SEO For Beginners: How To Do Effective Keyword Research?

Most people won't click to the second search page to find the solution because they (include me) believe the best results are all listing on the first page. If they can't find what they are looking for on the first page, why should they waste time to check the second page?

Therefore, it is important to develop an effective keyword research skill to help your content or brand reach the top search result or at least get on the first search page. 

As a marketer, how to do effective keyword research to promote your brand?

Know Your Audience

1. Think Like A Buyer

When you work on keyword research, you need to put your feet in customer's shoes. You need to think like a buyer. What are they going to type in the Google? If you are looking for something, what terms will you enter?

Moreover, you need to narrow down your target customers by having a clear understanding on their age group, gender, single or married, student or professions, earning range, etc.

The key thing is that most customers are not searching for a particular site. Actually, they are looking for valuable information to solve their problem. 

2. Understand Buying Stages

There are three stages in buying circle: awareness, research & comparison, and buying.

• Awareness

In the awareness stage, customers doesn't have a clear idea what to type in the search. The most common terms are "How to" and "Best way to". 

For example, when I want to cook potato chips at home, I will type "How to make potato chips in healthy way at home?"

In this stage, customers may not look for a particular product. Instead, they are looking for relevant information to get a clear idea.

As marketers, you could write some content about customers' pain point and how to solve those problems.

• Research & Comparison

Once customer know what they are looking for, they will start research and compare the product/service and find the best one for them. 

They may type "customer reviews", "Top 10", "product name", "brand name", "recommendation" or other keywords in the search bar. 

For example, I know I want to buy potato chips, I will type "Lay's potato chips", "Cheese flavor potato chips", "best less fat potato chips" or "Best taste potato chips". 

They want to explore both good and bad side of a particular product/service. The more information they find, the easier they make decision.

As marketers, you should build relevant content about key benefits of your products. Why your product is so special?

• Buying

At buying stage, it is close to the deal! Customers seem to make the decision to buy your product/service. What do they want mostly on this stage? Less Price!

They are mostly typing "discount", "cheap", "coupon", "promotion" on the search to see if they can find a good deal. 

For example, when I buy potato chips, I won't buy a single bag. I will search for the variety box which is much cheaper.

At this stage, marketers should include "buy now", "promotion", "best deal" on your shopping site to let customers easy to click through. You can also create Google Ads to promote your product.

Keyword Strategy

1. Aim For Less Competitive Keywords

Some keywords are really competitive. It may cost a lot money on keyword bids, and even you make the investment, it may not turn the best result for you. Some brand and websites are so well-known and have very good authority, it is extremely hard to compete with them.

If you have a limit budget or just want to build new product/brand awareness, the best way is to bid on less competitive keywords. 

Google keyword planner is a great tool to help you explore more keyword and see the competition.

For example, I enter "potato chips" in the keyword bar, and it gives me a list of relevant keywords. I can see each keyword average monthly searches, competition, and bid range.

Focus on keywords in medium or low competition may help you narrow down your keyword list, save the budget and achieve a good performance.

2. Create Content With Long Tail Keywords

Once you build your keyword list, the next step will be writing relevant content around those keywords. 

The best way is to focus on long tail keywords, which are more descriptive phrases such as "health BBQ potato chips". 

Create content with long tail keywords will help you deliver more valuable and relevant information to match target customer's search terms. It will get a better position on search result page, and drive more site traffic.

Overall, it is not easy to make a perfect keyword list, so all we need to do is research more and think more.