Keyword research is a vital part of a successful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, as well as the lifeblood of any pay per click (PPC) search campaign. It’s a constant game of picking and choosing what keywords are most relevant to your business and trying to show up at the top of the results page. By conducting in-depth keyword research, digital marketers can give themselves the edge at increasing their organic rankings and get in front of larger amounts of potential customers.
Why Should I Conduct Keyword Research?
First off, let’s talk about why we need to do keyword research. Keyword research helps you find specific keywords that you should target and provides key insights into the queries your target audience is searching for on Google. The data that you can get from these keywords can help lay the foundation for your content strategy as well as fuel your PPC campaigns for better audience targeting.
What Is a Keyword Research Tool?
A keyword research tool is an important gadget in any marketers tool belt. They are built to help marketers find topic ideas that people are searching for on search engines like Google, Bing, etc. These platforms help you find and target content ideas that your customers are already looking for.
After finding what keywords are best suited for your business, you can then design your content strategy to cover these topics in your blogs, landing pages, and other long form content. Keyword research tools also help you see both seed phrases and long-tail keywords where your competitors are ranking at the top. You can then focus your content on targeting those keywords and steal their traffic.
Best Keyword Tools For Digital Marketers
Ahrefs
One keyword research tool that is widely used is Ahrefs. Ahrefs keyword explorer can help you come up with different keyword ideas simply by typing a prospective keyword into the search box. Ahrefs will return a whole list of keyword suggestions all relevant to what you put in the search bar. You can also use Ahrefs to see the keywords that your competitors are ranking for. This gives you a great opportunity to create new content pieces targeting keywords related to the topics your competitors rank for.
SEMrush
SEMrush is another great keyword tool for marketers. The keyword overview tool in SEMrush lets you type in a keyword and get a full picture of all the data you need to know. This includes monthly search volume, how it’s been trending, and much more. After scrolling down, you can also see a handy list of other similar keywords you might want to use, along with a list of organic search results, so you can find out where your competitors rank for the keyword. You can also check out different Google Ads that use that keyword in PPC advertising. This is a great tool to get a look into what the competition is up to.
Google Keyword Planner
This is a great tool to use for PPC keywords. To gain access to the keyword planner you’ll need a Google Ads account. If you don’t have one you’ll need to create one and enter your payment details, however you won’t need to run any campaigns or pay for anything. Once you’ve got access to the keyword planner via your Google Ads account, you can type in any keyword and view data regarding how much volume it gets monthly. You’ll also see a long list of related keywords ideas that you’re able to download and export.
The Takeaway
Nowadays there are a multitude of options for keyword research but only a handful are capable of providing you with the bigger picture. Ahrefs and SEMrush are both great SEO tools to help you find relevant keyword options as well as show you the data behind the keywords. On the other hand Google’s keyword planner is a great tool for PPC and is available through the Google Ads dashboard so it’s much simpler to incorporate your research into your active strategy. Be sure to browse these different platforms to find the best one to help you reach your marketing goals.