How keywords help SEO

Working on SEO forwebsite, it is important to pay attention to the correct selectionkeywords, based on the results of the research conducted. This determines whether your offer matches the potential client's needs, whether they will be able to find your website, and whether they will ultimately become a real client.

The research stage is often ignored, with keywords chosen "by eye." Why? This process takes time and effort, and you don't want to waste it. It might even seem obvious which words and phrases will rank a website. That's where the mistake lies. A business owner's plans and the needs of their audience may be fundamentally at odds. And without researching the target audience's queries and choosing keywords arbitrarily, you could end up with unsatisfactory results.

How to choose keywords to find your customers, impress search engines, and improve your website's ranking? We'll discuss this in our article.

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Formally, the study of key issues can be divided into three main questions:

• What are users looking for?
• How many users are searching for this?
• In what format does the user need the information?

Let's look at each of them in more detail.

What are users looking for?

At this stage, we find out how the target audience searches for the product or service you offer. For example, you sell coffee. How will the customer search for it? "Coffee," "Whole coffee beans," "Arabica beans," "Best roasted coffee," "Perfect morning coffee," "Coffee for lovers," "Invigorating coffee." There are a ton of options. More or less popular terms are used by competitors and search queries. Understanding what your customer is specifically looking for is an important first step in research. You probably already have a rough list. The name of the product, service, and topics of materials posted onwebsite. This is where you should start your research. We enter keywords into a keyword researcher and determine their popularity level for audience queries, as well as options for similar keywords.

It's important to keep in mind that websites are ranked by their pages. Pages of long-established websites of large brands with highdomain authority, can rank for a fairly large number of keywords. Smaller and younger websites don't have this advantage, so it's important to optimize them for unique keywords.

How many users are searching for this?

The number of search queries for different keywords will certainly vary. "Generator" and "3 kW gasoline generator" will attract different numbers of queries. The latter is considered more specific. However, chasing high-ranking queries isn't necessary. Keyword research with lower rankings can also be useful. Everything depends on the specific business, product, and context.

It's worth keeping in mind that the more popular the query, the higher the competition. When choosing high-ranking keywords, you should be prepared to compete aggressively with companies already using them. The top search results for popular keywords are already occupied by large and medium-sized brands. And if you're just entering the market, the battle for rankings can be intense and last for years.

In this case, using more detailed, less competitive search queries can be more beneficial. In SEO parlance, these are called long-tail keywords.

They're unfairly undervalued, but they convert better because they offer a more focused search. If someone searches for "white women's sneakers size 38" rather than just "shoes," they're likely not just looking for shoes but actually looking for them. And the conversion rate here, assuming other criteria are met, is quite high.

Choosing lower ranking words helps you get ahead of your competitors and take advantage of opportunities they've overlooked.

Search refinement

Once you've identified relevant search queries and their popularity, it's worth considering whether they'll be relevant during a particular season or in a particular location.

By seasons

It is important to take the season into account when makingcontent planKnowing that demand for certain types of products or packaging increases during Christmas and New Year's, you can prepare content in advance and actively promote it in the lead-up to the holidays.

By region

It's much more effective to target a region, city, or specific area, for example, using Google Keyword Planner or evaluating "interest by subregion" in Google Trends. After all, it's convenient to search for "hairdresser" in Google and get a list of services closest to your home. Generators, for example, may be popular this fall/winter season in Ukraine, but they're unlikely to sell in Spain, for example. Regional granularity helps a product or service find its target audience.

In what format does the user need the information?

The format in which Google displays search results depends on the query. Let's take the five main categories that determine the relevance of a response as an example:

Information request– the user is looking for information. For example, “how to find the right one”hosting”, “how to registerdomain” or “the height of Jamalungma”.

Navigational queries– the user is searching for a particular site, for example,NIC.UA orInfo.nic.ua.

Local queries– the user searches for the nearest establishment: a restaurant, a pizzeria, a dentist, or a gym.

Transactional requests– the user is looking for a specific service, for example, wants to purchaseSSL certificateto securely serve your site's customers or registertrademark (TM).

Search for product information– the user wants to compare different products to choose the one that best suits their specific needs.

To understand what type of content your target audience needs, it's worth turning again to search results. Google's algorithms have already analyzed millions of queries to provide the most relevant content for each specific case. See what it offers for the products and services in your niche.

For example, if we search for "sneakers," we see offers from online stores on the first page. Google believes the primary purpose of such a query is to buy. For those who appreciate products from local sellers, the Local Pack feature is available.

When we enter the information query “height of Mount Chomolungma”, the first thing we see is information from Wikipedia.

To refine your query, Google has a handy "refine by" or "people also asked" feature.

Given that Google can return different types of search results based on keyword targeting, it makes sense to review the search results to understand what type of content would be best to create for the product or service you are offering.

Keyword research tools

There are quite a few tools for identifying suitable keywords. We suggest taking a look at some of them.

• Google Keyword Planner AdWords– Google's most popular keyword research tool.
• Google Trends– a tool for studying the popularity of keywords from Google, suitable for finding seasonal fluctuations in keywords.
• AnswerThePublic– a free tool that helps you generate frequently asked questions for a specific keyword.

Read more about keyword selection services in ourmaterial.