Keyword research is not dead and SEO and PPC keywords can still work wonders for your campaign. All you need to do is conduct proper research and generate the necessary amount of relevant keywords to use. Here’s how you can do it in five simple steps.
1. Use Multiple Sources
The most important thing to keep in mind when doing keyword research is that you have to use different sources to get the most accurate information. The more sources you use, the better your analysis of the data you got will be. For example, consider such places to get your keywords from:
- Social Media Platforms: Social media platforms use a variation of keywords – hashtags. By entering into the search the beginning of one of your keywords, you will get suggestions that can be very helpful when choosing your PPC and SEO keywords. The downside is that these hashtags may be popular on social media but not as popular when used in Google searches.
- Keyword Generation Tools: Keyword generation tools should be your primary source of PPC and SEO keywords. These websites are some of the most accurate systems when it comes to finding the best keywords on your specific topic. However, checking several all of these is still a must as you may get different results depending on the website you use for keyword generation.
- Competitor Content: Competitors content will be discussed as a separate topic in the next section, but it’s still worth mentioning here. Your competitors will probably be targeting the same audience, so their keywords will not be any different from yours. This means that if you check their content or their PPC ads, you will be able to detect the keywords you were looking for.
- Google Search & Trends: Google Search works similarly to the searches on social media. When you enter the beginning of your keyword, you will get suggestions for related searches. You can also use Google Trends as an analysis tool for comparing different keywords and determining which ones work for you best.
When it comes to keyword tools, it is important to remember that there are two main types of these:
- Free: These tools can be found in abundance on the outskirts of the World Wide Web. Sometimes, you will come across really great free SEO and PPC keyword generation tools, but most of the time they will give you questionable results. You can still use free keyword generation tools as there are some great options like Google’s Ad Keyword Planner.
- Paid: On the other hand, you have paid keyword generation tools. Most of the time, they are worth their price and will give you not only accurate results but also plenty of additional information. Paid PPC and SEO keyword generation tools usually come as a feature on a digital marketing platform, but they can be found separately as well.
2. Analyze Your Competitors
As mentioned above, analyzing your competitors’ content can really help in finding the most effective SEO and PPC keywords. This will obviously take more time than using a keyword generation tool, but it can bring better results. Besides, there are also special tools available for analyzing content to find keywords in it.
Some of the content from your competitors that you could analyze includes:
- Social Media Posts: Once again, social media is a great place to start your keyword research. Look at the hashtags your competitors use in their posts. Sometimes you will have to look in the comments section (on Instagram, for instance) to find them as businesses try not to clutter their post captions.
- Blog Posts: Another amazing places to look for your future PPC and SEO keywords are posts and articles on your competitors’ blogs. Blogs that are a part of the company site are usually a great source of traffic thanks to the keywords used in the content. In addition to that, the articles published on these blogs will be similar to what you will be publishing, so you will definitely find the relevant keywords.
- Product Descriptions: If you will be marketing your products with the help of SEO and PPC keywords, then product descriptions (both yours and your competitors’) will be of great help. Check these and look both at the product tags (if there are such) and at the keywords in the description itself. At the same time, consider checking service descriptions if you offer services rather than products.
- PPC Ads: You will probably be using PPC keywords in your PPC ads, so checking these from your competitors can help too. PPC ads that advertise relevant content or products will have all the necessary words and phrases you might want to use in your own pay-per-click ad campaign.
3. Categorize Keywords
Once you have a lengthy list of SEO and PPC keywords after doing all the research, you will have to categorize them and divide into sections by match type, category, user intent, and brand. Here are some tips on how to do this more effectively:
- Columns: Create separate columns for every individual topic. You can either do this in a program such as Microsoft Office Excel or take a separate planner or notebook and draft everything on paper.
- Filters: Then, filter the keywords for match types. This should be done for pay-per-click bids and for evaluating the search volume for search engine optimization.
- Elimination: The next step is to eliminate some of the keywords. These will include phrase match keywords irrelevant to the campaign and branded keywords for SEO campaigns. The latter ones must be crossed out as you will be using your own branded keywords.
- Evaluation: Then, review all of the keywords and evaluate them by search volume and competition. This will help you find the most and least high-ranking keywords.
- Highlights: The last step is to highlight the keywords depending on what they work for. You can do this both in your digital list and in your paper list. Just take different colors and highlight the keywords based on their informative or shopping wins, etc.
You can also take into account the lengths of your keywords and separate the longtail ones. Separating the keywords by similarity could also be a good idea. For instance, if you have the keyword “writing”, you could group it with such keywords as “writing articles”, “writing social media posts”, and “writing guest posts”.
You have to think about which kind of categorization will be more comfortable for you and stick to that. As long as you determine a system that you like, this step should go smoothly for you.
4. Set Keyword Goals
Setting keyword goals is essential for several reasons. First, this will help you track the performance and see whether or not the PPC and SEO keywords you chose are succeeding. Second, it will help you have a general idea in front of you of what your goals and objectives are.
Think of the key performance indicators that will function as factors that will help you analyze the performance of your keywords. These can be any kinds of metrics that you believe would be important enough to measure. Some data, of course, will be easier to collect. Here are some ideas on what you could measure:
- Sessions (You can track anything from average session duration to the page per session metrics.)
- Bounce Rate
- Click-Through Rate
For example, Google AdWords allows you to track CPC, conversion rates, and quality score. These will give you an idea of what could be improved and which areas you should pay extremely close attention to. Evaluate clicks, session time, and traffic and tie them in with the overall and per-page performance.
5. Share Keywords
Last but not least, you have to share the PPC and SEO keywords you selected. By targeting the same keywords and using them in different campaigns on various platforms, you will be able to magnify the efforts of your overall digital marketing performance.
Such a strategy will help you dramatically increase brand visibility and organic CTR. Here are some of the platforms you can consider using your list of keywords on:
- Social Media Platforms: This one is one of the obvious choices as testing your keywords as hashtags might give you some new ideas about the tags you can use on your social media accounts.
- YouTube: YouTube is similar to social media, but it’s still a bit differently in its own primarily because it is a platform for video content. Videos rank higher in Google search results, so implementing keywords in your video title and description can help you get traffic from there too.
- Ads: This will probably be your main place of keyword application, so there is not much to say about it.
- Website & Blog: Lastly, use these keywords on your website and blog to optimize the content for search engines. Then, track the performance appropriately.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, there are definitely some really effective ways you can find the right PPC and SEO keywords. You only have to put in some effort and dedicate enough time to it. Follow the tips in this article and you will succeed in this.
Author Bio: Frank Hamilton has been working as a translator at translation service TheWordPoint. He is a professional writing expert in such topics as blogging, digital marketing and self-education. He also loves traveling and speaks Spanish, French, German and English.
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