The Complete Guideline of Keyword Research Using Free and Paid Tools
If you are a Business Owner, Webmaster, or SEO Specialist and want to run an SEO Campaign then keyword research is essential for you. This is the first and most important step of an SEO campaign because if you choose the wrong keyword then your SEO campaign will never succeed.
Keyword research is not a straightforward process but we will try to explain it to you in a simple way. We hope you will be able to do the proper keyword research after reading the article.
By the way, if you are looking for an agency that can do keyword research for you, you can call this number (+4654522222) or you can visit our SEO service page. But if you want to learn and do it yourself then continue with the article.
Are People Looking for Your Products and Services?
This should be your first question if you are a local business owner. “Are my customers searching for my products or services in search engines?” If yes, then you should have a website and you should do SEO. However, if this is not the case, SEO may not be profitable.
Normally 99.99% of the time people search for products and services in search engines like Google, Bing, etc, but it’s better to be sure about it.
You can use Google Instant Search to conduct preliminary product or service keyword research. That means, you just write the name of your product and service into the search box and Google will suggest some keywords to auto-fill. If you see the suggested keywords in the search bar, that means people are searching for these keywords, and that is why Google has suggested them. That proves people search about your service and products and you should do SEO for your website.
So after doing the initial keyword research, let’s dive into in-depth keyword research.
Keywords Intent
“Keyword intent” means the purpose of the searcher for a particular search. For example:
- If a searcher wants to buy a product, he will search with the words buy, discount, cheap, etc.
- But if he just wants to learn about a product, he will search with how, which, what, when, etc.
We will divide the keyword intent into two parts:
1. Informative Keywords
Informative keywords are keywords with no commercial intention. That means people who search with informative keywords are not intended to buy any products or services. They are curious about a product or service and want to learn more about it. Like: what is SEO? How much time will I need to rank a website? What is an LED TV? How to clean a LED TV?
Informative keywords also have 2 parts and these are:
a. Awareness Informative Keywords
Awareness informative keyword means beginners level informative keywords. That means when a person gets to know something first and wants to know more about it. Like: what is SEO? Or what is a LED TV?
At this time people are very unfamiliar with the products or services and want to know more about them. This is the first stage of the sales funnel (Awareness). So every type of business should target these types of keywords so that they can give an idea to the customer what their product and services are and why they should have them.
b. Interest Informative Keywords
Interest informative keywords fall under the second stage of the sales funnel (Interest). In this stage, people know what the product is, but they want to know how to use it or whether it is profitable for them. Like: How much time will I need to rank a website? Or How to Clean a LED TV?
So every type of business also should target these types of keywords because they need to tell the customers why and how the product and service are profitable for them.
2. Buying Keywords
Buying keywords means the keywords with commercial intent. Like: SEO agency in Stockholm, Buy LED TV, or Best LED TV.
People who search with the keyword (Buy, discount, cheap, Best, top, service + location) are more likely to buy something.
Buying keywords also has two parts. Like:
a. Buying Decision Keywords
This is the third stage of the sales funnel (Decision). At this stage, people are convinced by the product but don’t know which one to buy. As a result, they begin comparing products and attempting to find the best product in the category. Like: the best SEO agency in Stockholm, Top 10 LED TV in 2023, Sony vs Samsung LED tv, etc.
This is the last stage for the affiliate marketers and the third stage for the e-commerce and service websites.
b. Buying Action Keywords
This is the last stage of the sales funnel (Action). In this stage, people know which product to buy and they want to buy the product immediately. At this stage, people search for terms like buy, cheap, discount, offer, free shipping, near me, etc. Like: SEO agency near me, buy LED TV, Free Shipping LED TV.
This is the last stage for the service and e-commerce businesses. The people who search with these terms become their customers.
Summary of Keyword Intent
The summary of the keyword intent is:
- Use the perfect keyword for perfect intent. If you choose the wrong keyword then you will never succeed. Like: if you want to target a keyword for the product page then choose the “buying action keywords” because people who search with the buy, discount, near me are more likely to buy your product.
- You should never target the buying keywords in the informative content because, even if it is ranked, no one will buy it because they came here with the intention of learning, not purchasing.
- Choose enough buying decision keywords, because people like to compare and people want the best products. Like: best, top, VS.
- Many people choose only buying keywords for their SEO campaign but it’s also wrong. You should have enough informative keywords. Because the people who are interested in your product today might become your customer tomorrow. So educating them will make you a brand in front of them and they will consider you their first priority when they want to buy the product.
- I will say you should choose at least 70% of your keywords as informative keywords.
- To understand a keyword’s intent you can search it on Google. If you see most of the pages are product pages then it is a buying keyword. But if all the websites are showing informative articles then it is an informative keyword.
- You should create your content following the sales funnel. And then you should interlink them.
- That means you will have some keywords for awareness, and interest and some keywords for decisions and actions. After that, you should give a link from the awareness article to interest, interest to the decision, and the decision to action, so that Google can understand the article stages and readers can move from one article to the next.
- Blog websites should target the awareness and interest stage, affiliate marketers should target the awareness, interest, and action stages, and service and eCommerce websites should target all the stages.
Keyword Length
If we consider length, there are 2 types of keywords: short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords. Let’s understand it deeply.
1. Short-Tail Keyword
When the length of a keyword is 1 to 2 words, it’s called a short-tail keyword. It is also known as a “seed” keyword because it does not consist of any modifiers. Like: car, water bottle, SEO, mobile phone, etc.
Normally, SEOs never target short-tail keywords because they’re very generic and the people who search them are not the buyers. They are not even looking for any specific information. They search for it with curiosity.
From the competition perspective, it’s really hard to rank. Only popular sites like Wikipedia or market leaders will get the advantage. So SEOs never target this type of keyword because it will not bring any quality traffic.
2. Long-Tail Keyword
When a keyword has three or more words, it’s called a long tail keyword. Like: buy a red racing car, how to clean a plastic water bottle, iPhone 14 pro max near me, etc.
When you consider search volume, long-tail keywords always have less search volume than short-tail keywords. But it brings quality traffic and they have an intent like: informative or buying. You can target those keywords and can make a profit out of them.
If we consider the competition, long-tail keywords have way less competition than short-tail keywords. So it’s easy to rank for the SEOs. And if you get ranked on too many long tail keywords, you also get ranked on the short tail too. Because Google will start considering you as the topical authority at this time (because you have covered a lot of topics already).
Keyword Research Methods
Now we know how many types of keywords are there and which one to choose, but we don’t know how to find them. There are many tools available for keyword research, and these are:
1. Free Keyword Research Tools
There are some keyword research tools or methods that are completely free, let’s discuss them.
a. Google Instant Search
We are all familiar with Google Instant Search. When we write something in the Google search box they automatically suggest some search queries to autofill that with. That’s Google Instant Search.
To use the method, you must have your targeted IP address and domain (such as google.se). Then type your seed keyword and enter a space. If you see google suggest some keywords then it is a popular keyword and you can target any one of those. But if you don’t see any suggested keyword then this is not the term people search with and you should not choose the keyword.
b. Google Related Search
When you search for something on Google, you will see some related searches at the end of the search engine result page. These are highly related keywords that Google suggested because people are constantly searching for them. This is a great way to find buying keywords.
c. People Also Ask
This is also like “related search”, where you search for something, you will find “people also ask” section in the middle of the search engine result page. These are also popular terms, which is why Google suggests these keywords to people.
This is a great way to find informative keywords.
d. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword planner is a direct keyword research tool from Google, and it’s really helpful. Many SEO experts don’t use this tool because it does not give them search traffic (it gives traffic range), but apart from that, it’s great.
By the way, you will not consider the search volume when you become an expert. So most of the experts in SEO use this tool.
The authenticity of the keywords is great because they’re directly from Google.
e. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a keyword research tool only for people who already have a website. It shows people the organic search queries and the exact traffic of a website. It also shows the exact traffic for a particular keyword.
SEOs use this tool to optimize their web pages and to set priority for a page or keyword.
You cannot do the initial keyword research with this tool. This tool is used for secondary keyword research.
2. Paid Keyword Research Tools
You will also find plenty of paid keyword research tools on the internet. And these are:
a. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is the most popular 3rd party tool for SEOs. By using this tool you can do many things, including keyword research. You can see the specific search volume (potential search volume) of a particular keyword for a particular country.
You can also apply some advanced filters like: keywords with, keywords excluded, keyword numbers, etc.
You can also see the difficulty level of a particular keyword for a particular region. They call the metrics DR (Domain Rating) and DA (Domain Authority). Though these metrics are not used by Google, they are very popular among SEOs.
b. Semrush
Semrush is also a tool like Ahrefs and you can use it to do keyword research. This might be the second most popular SEO tool in SEOs. It’s becoming very popular now because of the price advantages. It charges slightly less than Ahrefs.
Most of the things you can do in Ahrefs can also be done in Semrush. However, you can conduct ten free keyword searches on Semrush but not on Ahrefs. So you can also use this tool even if you don’t buy the monthly subscription.
c. Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is also an SEO tool and can be used for keyword research. You can use the paid plan but, if you want, you can search 3 keywords for free. This is also popular like Ahrefs and Semrush, and many people use it for their SEO campaigns.
d. Moz
Moz is the oldest of these 4 SEO tools. It can do all the stuff that others do. The popular DA (Domain Authority) and PA (Page Authority) metrics were invented by them. DA and PA are used to define the difficulty level of a keyword or a website. Once it was used too much but now people don’t use the tool very much.
Keyword Competition
Before choosing a keyword you should know how difficult it is to rank a particular country. You have to understand the competition for the keyword and the industry. And to do so, there are 2 methods:
1. Quick Keyword Competition Analysis
You can understand the competition quickly by using SEO tools like Ahrefs.
Ahrefs gives you KD (Keyword Difficulty) metrics to understand the difficulty level of a keyword. The KD metrics range from 1 to 100. The more metrics there are, the more difficult the competition is.
For example: if a keyword has 10 KD and another keyword has 50 KD, the 50 KD keyword is more difficult to rank on Google than the KD 10 keyword.
So it helps SEOs make quick decisions about a keyword. But it’s not accurate (it mainly gives the score by analyzing the backlink profiles of the first page’s domains), and sometimes it gives false results. So for that reason, you need to analyze the competition manually.
By the way, the other SEO tools also give some kinds of keyword difficulty metrics but they are all named differently.
2. In-Depth Keyword Competition Analysis
To do the in-depth competition analysis we consider these factors:
a. Brand
First, we will consider branded domains on the search engine result page. Branded domains are the domains or brand names that are known by all. Like in the eCommerce industry Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Aliexpress, etc.
If you find after searching a keyword, Google is showing all the branded domains in the search engine result page, then the keyword will be a little difficult to rank. Because Google already has some good results, he might not want to rank a new website. But if you are also very reputable in the industry then you might go for the keyword.
b. Domain Age
Domain age is also important. If the search engine result page is showing all the old domains that means it is hard to rank for a new domain website.
That means in this particular query google is preferring old domains.
c. Home Page or Internal Page
If you see most domains in the search engine result page showing the home page, then it will be difficult for domains that are targeting an internal page.
In this example, we can see that most of the results will take you to the home page, so it will be wise to target the keyword on your home page. That means the people who are searching with the keyword are looking for generic things, like a web agency, or a chicken fry shop, etc.
d. Country Domains
If the search engine result page is showing all the country domain extensions (like: “example.se” for the Swedish country domain) then you also need the same country domain extension.
e. Keyword on the Title, Permalink, Meta Description
If you see most of the websites are not placing a particular keyword in the meta title, article title, meta description, and permalink then this might be a good opportunity for you. That means they are not targeting the keyword. If you target the keyword and place it in the following areas then you might get the rank. It is a good sign.
f. Do They Have Topical Authority
A topical authority is something that grows over time. Topical authority means if the website is an expert in a particular field.
To determine topical authority Google considers three factors: expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. To know more about E.A.T. check out this article.
If you see most of the domains on the first page are topically authoritative then it will be hard to rank the keyword. So to beat them you also have to be authoritative on your topic. To learn how to become authoritative on a topic you should check this article.
g. Customer Intent
We have talked about customer intent a lot in this article, please check it. In short, if you choose the wrong keyword for the wrong intent then it will never rank.
For example, if you want to target “best basketball hoop” for an e-commerce product page it will never rank. From the search engine result page, you can see all the affiliate pages are on the first page. That means people are not looking at a single product page, they are looking for some top products with reviews. So it will be wise to choose a different keyword for the e-commerce product page.
h. Irrelevant Result
After searching a keyword, if you see many irrelevant pages (like Facebook pages, forum sites, and YouTube videos) then it is a good opportunity for you. Because Google does not have enough relevant results that’s why Facebook pages and forums are on the first page. So if you can create good content you can rank on the first page immediately.
i. Featured Snippet
If you see a direct answer after searching a query, then you should avoid the keyword. Because people don’t need to click any website to see the result. So even if you rank on the first page, it will not benefit you.
Final Words
We hope we have given you enough guidance to do keyword research. But you should cover all the topics on your website to establish topical authority. You should not miss any topic.
And of course, create articles for humans, not for search engines. If you consider visitors when creating content, it will always rank. Create content that fulfills the searcher’s intent.
That’s all. If you have any questions, please comment in the section below.
