A Noob's Guide to Keyword Researh.So what exactly is a keyword?

Keywords are the most common words and phrases people type in Google to search for the information/products/images they are searching for.

So, in order to rank our sites we need to find out the relevant keyword that people are searching for.

Because no matter how top notch the quality of the articles on your website are, but if people are not searching for those keywords you are targeting, it's of no use, yes, your hard work will go down the drain.

Hence, we find many people struggling with keyword research or finding keywords that are not particularly good for their businesses even tho they are bringing tons of traffic to their website. (Separate post on that, later)

So for easy keyword research, follow the below mentioned steps,

First of all put yourself in the shoes of your potential customers.

For e.g, if you are selling shoes on your website.

Ask yourself, hmm! If I were to buy shoes online what would I be searching for?

Or what are the things I will be searching online for, and what are the terms that I will be using to find out my desired information.

Now we all know when it comes to buying shoes, we look for comfort and of course best quality.

So I would goto Google and type in best comfortable s (initial for shoes)

What will I get?

Some keyword ideas

For eg,

Best comfortable shoes
Best comfortable sandles
Best comfortable sneakers

Now, if I want to target long tail keywords (as they are comparatively easy to rank) what will I do?

I'll type in search bar something like

Best comfortable shoes space

Now I'll get some more keyword ideas, such as

Best comfortable shoe brands
Best comfortable shoe insoles
Best comfortable shoes for work.

Don't worry, these are all the keywords people actually search for on Google.

If again you type in best comfortable shoes for (give space)

You will get something like,

Best comfortable shoes for
walking
Travel
running
walking
men
nurses.

How many more keywords you want for your shoe blog?

Now for carrying out the above search, you have to search for the most generic terms.

You will be amazed to find out many of the keywords you will find in Google will have 0 to low searches.

But ignore that.

Why?

Because suppose if I choose to write an article on 'The 8 Most famous sneakers of 2017", the search volume would be 150 for famous sneakers.

Now if I look at the top ranking websites in Serp, and see which are their top ranking keywords.

I will get

Best sneakers of all time : 600 search volume generating 412 traffic per month.

Coolest shoes ever : 1400 search volume, 1431 traffic generating per month.

They are one and the same keyword but with variations.

Now, If you type your keyword which is 'famous shoes' you will get the same search results covering best shoes and coolest shoes , that's because Google is smart enough to know they are the same search queries only people type in the above keywords more frequently.

So obviously after carefully analyzing the backlinks (referring domains pointing to the page) traffic per month, you will select a keyword.

Now you will copy the url of the top websites.

You will select a keyword with minimum pointing domains (preferably from 0 to 1, or 2) are easy to beat.

You will try to write a same title with little variations (but not changing the main keyword)

Write content pretty much the same way they have written or even better.

Bonus tip
Don't merely rely on keyword everywhere tool, or any other tool for that matter, they are not accurate, they are for just some rough estimation.

You want another way to find great content ideas?

Goto forums such as Quora, Reddit, Facebook groups, type in your niche, or keyword you want to write article on, see what people are looking for, analyze those keywords the same way we have done above.

As soon as you create content on the popular keywords found on these forums, answer those same questions on Quora and link them to your blog article.

You can also make use of ahref's tool, go-to one of it's feature called content explorer , type in your keyword, and from the filter mentioned on the page select 0 backlink filter, it will show all the pages with 0 backlinks, you can pick up a keyword with great search volume, write better content and outrank your competitior.

So I guess that's it for tonight, the post has already become very lengthy.

Your feedback gives me motivation to write more, so if you liked the post, please do comment and let me know.