Building a keyword strategy is by no means a quick task, but it can be easy if you know what to look for. It involves deciding which relevant keywords to target in organic search.
But what it all boils down to is being able to find keywords that:
- Potential customers are searching for
- Your business is able to rank for
- Offer value for your business
The best keywords intersect between all three of these criteria.
Below are 5 steps on how to find the best keywords for your product or service-based business.
1. Look for keywords that potential customers are searching for
There is no point in targeting keywords that nobody searches for on Google, even if you rank number one for them. So it makes sense then that the first step in building your keyword strategy is to find keywords that potential customers are actually searching for.
2. Ideate seed keywords
Seed keywords together with a keyword research tool should form the starting point of your keyword research. They define your niche and help you to identify your competitors.
Every keyword research tool requires you to enter a seed keyword which generates a long list of keyword ideas.
If you already own a product or service-based business that you are looking to promote online then coming up with seed keywords is easy. Just think about what people naturally type into Google to find your product or service.
For example, if you sell ice cream and ice-cream-making equipment, then your seed keywords might be:
- “ice cream”
- “ice cream cones”
- “ice cream machine”
- “ice cream pasteurizer”
- “ice cream making equipment”
- Etc.
Note: You most likely will not use these seed keywords for targeting pages on your website. As the name suggests, they are just seeds for the next steps in the process. So don’t obsess too much over them. It should only take a few minutes to come up with some seed keywords. As soon as you have a handful covering a few broad topics, move on to the next stage.
3. See what keywords your competitors rank for
Looking at keywords that already send traffic to your competitors is possibly the best way to fast-track your keyword research. But you first need to know who your competitors are. That’s where seed keywords come in handy.
All you need to do is Google one of your seed terms identified in the previous step to see who, or what ranks on the first page. If none of the top-ranking pages resembles your site and what you are trying to sell then try searching for more specific things.
For example, if you sell ice-cream-making equipment, you may find more of the correct competitors when you change your seed keyword from ice cream to ice cream maker. This is more than likely because e-commerce stores are ranking for the former and blog posts ranking for the latter.
Once you find some competitors worth looking into, type their web address into a tool like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer to check which pages are bringing in the most traffic and which keywords those pages are using.
After repeating this process a few times, you’ll soon find yourself with a pretty sizeable list of new and relevant keywords.
Your goal is to collect as many relevant keywords as you can. So make sure to repeat this process for as many competitors as you can.
4. Use a keyword research tool
Competitors can be a great source of keyword ideas, but it’s very likely that they missed some. You can find these gaps using keyword research tools.
Keyword research tools are basically big keyword databases that you can use to search and filter. And they all work the same way. You enter a seed keyword and the tool spits out keyword ideas based on the given keyword.
Some great keyword research tools include Moz, Semrush and Google Keyword Planner.
Google Keyword Planner is probably the most famous and is free to use. Although it’s technically designed for Google Ads planning, it’s also very useful for finding keywords for SEO.
Here are some keyword ideas that Google Keyword Planner gave us for the seed word “ice cream”.
It’s important to note that Google Keyword Planner sometimes generates keyword ideas that don’t necessarily contain the seed keyword. Take the keyword “scoops” for example. Making it quite a useful tool for discovering those not-so-obvious keyword ideas.
Whenever you come across a keyword like that, try using it as a new seed keyword to see what new ideas you get from it.
5. Determine your niche
Everything we have discussed above has given us enough to generate an almost unlimited number of keyword ideas. But at the same time, this process almost keeps you from thinking outside the box.
You can easily solve this by visiting the various places your audience hangs out and studying their questions and conversations.
Places like industry forums, groups and Q&A sites are great for this type of thing.
For example, here is a thread we found on the /r/icecreamery/ subreddit:
People seem to really appreciate this knowledge. Not only that, the content of this Reddit thread can serve as a foundation for future pieces of content on your website.
Besides browsing industry forums, your existing customers can also be a great source of keyword ideas.
So the next time you talk to them, remember to pay attention to the language they use and the common questions they ask. That might also lead you to some original keyword ideas that you can cover on your website.
