Keyword Research Basics: From Concept to Practice

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the process of finding the keywords that people search for in search engines. This process is typically divided into two main steps: generating keyword ideas and verifying whether these keywords are worth pursuing.

How to Generate Keyword Ideas?

The main method for generating keyword ideas is using keyword research tools. These tools can display search volume, keyword difficulty scores, and other SEO metrics for keywords, and help discover potential topics. A common approach is to first identify some broad "seed keywords" related to your website's topic, and then use these seed keywords in keyword research tools to find other keywords that contain these terms or related phrases. For example, for a golf blog, seed keywords could be "golf balls", "golf clubs", and "golf hats".

What Factors to Consider When Selecting Keywords?

When selecting keywords, consider the following five key factors:

• Search Demand: The keyword needs to have enough search volume, indicating that people are searching for this term.
• Traffic Potential: Even if a keyword has search volume, check the actual traffic received by top-ranking pages, as not all searches generate clicks.
• Business Potential: Whether the keyword has value for your business and can bring revenue. For an affiliate website that earns by promoting products, keywords that can guide users to purchase products have high business potential.
• Match Search Intent: You need to be able to create content that matches the searcher's intent. For example, if people searching for "golf clubs" are mainly looking to buy clubs, but your website only provides articles about golf tips, then it's difficult to match search intent.
• Ranking Difficulty: Assess the difficulty of achieving high rankings in Google search results for the keyword. This factor will be discussed in subsequent lessons.

What are Keyword Modifiers? How to Use Them?

Keyword modifiers are words added to basic keywords to more precisely describe the searcher's intent. For example, adding "best", "top", or the current year to the basic keyword "golf hats". Modifiers can help us better understand the searcher's intent; for example, "best" typically indicates that the searcher is looking for articles recommending or comparing products (list-form blog posts), while "how" or "what" suggests the searcher is looking for tutorials or informational content. By using filters in keyword research tools that include specific modifiers, we can more quickly find keywords with higher business potential or easier to match search intent.

How to Find Potential Keywords that Don't Contain Seed Keywords?

Relying solely on search results containing seed keywords might miss some important keywords. An effective method is to analyze the highest-traffic pages on competitor websites. Here, "competitors" refers to websites that rank well for keywords you want to rank for, not just direct business competitors. By looking at which pages on competitor websites get the most search traffic, you can discover keywords and topics you might not have considered. Then, you can evaluate these newly discovered keywords just as you would other keywords, to see if they match your website and goals.

How to Evaluate a Keyword's Business Potential?

A keyword's business potential depends on its value to your business. For a golf blog that makes money through affiliate marketing, keywords like "best golf balls" have high business potential because you can easily create a review article and recommend products, earning affiliate commissions. You need to consider whether you can directly or indirectly generate revenue through content targeting that keyword.

What's the Difference Between Search Volume and Traffic Potential? Which is More Important?

Search volume is how many people search for a keyword in a specific time period (usually monthly). Traffic potential is the actual search traffic that top-ranking pages receive for that keyword. Traffic potential is usually more reliable than search volume because not all searches result in clicks. The ultimate goal is to get traffic, because only when users click through to your website do you have a chance to achieve your business goals. Therefore, traffic potential is usually the more important metric.

After Generating Keyword Ideas, What's the Next Step?

After generating a series of keyword ideas and initially screening out keywords that match search demand, traffic potential, business potential, and search intent, the next step is to evaluate the ranking difficulty of these keywords. You need to understand how much effort is required to achieve high rankings in Google search results for these keywords. This process typically involves analyzing the quality, backlinks, content relevance, and other factors of currently top-ranking pages.