As keyword research involves understanding what your target audience is searching for online when looking for content including products and services, it is the foundation of search engine optimisation.  Keyword research is therefore a crucial slice of your digital marketing pie.

If you’re not writing the kind of content people are searching for online your website will not generate traffic irrespective of the volume of content created.

When filtering results for users, search engines use keywords. It is therefore absolutely crucial that you know how to use your keywords and optimise your content appropriately. This is for the purpose of your website being found, indexed and ranked.

The quantity of keywords used on a page comes down to the unique specifications of your website and individual pages. Your keyword research should aim to have between 5 to10 words.

There are three different types of keywords:

• Primarykeywords - The main focus of your content. The title and subsequent content for a page should reflect this.
• Secondary– Secondary keywords should complement your primary keywords. Find and utilise a handful of secondary keywords which relate to your main focus.
• Additional– Any other keywords that are phrased or spelt differently to your primary and secondary keywords.

Keywords should be used throughout your content. This includes within your main title, URL, meta title and meta description.

As search engine algorithms are able to pick up on unnatural keyword ‘stuffing’ and can penalise you accordingly, it is very important that you use keywords ‘naturally’.

Whether you are recycling an old blog or developing a content strategy for a brand new website, good quality keyword research is one of the best ways to attract consistent, high-quality traffic to your website.

There are many keyword research tools online and Falcon Digital recommends SEMRush and AHrefs Keyword Explorer.

As previously mentioned, there are plenty of online tools you can use when researching keywords. If you plan on doing your own research, however, then it is best to use a customer-centric approach. If you were a potential customer, what words would you use online to find your business? Try and see things from your target audience’s perspective.

For example, if you were selling handmade shoes crafted from sustainable vegan leather, you might search for ‘ethical shoes’ or ‘vegan shoes sustainable’. The goal is to find keywords with relatively low competition but with a high search rate you are then more likely to pinch the top spot on search engines.

After determining your keywords the next vital step is to narrow your research down and establish one keyword with low competition that still has a relatively high search rate. This focus keyword will be a phrase or single word that your target audience is likely to search for.

Once you’ve established your focus keywords, you will need to research your latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords. These are searches related to your focus keyword. Listed as ‘related searches’, the simplest way to find them is to search your focus keyword and scroll right to the bottom of your page.

There a great deal to consider when deciding on your keywords.

• Volume– the search ‘volume’ of a keyword relates to the amount of times it has been searched on a search engine such as Google or Bing. Obviously, optimising your online content with keywords that no one is looking for is pointless, so make sure you do your due diligence and use keywords with a high search volume.
• Relevance– Your keywords should always be relevant to the content on your site. As the overall objective of your digital marketing strategy is to drive your target audience to your website, using irrelevant keywords that only drive the wrong kind of traffic is futile.
• Value– How you measure your success will be unique to you and your website so it’s important you research and choose keywords that will get the results you want. You want engagement and conversions, not browsing and bouncing.
• Competition– Pragmatism is key as there is little point in choosing keywords with high search volume and high competition which risks your website being buried in a sea of other results. Choose keywords you could realistically rank for in SERPs and optimise accordingly.

Your selected keywords must meet these four criteria. If any areas are missing, you run the risk of driving the wrong kind of traffic, or, worse still, potentially failing to drive any traffic at all.

You should be using one primary keyword, anywhere from 1 to 3 secondary keywords and 1 to 4 additional keywords depending on the length of your page content,

Long-tail keywords are often longer, full sentences with a high conversion rate and a low search volume. They are words that receive a smaller quantity of searches each month.

The long-tail keyword’s name derives from their position on the search demand curve. Keywords with a high search volume will be at the head of the curve, whereas a significant number of keywords will be found at the tail with less search volume and as a result, less competition.