How Your Keyword Research Should Look Like In 2016

Saffron Edge

May 9, 2016

3 min read

Inbound marketing refers to the marketing activities that bring visitors in. Inbound marketing draws customers to your website by making your company easy to find and producing interesting, attention grabbing content. With inbound marketing, marketers no longer have to go out to look for potential buyers.

A business can now promote their company using inbound marketing through blogs, newsletters, SEO, social media marketing, podcasts, videos, and other content marketing activities.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is the most important part of SEO. How your keyword research should look like is a very important question to answer because it is going to dictate how the rest of your campaign will go. Some questions to ask yourself in relations to a particular set of keywords are: How profitable are the keywords? What sort of services or products can we offer? Below are 4 steps of doing keyword research that will give you that competitive edge in 2016:

Step 1: Do your Basic Research

First thing you need to do is pick a main keyword that is pretty straightforward and describes the main activity of your business. Next, you will need to dig a little deeper into the nature of your main keyword. This can be done by analyzing the Google Search Engine Results page. Some pages that can help you include:
The Related Search – it is found at the bottom of the Google SERP. The related search can give you clues on the search intents users have for the keyword and the basic demands that go hand in hand with that particular keyword.
Google Auto complete – Google gives suggestions based on popular queries often made using that keyword. This tool is very important as it helps you discover what Google relates to a given keyword.
Google AdWords – If your keyword yields paid results or Google AdWords, then the keyword is valuable enough for other people to spend money on. It also means that the keyword is very competitive.
Shopping Results – This page can help you discover the profitability of a keyword. You can get insight on new and existing products that you can use as guidance for your own products There are a lot more websites you can use to gather intel regarding your keyword, they include:
- Wikipedia. The table of content can be very useful
- Query-based Websites. Sites such as Yahoo answer and Quora can help you find common questions people ask revolving around your keyword.

Step 2: Analyze your Results

After you learn about the keyword, look into the ranked results on the SERP itself. This will help you: - Learn exactly how others do their optimization - Understand what Google needs from you to rank a website - Know how hard or easy it is to rank a certain keyword - Replicate and improve the same formula to rank better yourself

Step 3: Keyword Expansion

Use Google Keyword Planner to find new related keywords to use with your main keyword. Simply look for new keyword options and look at the Ad group ideas to see how Google is grouping keywords together. When you target multiple related keywords, it is easier to diversify your contents and topics.

Step 4: Optimize

Finally, incorporate all the above factors into your website and contents. When you are running a business, time is very precious and marketing tends to take up plenty of your time. Some of the main benefits of outsourcing inbound marketing projects are:
Saves you time - You free up plenty of time when you hand over your marketing tasks to a third party. When you outsource, you free up time that would have been spent developing social media platforms, writing marketing materials, creating and managing email lists, etc. Your team will have more time to work on your core business
Professional Services - It is easier nowadays to find experienced and affordable online marketing professionals who will work with your company and implement efficient strategies on your behalf.
Gain Outside Perspective - When you outsource, you are able to receive fresh perspective. Professional online marketers understand how to attract and convert marketers better.
Top-notch expertise - When you outsource, you are working with a very experienced marketer who’s main occupation is just what you are looking for. You need not to spend money and time on research and much more as this is part of their job.