How to do keyword research for SEO: a guide for beginners and experts

Are you struggling to get more visitors to your content? Or having trouble finding the right topics for your blog? And you don’t have the resources to hire a SEO expert to help you with this? Then this article on Keyboard Research can be perfect for you!

In this blog post: How to do Keyword Research for SEO: a guide for beginners and expert I will teach you various free and paid methods which will after reading turn you into an expert on finding the right keyword phrases for your content.

I’ve written an article how to do research for your niche market, that you can find here, and about the basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) methods to master as beginner which touch a little bit on Keyword Research.  But in this post I give you all the ’ how to’ information in more detail.

We will delve into:

• Why Keyword Research is important
• Why You need to look for Long Tail Keyword Phrases
• Volume and difficulty
• The Free Alphabet Method
• Using Google’s ‘People Also Ask’ section
• A quick and easy way to start with
• Free keyword research tools
• Paid keyword research tools
• Using AI like ChatGPT for your Keyword Research
• How to insert keywords into your content

Now, this is quite an extensive article, so get a cup of coffee, sit back and take the time to read everything. Enjoy!

Why Keyword Research is important: the starting point of any SEO and Content Strategy

In a nutshell, keyword research is looking for the words and phrases people are using online in their search engines.

The phrases people use to find information or products online.  For instance, this can be ‘best e-bike for men’ as you can see in the example below.

It is very important to use the same phrases or widely accepted synonyms in your content if you want to be found by these people. 

Let’s say you have a blog about Men’s Fashion and want to write an article on sweaters. You can start writing about ‘clothing for men that keep the upper body warm’. But chances are, not many men looking for a sweater will find your article.

This is because most men will be using the search term ‘sweaters for men’. Or a logical variation on this phrase like ‘affordable sweaters for men’, which you can see here.

You will also see that Google automatically gives a couple of other suggestions on the same topic. These are all genuine topics people are searching for online. And can be used as keyword phrases in your content.

For Google and other search engines having the right keywords in your content is an important page ranking factor (a page ranking factor is a way for Google to determine the quality of your website and in turn how high you rank in the search engine results. The higher, the better).

Google analyzes which search terms people are using online and rank your content accordingly.  Meaning that they will analyze your website and the keywords in your content and match these to online searches that match those the most. So using keywords that are widely used or match those that are widely used will make sure you are found easily by your target audience.

And you want to be found!

Of course you can get an audience and visitors to your website using social media and paid advertising like Facebook Ads. But if you do some research before writing every piece of content and look for the right keywords you can let Google do the work for you! Which is getting a continuous stream of FREE traffic to your website or YouTube Channel.

So it is very important to make Keyword Research the starting point of your SEO or Content Strategy.

Why you need to look for Long Tail Keyword Phrases

A short Keyword is a search term containing only one or maybe two words. For instance ‘guitars’ or electric guitars’. Now, if you own a large website like Amazon, you can easily target a host of short keywords.

But if you own a niche website or blog, you want to target more specific search phrases, so you will stand out from the competition. Such a phrase is also called: a Long Tail Keyword.

A Long Tail Keyword is a very specific and longer search phrase. It is also considered an excellent SEO strategy to mainly focus on Long Tail Keywords in your content.

To clarify what a Long Tail Keyword is I will give you a couple of examples. For instance, ‘Affiliate Marketing’ is a short and very general keyword. A long tail keyword can be ’how to start and succeed in affiliate marketing as a beginner’ or ‘why do many fail at affiliate marketing?’

A rule of thumb with a Long Tail Keyword is to use between at least 4-6 main keywords. 

Why is a Long Tail Keyword such an important part of your SEO strategy? Well, with Long Tail Keywords you can target the type of audience who are exactly looking for the topic you are writing about. Which means you are the perfect answer to their needs and they will stay longer on your website (which is the overall goal). 

Focusing on Long Tail Keywords can mean less search traffic for that particular topic, but actually this is not a problem. In my article about the importance of a niche market I explain why focusing on a certain niche is a major key in your success as an online entrepreneur. Targeting your specific audience will increase your chances of making it. After all, you know exactly what is going on in that target audience and how you can answer their pain or needs. This also means that your content will still generate more than enough traffic.

Sometimes it’s ok to target short keywords

Do I only need to target Long Tail Keywords? No, sometimes you need to target a general, short keyword phrase for a certain type of content. For example, if you need to write a general article about affiliate marketing a title like ‘What is affiliate marketing’, which will probably have a lot of search volume, can be perfectly ok. But when possible try to search for and use Long Tail Keywords.

Here is another example:  you’re looking for a gift for your father for Christmas, who’s a very active man. You can type in: ’Christmas gift’, but that will get you a ton of results. Maybe ‘Christmas gift for active men’ or ‘the perfect Christmas gift for athletic dads’ will be much better.

For your Long Tail Keywords try to get in the head of your ideal audience. What would they logically be searching for?  

Volume and Difficulty

When researching and finding your ideal long tail keyword phrase there are 2 very important factors to look for:

• Monthly volume 
• SEO Difficulty (this category is also called Search Difficulty or Keyword Difficulty, depending on which Keyword Tool you use)

Monthly volume is the number of times every month people are searching for a certain keyword. Now, there are 2 important caveats here to consider:

First, the monthly volume you see in Keyword Tools are an estimation of the expected traffic. Not the actual traffic. Only Google (and other Search Engines, like Bing) know these numbers.

Second, if you’re building a niche website or blog, I would highly advice on targeting the keywords with the lower numbers. This may sound contradictory, but if you as a relatively small content creator focus on the search terms with high monthly volume you are competing with giant websites. Like Amazon, large news outlets, publishers, etc. It is then quite difficult to get in between them.
However, if you focus on search terms with low search volume, you are almost guaranteed to get traffic towards your website.

Search Difficulty

The other major factor is the Search Difficulty. This is an indication of the level of competition you can expect for this topic. In this case, the lower the better. Note: as you can see in the images, different tools have different defenitions for this.

A high Difficulty score means you have to compete with a lot of websites, many of whom will have a higher authority (or page ranking) in the eyes of Google. So you preferably want to aim for keyword phrases with a low Search Difficulty. For me an average SD of 20 is the benchmark. Lower than that is good, a little higher is ok. That way there won’t be too many competing websites, or these will be of low quality. A SD of 40 is the absolute maximum for me. Keywords and websites that rank higher than 40 will be just too competitive for you.

CPC (Cost Per Click)

A third factor which you can use is the CPC, or Cost Per Click. This can be a factor if you’re researching keywords for Paid Online Ads. Facebook Ads or Google Ads for instance. The CPC is an indication how much you can expect to pay for a certain campaign. For most bloggers and YouTubers this is not very important, since posting their content is totally free. 

A quick and easy way to start with keyword research

One of the first things I do when I start a new keyword research session is opening Excel and typing in any topic suggestions I can think of at the top of my head. I try to type in any suggestion or idea that will come up while keeping in mind what may seem logical to look for. In other words: what will my audience most logically use as a search term?

Let’s stay with the ‘Men’s Fashion’ blog example for a moment. Different topics you can easily think of can be ‘sweaters’,’ Sweater for in winter’, ‘jeans’, ‘suits’ etcetera. Write these all down in your Excel sheet.

Then I open Google. Google is a perfect place for you to start with keyword research. You start typing a search phrase and if Google finishes the sentence or gives a couple of other suggestions you know people are looking for this topic. You can find these alternatives also on the bottom of the search page at the section ‘searches related to’

Type in the alternative suggestions you find here in your Excel sheet. You can all use these in your content

Using Google to your Advantage: the Alphabet Method

You already have a first-class Keyword Tool at your disposal automatically. And the great thing is: it’s free of charge! I’m talking, of course, about Google. For every search term you type into the search bar, Google will automatically complete it with several alternative suggestions.

You can use these suggestions, too! And the best part? These are actual searches that Internet users have already typed into Google several times.

The best way to get the most out of these suggestions from Google is called: the Alphabet Method. This method was developed by the Income School bloggers and others, and I’m a big fan of it myself.

And it works like this:

First, open an Excel (or Google Docs) sheet where you can write down all the appropriate search terms.

And then open a browser on which you are NOT logged in to your Gmail. This is very important because then Google will not clutter your keyword research with your personal previous search history.

For example, you can use Google’s Incognito Mode, or an alternative browser like Mozilla Firefox.

Type the keyword (or term) into Google that you want to search for first, followed by the letter ‘A’

Google will automatically give you some alternative suggestions. Copy Paste all the terms of interest to you and jot them down in your Excel/Google Docs sheet.

Then type in the exact same term you started with, this time followed by the letter ‘B’.

Copy Paste again all suitable suggestions into your document.

And then type the same term again followed by the letter ‘C’ and again write down all the options you find interesting.

Repeat this process until you have reached the letter ‘Z’ and used all the letters of the alphabet. Hence the name “Alphabet Method.

You can repeat this whole process for every search term you already had in mind until you have a slew of suggestions for your content.

Now I understand that this may not be understood right away from my text, which is why I am also giving an example here.

Let’s say I want to start a blog about E-bikes. And then specifically E-bike Safety. I would then start by typing in the search term “E-bikes Safety A.

And as you can see in the image, then I get the following results:

 Not a whole lot yet, but then I type in: ‘e-bikes safety B’ And then I immediately get a whole bunch of great search terms.

With the letter ‘C’ a little less, but as you can see, with ‘D’ I get nice alternatives. And so you go down the list until you finish the alphabet.

When you have enough options for content for the coming months, you can stop. Or, with a new term within your niche/topic, you can repeat this process again for more alternatives.

Use the ‘People Also Ask’ options

Another gold mine of ideas for topics for your blog, website or YouTube channel is the “People also ask” section in Google.

For each search, Google will also put up other alternatives related to your topic. And again, these are searches that people have actually typed in at 1 time or another. So you are 100% sure that there will be an audience for it.

You usually find these in the middle of the search results.

See the image for “E-bike Safety. Google gives some very valuable options, which you can definitely use in your blog.

Finally, at the very bottom of the page, Google will again give some alternative suggestions. All free of charge.

Free Keyword Research Tools

If you’ve got the resources I would advise using paid keyword tools like KeySearch, Ahrefs or Semrush. Mainly because you can get a lot of data from these tools on your perfect keywords and your prospective competition. However, if your resources are low, there are a couple of excellent free alternatives you can use. Besides Google and Google Trends these are:

• Answerthepublic.com
• Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest

Answerthepublic.com

Anserthepublic.com is an excellent search tool. You can use both the free and paying version. With the paying version you will also get a lot of data on the different keywords, but for now the free version will do.

When you type in a certain type of topic or keyword, answerthepublic will give a nifty list of alternative suggestions on your topic. So with ‘affiliate marketing’ for example you also get ‘affiliate marketing for beginners’, ‘how to get traffic with affiliate marketing’ and ‘is there money in affiliate marketing’ among many, many other suggestions. 

Now, with the free version, you won’t get any data on the monthly search volume or SEO difficulty. But you can easily use this website in combination with either the Keywords Everywhere add-on or Ubersuggest

Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest

The relatively new keyword tool Ubersuggest introduced by famous marketing guru Neil Patel is an absolute godsend for any online marketer or blogger with a small budget.  This tool will give you many of the options that paid keyword tools offer, but completely free!

You can do keyword research here, find the highest ranking competition and even do an SEO site audit. 

The important factor with your Keyword research here are:

• Vol – the monthly search volume
• CPC- Cost per Click, average cost per click when running a Google Ads campaign
• PD – Paid Difficulty, estimated level of competition when running a Ads campaign
• SD – SEO Difficulty, the estimated level of competition with organic traffic 

When focusing on getting organic traffic Volume and SD are the most important factors to take in account.

Paid Keyword Tools

When you’ve got the resources I would advise on using the paid Keyword Tools. They offer a couple more options and data compared to the free ones which will give you an edge above your competition.

There are many good Keyword Tools out there, but I made small selection that in my opinion offer you the most value for your money. And are also quite easy to use.

KeySearch

A relatively newcomer, KeySearch is an extensive Keyword tool that offers keyword research and content strategy advice for both websites and Youtube Channels. And all for a pretty low price.

KeySearch offers for instance:

• Standard Keyword Research
• Website Audits
• Research for Youtube Channels
• And much more

Pricing is pretty nifty, with only $17,- a month for the standard package and $34,- a month for the premium package.

I’ve already written an extensive review on KeySearch, which you can find here. If you’re just starting out or you’re a marketer with a smaller budget, KeySearch is a good bet.

Ahrefs

According to experts this is the best Keyword Research Tool out there. I have tested this tool myself and I am quite impressed by the many options and features that Ahrefs has to offer.

Ahrefs offers the same functionalities as KeySearch when it comes to basic keyword research: monthly volume, CPC and Keyword Difficulty. You can some excellent research on many websites through de Domain Ranking (DR) on here. But what sets it above the rest is the extensive Backlink Research feature. Ahrefs has the most detailed option to do research on backlinks on both your own content and that of your competition.

The pricing range is quite steep however, ranging from: $99 – $179 – $399 and $999 a month, depending on which plan you choose.

Even the 7 day trial period costs $7,00

You can cut these costs by choosing to pay annually instead of monthly. That way you will get a 20% discount.

SEMrush

SEMrush is an industry standard as well. This is an excellent tool to use for keyword research, competitor research or planning an online ads campaign. Like Ahrefs you can look into backlinks for both your own website and your competitors. However, the data SEMrush offers you is less detailed and extensive as Ahrefs.

A big plus of SEMrush is the Content Marketing Tool, which gives you the option to easily create a content marketing strategy template from scratch.

The pricing can be a bit steep as well, ranging from $99 – $179 – $399 a month. The 7 day trial period is free.

You can cut these costs by choosing to pay annually instead of monthly. That way you will get a 20% discount as well.

The Keywords Everywhere Plugin

I recently came across this keyword tool and I must say, it is a very handy SEO tool for any beginning online marketer! You can find it at Keywordseverywhere.com and you can install in either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. 

You can use this Add-on in combination with Google. Whenever you type in a keyword phrase in the Google Search bar the Keyword Everywhere Plugin will give you the monthly search volume, CPC (Cost per Click) and Search Difficulty for your term and for every  alternative. As you can see in the image, you can find the Keywords Everywhere data on the right side of the screen.

• Vol. which means search volume
• CPC – Cost per Click, which is nice to know if you’re planning a SEA campaign.
• Comp – Competition, this goes from 1 to zero, with 1 being the highest.

The good news is: they will only ask a measly $1,00 a month! So even working as a full time content marketer or SEO expert you won’t spend more than $1,00 a month.

Which Paid Keyword Tool should you choose?

Of course this is all up to you, but I can give my 2 cents here. If you’re running a small business like me then I would advise using either Keywords Everywhere or KeySearch.  These tools are quite affordable, user friendly and give you all the data you need to create a successful SEO and Content Marketing Strategy.

If your business is already scaling up or you’re planning on creating a larger marketing agency then both Ahrefs and SEMrush are excellent marketing tools to choose. With Ahrefs being the slightly better one. 

Using AI like ChatGPT for your Keyword Research

Next to Google (which is  in itself an AI Tool) and paid Keyword Tools you can of course use AI in your Keyword Research.

In my opinion, most AI tools are not yet entirely suitable for creating your content all the way from A to Z, but what it is excellent for is helping you with your marketing research and thought process.

For example, you can set up extensive keyword research in ChatGPT, as I explain in detail in this article.

In addition, you can install the AIPRM Extension. This handy little app gives you more options to do your research quickly and easily. For example, with the ‘Keyword Strategy’ prompt (see image) you can generate a complete strategy within minutes.

Like here again with ‘E-bike Safety’

How to insert keywords into your content

Now you know how to find the perfect keywords for your content, the question remains, where should you put them?

The trick here is to insert them in your content so that Google and other search engines will notice them, but they won’t seem too obvious for the average visitor. In other words:

Write your content both for Humans and Algorithms

How many times should you use your keywords in your content? I have my own rule of thumb here: at least 3 times.

• In the title
• In the intro, or first 200 words of your page/blog post
• At the end of your page/ blogpost

My advice is not to use your keywords too much. The text itself should remain enjoyable for your visitors. I will give you an example why: A short while ago a business partner of mine created a blog post which was filled to the brim with the perfect keywords. It ranked on the first page of Google quite fast and remained there for about 2 weeks. And then it plummeted all the way to the 5^th page. While the text was perfect for algorithms it was nearly unreadable for humans. Therefore the bounce rate of this blog post was phenomenal. No ordinary person would want to read this text. And Google noticed this as well.

So write your text foremost with normal humans in mind, while using the keywords as an excellent, helpful tool. Keep this in mind: would you want to read your content yourself? If the answer is no, then you have some improvement to do.

One final tip here: try to use synonyms in your content, especially when writing a larger piece of text. That way you can rank for other keywords as well and make your content more enjoyable.

‘Chrismas gifts for dad’, for example, can become ‘christmas presents for dad’ or ‘best presents for dads during the holidays’. You can use both your Keyword Research list for that and maybe a thesaurus.

Conclusion

By now you should know: 

• What a keyword is and why you need it for your content
• How you can research the perfect keywords
• Which free and paid tools you can use for keyword research
• And how to insert keyword into your content.

In my humble opinion Keyword research is absolutely vital for getting success as an online business, whatever your market or niche is. Make this a top priority of your content creating process: -> keyword research -> writing and posting content

Using the right keywords in your content will make you visible on Google and get you the results you want in the long run!

Bart