to you – you’ll refine this list later.

Look for Related Terms

Take your list of keywords to Google and search for each one. At the bottom of your page of search returns, you’ll find a list of related phrases. These are related search terms. You can click on these terms to find even more related terms at the bottom of their search returns. You can also use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find related search terms.

Narrow Down Your Keyword List

Once you have a list of potential keywords, it’s time to go to Google Keyword Planner (or another free SEO keyword tool) and start narrowing it down to the best ones. You can start by removing from the list the search terms with the most competition. You’ll also want to remove the terms with the fewest hits. Keep the keywords that you have the best chance of ranking for considering your site’s level of authority. Consider using keywords with less competition or more specific keywords – often, you’ll get the most sales from customers who are using ultra-specific keywords to find your site.

Analyze Keyword Strength

Now that you have narrowed down your list of keywords, you should use a keyword research tool to analyze its strength. Your keyword phrase must match the exact search term that people use, even if it sounds awkward. Search volume should be high enough to get you some traffic without being so high that you get buried under the bigger brands. Look for terms that have a high search volume but low competition.

Don’t just look at search volumes worldwide – you can narrow down your view to your state or even to your city, which is useful when you want to optimize for local search. For example, if you’re running a business in Phoenix, an SEO company might advise you to focus on local search terms that will attract customers in your geographical area.

Affirm Search Intent

These days, getting traffic from search is all about correctly guessing your searchers’ intent – that is, what they’re really looking for when they perform a search. If they’re looking for information, then that’s their intent. Someone whose intent is information is going to enter different search terms and behave differently than someone whose intent is to make a purchase. If a user wants information, but their search terms lead them to a product page, they’re not going to stay on that page – they’re going to bounce and that will harm your rankings in search.

So you need to think about what your customers want when they’re coming to your page, and choose your keywords accordingly. You may use some keywords to direct users to your blog for information and advice, for example, while you use different keywords to direct users to product pages. The better your content meets your users’ needs for a specific keyword, the higher it will rank.

The best SEO keywords are ones that will get your website discovered by your potential customers. Learn how to do your own keyword research, and start getting the right kind of traffic.