July 24, 2024 • 21 mins
In this episode, Chrissy Rey breaks down the fundamentals of keyword research for beginners. Learn why keyword research is crucial for your website's success, how to identify your target audience, and practical steps to start your keyword research journey. Chrissy shares valuable insights on using free tools like Google Keyword Planner and offers tips on selecting the right keywords for your content.
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Episode Transcript
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Chrissy New (00:09):
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to Website Success.
As always, I'm Chrissy Rey, andI'm here to help you make your
website the best it can be.
I recently asked my social mediaaudience what their biggest pain
point was when it came to SEO.
And one of the top answers was "gettingstarted with keyword research."
I know it can be a lot and it canbe really tough for a beginner
(00:33):
to even know where to begin.
So I am going to make your lifea little easier with this episode
and give you some tips on gettingstarted with keyword research.
Now, if you haven't even startedthinking about SEO, you might be
wondering, " what the heck is keywordresearch anyway, and why should I care?"
Well, I'll tell ya.
(00:53):
Keyword research is one of thefoundations of search engine optimization.
And it's basically all about figuringout what words and phrases or keywords
people are typing into Google or Bingor whatever search engine they're
using when they're trying to look forinformation related to your website.
Or basically when they're looking foryour business or a business like yours.
But here's the thing (01:17):
when you're just getting started, keyword research
can be really, really overwhelming.
I know when I first startedwith SEO, keyword research,
just kind of muddled my brain.
And it's really hard to figure out whereto start if you don't already know.
So that's what I'm here to help you with.
I'm going to break everythingdown into really simple steps
(01:41):
that you should be able to follow.
If you can't hop into my Facebookgroup Website Success Lounge,
ask questions in there and I'mgoing to be happy to answer them.
And I also do want to mention thatI am starting an SEO membership.
It's going to be calledthe SEO success club.
So keep an eye out for myannouncements about that.
(02:01):
If you get in at the beginning,you'll get the founding member
price, which is really inexpensive.
You'll be locked in at that.
And it's a good way if you need somesupport with search engine optimization,
it'll be a good way to sort of slideinto that and get some expert support.
Now, before we dive into the keywordresearch part, I do want to mention
(02:22):
that if you're planning on doingorganic SEO, which is what I usually
talk about, and it's sort of the freeSEO, or pay-per-click, which would be
search engine ads, you'd need to dokeyword research for both, but it's
slightly different for each of them.
But you still need to do keywordresearch because you need to
(02:42):
know what people are looking for.
If they're just searching and they'regoing to click on organic links.
And also what they're going tobe searching for when it comes to
something like your business, evenif it's going to be for paid ads.
So this does apply to both of those.
Okay.
So first things first, I wantto talk about why keyword
research is so important.
You already know what it is alreadymentioned that, but why is it important?
(03:05):
If you think about, let's say you've gotan amazing website, you took hours and
hours or weeks and months of creatingthis amazing, beautiful website, or
you hired a developer to do it for you.
And it's out there.
And crickets.
Nobody is finding the website.
Nobody's going to the website.
You're not getting any clicks.
(03:25):
You're not getting any conversions.
You're just, it's just there.
And nobody's going to it.
So it's kind of like having thisbeautiful, amazing store that's in the
middle of nowhere with no roads leadingto it and no signs or anything like that.
So that's kind of what your website is ifyou're not doing some sort of outreach.
(03:46):
And keyword research basicallyhelps you build those roads and
it helps you put up the signs.
To say, "Hey, I'm here.
Look at my website!"
And it sort of guides peopledirectly to your website.
So, where do you startwith keyword research?
The first step is going to be, to figureout who exactly your target audiences.
(04:06):
I know that sounds a littlesort of counterintuitive.
You want to start researching yourkeywords, but you need to figure
out who your target audience is.
You also need to figure out whatyour goals are for your website.
And you also need to think about what itis that you're offering on your website.
So you really need to do some planningand think about those three things.
But having the goals and the offer,the what you're offering on your
(04:29):
website, you probably already have that.
You probably already have yourtarget audience, at least sort of,
at least in the back of your mind.
But when you're starting with yourkeyword research, I want you to put
that at the front of your mind becausein order to figure out what keywords
people are looking for you need toknow a little bit about those people.
(04:50):
You need to sort of get into theirminds and think about what would
they be searching for on Google orDuckDuckGo, or Bing, or whatever
search engine they're using.
The first thing I want you to dois write down as many details about
your target audience as you can.
And even better, if you are ableto create something called an
(05:11):
ICA, which stands for ideal clientavatar or ideal customer avatar.
And I want you to create oneor two of those, if you can.
And if you haven't done anICA before, it's basically
a description of a fictionalperson from your target audience.
So you need to know whoyour target audience is.
And then pull an individualperson out of that target
(05:32):
audience and just describe them.
So include things like their name, likeactually give them a name, their age,
their gender, their marital status,their education profession, personality.
It's also going to includethings like their goals.
What are they looking for?
What do they need?
What do they want?
What are their challenges,when it comes to that?
(05:52):
What are their pain points?
What objections might theyhave to what you offer?
And there's a wholebunch more information.
If you've used my Website SuccessBlueprint, then you've probably
already done this exercise.
If you haven't, you can go getthat in the resources section at
websitesuccessacademy.com, downloadthat, and it actually walks you through
(06:13):
the things that I'm talking about.
So it walks you through deciding whatyour offer is or identifying what your
offer is, creating some goals for yourwebsite, and then also defining your
target audience and creating an ICA.
So it walks through all of that, walksthrough a lot more than that, but those
are the things that you absolutely needto get started with when it comes to SEO.
(06:35):
So after you get into the minds ofyour target audience and you have a
really good idea of who they are, whatthey're looking for the next step is
going to be to brainstorm some ideas.
So grab a pen and paper or if you'rea digital person, like me, open up a
Google doc or a Word doc or a text fileor something like that, and start writing.
(06:57):
Write down every word or phrase thatyou think relates to your website.
We'll call this your keyword ideas list.
So don't overthink it.
Just let those creative juices flow, writedown as many words and phrases as you can.
For example, let's say thatyou run a small bakery.
Your list might include things likecakes, cupcakes, birthday cakes,
(07:20):
wedding cakes, gluten-free desserts,cookies, custom cookies, and so on.
Remember to add the words andthen variations of the words.
And don't worry about beingtoo specific right now.
You can refine this list later.
Once you've got that initiallist, it's going to be time to
put yourself in that ICA's shoes.
(07:41):
Try to think like someonewho might be looking for what
you offer on your website.
And again, if you created that ICA,you know what their goals are, what
problems are they trying to solve?
What are their pain points?
What questions might they ask?
Going back to our bakery example, youmight come up with phrases and the
phrases can be questions if you wantthem to, but they might be things
(08:02):
like how to order a custom cake, bestbakery near me, last minute birthday
cake ideas, best cookies for toddlers.
And these are going to be longer phrasesin a lot of cases, and those are what
we refer to as long tail keywords.
So they're a little bit longer thanthe one or two or three word keywords.
(08:24):
And by the way, when I saykeyword, A keyword can be a phrase.
It's not necessarily just a single word.
But anyway, back to long tailkeywords, they are usually going to
have a little bit less competitionthan the shorter keywords, because
they're going to be more specific.
So take all of those questions and thoselonger phrases and add those to your list.
(08:45):
Now another cool trick , youcan actually use Google to help
you brainstorm even more ideas.
So if you type your keyword or one ofyour keywords, one of those shorter
keywords into Google don't hit enter.
You're going to see a list ofpopular searches that include
that keyword that are or, thatare related to what you're typing.
(09:05):
And these are absolute goldbecause they're based on what
people are actually searching for.
So do that little trick, add someof those keywords to your list.
Another great place to look forkeywords in Google, so we're starting
our keyword research here withGoogle, is in the people also ask
section, that's going to usuallyappear on the Google search results.
(09:27):
So if you type in your search, hitenter, then you'll see if you scroll
down a little bit, you'll see a listof questions and it's usually like four
questions, but if you expand one of thosequestions, it'll add four or five more.
And those questions again, arethings that people are asking Google.
So, they can again, give you some reallygood insight into the information that
(09:48):
your potential customers or peoplelooking for your business or the
keywords that you're brainstorming.
These are things thatpeople are looking for.
So by now, you should have a prettynice long list of keyword ideas.
These potential keywords.
The next step is figuring out whichones are actually worth targeting.
And this is going to be where westart to dip our toes into some
(10:12):
basic keyword research tools.
And there are some free ones out there.
So that's what I'm going totalk about in this episode.
There are also lots of paid ones.
I use paid ones cause I do thisprofessionally and they give
you a little bit more insight,but you can start with free.
You don't need to go out and invest alot of money in keyword research tools.
(10:32):
So the one that I want to talkabout is Google's Keyword Planner.
And it's free.
It's absolutely free.
You do need a Google adsaccount to use it, but you don't
actually have to create any ads.
So you just need the account.
So go to Google ads,which is ads.Google.com.
And create a free account.
You can just click on start now.
(10:53):
And then after you create theaccount, you're going to go into
the tools menu on the left side.
If you're on a computer, Iusually do this on a computer.
It's kind of hard to do it ona mobile device, but go into
the tools menu, expand that.
And then if you look under theplanning section, you're going to
see the keyword planner in there.
So just click on that and that'llopen up the keyword planner.
(11:14):
And then you'll see a menu item there,or a big button that says discover
keyword ideas or something like that.
And you will click on that and thenjust enter in the space provided,
enter one or more of your keywords.
You can just type them in, separate themwith commas, or you can type it in, press
enter and add a bunch of your keywords.
(11:34):
You don't have to add all of them.
Just add some keywords.
A really cool feature of this tool,if you haven't already gotten enough
keyword ideas, once you enter somekeyword ideas into the tool, it
will give you more suggestions.
So additional related keywords thatyou might not have even thought of.
And you can add those to your list.
Another really cool feature of thekeyword planner is that you can limit
(11:58):
the data to a specific span of dates.
So it's one of the features when in thesearch results for the keywords, you
can limit the data to certain dates.
You can also limit it to aspecific geographic area.
And that's really useful if you'rea local business and you need to do
work on local SEO because the thingsthat people are searching for in your
(12:21):
local area and the results that you'regoing to get, the data that you're
going to get while you're doing yourresearch could be very different for
local searches versus statewide orCountrywide or even worldwide searches.
So now you're going to createa second list, and we're going
to call this the keyword plan.
And you create this list in keywordplanner by saving the keyword.
(12:44):
So you check off a keyword and you'llsee an option at the top of the keyword
planner to save to keyword plan.
And if you want, you can do this on paper.
I usually do it in the keyword planner,but again, it's called your keyword plan.
Now, when you're looking at the datain the keyword planner, so after you
do your search for some keywords inthere, you'll see a whole bunch of
(13:05):
numbers and the two that I want you toreally pay attention to are going to be
the search volume and the competition.
Search volume is going to tell you howmany people are searching for that term
each month and the competition is goingto give you an idea of how hard it's
going to be to rank for that keywordbecause of how many other people are
(13:25):
also trying to rank for that keyword.
But I do want you to keep in mind thatthe competition value in the keyword
planner is specific to Google ads.
So it's based on the number of advertisersthat are bidding on each keyword.
And that does sometimes correlatewith the competition for organic
search, but sometimes it doesn't.
So you got to kind of take thosenumbers with a grain of salt.
(13:50):
But basically the more results the keywordhas, the more competition for those
first few spots that are in the searchengine results page there's going to be.
But the thing that you're going forhere on that keyword planner, the
results that you're looking for withthose two numbers is going to be a
keyword that has a good search volume.
(14:11):
Your minimum is going to vary, butI would say at least a hundred.
Depending on what you're trying tosearch for, you might want to say
at least a thousand and you cansort, you can filter the results.
Or you can sort the results byany of the columns in there.
But you want to find the ones thathave a relatively high search volume,
but a relatively low competition.
(14:31):
So if the competition is listed as low andyou've got a million of the search volume,
then that's probably a good keyword.
And those are going to be your sortof golden opportunities as far as the
keywords, because they're words that alot of people are searching for, but not
a lot of other websites are targeting.
When you find a keyword that has agood combination of the two, check
(14:54):
it, add it to your keyword plan.
So any keywords that have a high searchvolume, low competition, and that are
relevant to the content that you're goingto create and your offer, you're going
to want to add that to your keyword plan.
Now I do know that looking atall those numbers can be a little
overwhelming, but don't stress out.
The goal here is not to become anovernight expert, but to start to
(15:19):
understand the landscape of everything.
If you find a keyword that is relativelylow competition in the keyword planner, if
you want to verify for organic that it isstill relatively low competition, you can
take that keyword and plug it into Google.
So just open up Google, type it in there.
(15:39):
See how many results come back.
If you get millions or billions ofresults, which some keywords are
going to have, then that's a prettyhigh competition keyword, because
there are millions or billionsof results that are coming up.
So the chances of you getting onthe first page of the search engine
results page are really, really low.
(15:59):
If the search results come back and thereare thousands or hundreds, then it's
probably a pretty low competition keyword.
So again, you can sort of validatethat competition that is specific to
the ads by doing the search in Google.
So that's, that's basically it.
Once you create that keyword plan, youhave your keywords, the keyword plan
(16:21):
that you create in the keyword planner,you can export it to a CSV file.
You can save it to Googlesheets and you can work with it.
And what I do recommend if you're justgetting started and you're doing that
sort of validation where you're searchingin Google for the results, and then
you're going back and I would put thosenumbers, I would create the Google.
The keyword plan and then plugthose numbers into a Google sheet.
(16:44):
So you have that information.
So that's, that's pretty much it.
There are other keywordresearch tools out there.
Once you sort of get started with thebasics, you feel really comfortable
with keyword planner and doing thebrainstorming and everything, then
some other keyword research tools youmight want to add to your toolkit.
Are going to be paid tools.
(17:06):
There are tools like KeywordsEverywhere, which is a browser extension.
I use it in Chrome and it reallygives you additional information.
Uh, additional stats about the keywords.
And then there's also.
SEM rush or SEMrush.
However you want to call it.
Uh, and Moz, which is what I use.
I also use AI to help me with mykeyword research and I am going
(17:30):
to cover that in a future episode.
I let the AI know as much aspossible about my target audience
and my services and everything.
And then I have it give me suggestionsfor keywords that I can then research.
So, what do you do after youfind a bunch of keywords?
Well, then it's time to actuallystart using them in your content,
(17:52):
but I've already covered a lotin this episode and I don't want
to overwhelm you at this point.
So, if you are curious about using thosekeywords after you find them, writing
content with those keywords, doing what'scalled on page SEO and optimizing your
individual pieces of content for thosekeywords, once again, check out the SEO
(18:15):
Success Club that I mentioned earlier.
You can go to websitesuccessacademy.com.
If you go on the resources,there's actually a resource
there for the SEO success clubs.
So click on that.
It's not totally public yet.
I, I, I guess it is public 'causeI mentioned in this episode,
but it's not 100% ready yet.
I'm still building upthe content in there.
(18:37):
I'm taking my SEO action planand I'm making videos for every
single task in that action plan.
And I'm still working on that.
So it'll officially be officialin, probably in late August, but if
you're listening to this now, thisepisode is coming out in late July,
you can still sign up for it, checkit out and you can get access to
(18:59):
the stuff that's already in there.
You'll also get access toa members only community.
And I also do monthly Q&A.
I hope to eventually make those weeklyQ&A, but for now they are monthly.
So if you get in now, you'll getthe founding member price, which
is going to be really inexpensive.
Uh, just because you're sort ofpreviewing it and you also be able to
(19:19):
help me figure out what content to add.
What's going to be useful.
So again, go to awebsitesuccessacademy.com and
then go to resources to sign up.
All right before we wrap up, I do wantto recap the main steps that we covered.
So the first thing is going tobe to identify everything you can
about your business and about yourwebsite, so your offer, your
(19:40):
goals and your target audience.
If you can create an ICA.
Then I want you to brainstormyour initial keywords list.
Then try to think like yourcustomer and expand that list.
Then you're going to use Google'stools like the "people always
ask" and the suggested searches.
Then you're going to use Google's keywordplanner to get ideas about additional
(20:03):
keywords and get data on those keywords.
When you're doing that, you're goingto look for keywords that have a good
search volume and lower competition.
And then final step is going tobe to start incorporating those
keywords into your content.
So that's, that's pretty much it there.
I think I listed seven steps.
Now, if you're feeling inspired afterthis episode to dive right in and
(20:25):
start doing your keyword research,I got a little homework for you.
I want you to take 15 minutes thisweek to brainstorm your keyword ideas.
So start on that, that, well, beforeyou do that, figure out your target
audience, but after you've donethat, I want you to brainstorm some
keyword ideas for your business.
And don't worry so much about the datajust yet just get your ideas down and then
(20:46):
next time you're working on your website.
See if you can naturally incorporatesome of those keywords into your content.
That's all I've got today.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you found this helpful, don'tforget to subscribe to the podcast.
I'll continue doing additionalbeginner, friendly SEO tips and all
kinds of really good informationabout making your website successful.
(21:07):
If you have questions about keywordresearch, feel free to reach out, make
sure you've joined my Facebook groupWebsite Success Lounge, ask questions in
there, but until then, Happy researching.
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to Website Success.
As always, I'm Chrissy Rey, andI'm here to help you make your
website the best it can be.
I recently asked my social mediaaudience what their biggest pain
point was when it came to SEO.
And one of the top answers was "gettingstarted with keyword research."
I know it can be a lot and it canbe really tough for a beginner
(00:33):
to even know where to begin.
So I am going to make your lifea little easier with this episode
and give you some tips on gettingstarted with keyword research.
Now, if you haven't even startedthinking about SEO, you might be
wondering, " what the heck is keywordresearch anyway, and why should I care?"
Well, I'll tell ya.
(00:53):
Keyword research is one of thefoundations of search engine optimization.
And it's basically all about figuringout what words and phrases or keywords
people are typing into Google or Bingor whatever search engine they're
using when they're trying to look forinformation related to your website.
Or basically when they're looking foryour business or a business like yours.
But here's the thing (01:17):
when you're just getting started, keyword research
can be really, really overwhelming.
I know when I first startedwith SEO, keyword research,
just kind of muddled my brain.
And it's really hard to figure out whereto start if you don't already know.
So that's what I'm here to help you with.
I'm going to break everythingdown into really simple steps
(01:41):
that you should be able to follow.
If you can't hop into my Facebookgroup Website Success Lounge,
ask questions in there and I'mgoing to be happy to answer them.
And I also do want to mention thatI am starting an SEO membership.
It's going to be calledthe SEO success club.
So keep an eye out for myannouncements about that.
(02:01):
If you get in at the beginning,you'll get the founding member
price, which is really inexpensive.
You'll be locked in at that.
And it's a good way if you need somesupport with search engine optimization,
it'll be a good way to sort of slideinto that and get some expert support.
Now, before we dive into the keywordresearch part, I do want to mention
(02:22):
that if you're planning on doingorganic SEO, which is what I usually
talk about, and it's sort of the freeSEO, or pay-per-click, which would be
search engine ads, you'd need to dokeyword research for both, but it's
slightly different for each of them.
But you still need to do keywordresearch because you need to
(02:42):
know what people are looking for.
If they're just searching and they'regoing to click on organic links.
And also what they're going tobe searching for when it comes to
something like your business, evenif it's going to be for paid ads.
So this does apply to both of those.
Okay.
So first things first, I wantto talk about why keyword
research is so important.
You already know what it is alreadymentioned that, but why is it important?
(03:05):
If you think about, let's say you've gotan amazing website, you took hours and
hours or weeks and months of creatingthis amazing, beautiful website, or
you hired a developer to do it for you.
And it's out there.
And crickets.
Nobody is finding the website.
Nobody's going to the website.
You're not getting any clicks.
(03:25):
You're not getting any conversions.
You're just, it's just there.
And nobody's going to it.
So it's kind of like having thisbeautiful, amazing store that's in the
middle of nowhere with no roads leadingto it and no signs or anything like that.
So that's kind of what your website is ifyou're not doing some sort of outreach.
(03:46):
And keyword research basicallyhelps you build those roads and
it helps you put up the signs.
To say, "Hey, I'm here.
Look at my website!"
And it sort of guides peopledirectly to your website.
So, where do you startwith keyword research?
The first step is going to be, to figureout who exactly your target audiences.
(04:06):
I know that sounds a littlesort of counterintuitive.
You want to start researching yourkeywords, but you need to figure
out who your target audience is.
You also need to figure out whatyour goals are for your website.
And you also need to think about what itis that you're offering on your website.
So you really need to do some planningand think about those three things.
But having the goals and the offer,the what you're offering on your
(04:29):
website, you probably already have that.
You probably already have yourtarget audience, at least sort of,
at least in the back of your mind.
But when you're starting with yourkeyword research, I want you to put
that at the front of your mind becausein order to figure out what keywords
people are looking for you need toknow a little bit about those people.
(04:50):
You need to sort of get into theirminds and think about what would
they be searching for on Google orDuckDuckGo, or Bing, or whatever
search engine they're using.
The first thing I want you to dois write down as many details about
your target audience as you can.
And even better, if you are ableto create something called an
(05:11):
ICA, which stands for ideal clientavatar or ideal customer avatar.
And I want you to create oneor two of those, if you can.
And if you haven't done anICA before, it's basically
a description of a fictionalperson from your target audience.
So you need to know whoyour target audience is.
And then pull an individualperson out of that target
(05:32):
audience and just describe them.
So include things like their name, likeactually give them a name, their age,
their gender, their marital status,their education profession, personality.
It's also going to includethings like their goals.
What are they looking for?
What do they need?
What do they want?
What are their challenges,when it comes to that?
(05:52):
What are their pain points?
What objections might theyhave to what you offer?
And there's a wholebunch more information.
If you've used my Website SuccessBlueprint, then you've probably
already done this exercise.
If you haven't, you can go getthat in the resources section at
websitesuccessacademy.com, downloadthat, and it actually walks you through
(06:13):
the things that I'm talking about.
So it walks you through deciding whatyour offer is or identifying what your
offer is, creating some goals for yourwebsite, and then also defining your
target audience and creating an ICA.
So it walks through all of that, walksthrough a lot more than that, but those
are the things that you absolutely needto get started with when it comes to SEO.
(06:35):
So after you get into the minds ofyour target audience and you have a
really good idea of who they are, whatthey're looking for the next step is
going to be to brainstorm some ideas.
So grab a pen and paper or if you'rea digital person, like me, open up a
Google doc or a Word doc or a text fileor something like that, and start writing.
(06:57):
Write down every word or phrase thatyou think relates to your website.
We'll call this your keyword ideas list.
So don't overthink it.
Just let those creative juices flow, writedown as many words and phrases as you can.
For example, let's say thatyou run a small bakery.
Your list might include things likecakes, cupcakes, birthday cakes,
(07:20):
wedding cakes, gluten-free desserts,cookies, custom cookies, and so on.
Remember to add the words andthen variations of the words.
And don't worry about beingtoo specific right now.
You can refine this list later.
Once you've got that initiallist, it's going to be time to
put yourself in that ICA's shoes.
(07:41):
Try to think like someonewho might be looking for what
you offer on your website.
And again, if you created that ICA,you know what their goals are, what
problems are they trying to solve?
What are their pain points?
What questions might they ask?
Going back to our bakery example, youmight come up with phrases and the
phrases can be questions if you wantthem to, but they might be things
(08:02):
like how to order a custom cake, bestbakery near me, last minute birthday
cake ideas, best cookies for toddlers.
And these are going to be longer phrasesin a lot of cases, and those are what
we refer to as long tail keywords.
So they're a little bit longer thanthe one or two or three word keywords.
(08:24):
And by the way, when I saykeyword, A keyword can be a phrase.
It's not necessarily just a single word.
But anyway, back to long tailkeywords, they are usually going to
have a little bit less competitionthan the shorter keywords, because
they're going to be more specific.
So take all of those questions and thoselonger phrases and add those to your list.
(08:45):
Now another cool trick , youcan actually use Google to help
you brainstorm even more ideas.
So if you type your keyword or one ofyour keywords, one of those shorter
keywords into Google don't hit enter.
You're going to see a list ofpopular searches that include
that keyword that are or, thatare related to what you're typing.
(09:05):
And these are absolute goldbecause they're based on what
people are actually searching for.
So do that little trick, add someof those keywords to your list.
Another great place to look forkeywords in Google, so we're starting
our keyword research here withGoogle, is in the people also ask
section, that's going to usuallyappear on the Google search results.
(09:27):
So if you type in your search, hitenter, then you'll see if you scroll
down a little bit, you'll see a listof questions and it's usually like four
questions, but if you expand one of thosequestions, it'll add four or five more.
And those questions again, arethings that people are asking Google.
So, they can again, give you some reallygood insight into the information that
(09:48):
your potential customers or peoplelooking for your business or the
keywords that you're brainstorming.
These are things thatpeople are looking for.
So by now, you should have a prettynice long list of keyword ideas.
These potential keywords.
The next step is figuring out whichones are actually worth targeting.
And this is going to be where westart to dip our toes into some
(10:12):
basic keyword research tools.
And there are some free ones out there.
So that's what I'm going totalk about in this episode.
There are also lots of paid ones.
I use paid ones cause I do thisprofessionally and they give
you a little bit more insight,but you can start with free.
You don't need to go out and invest alot of money in keyword research tools.
(10:32):
So the one that I want to talkabout is Google's Keyword Planner.
And it's free.
It's absolutely free.
You do need a Google adsaccount to use it, but you don't
actually have to create any ads.
So you just need the account.
So go to Google ads,which is ads.Google.com.
And create a free account.
You can just click on start now.
(10:53):
And then after you create theaccount, you're going to go into
the tools menu on the left side.
If you're on a computer, Iusually do this on a computer.
It's kind of hard to do it ona mobile device, but go into
the tools menu, expand that.
And then if you look under theplanning section, you're going to
see the keyword planner in there.
So just click on that and that'llopen up the keyword planner.
(11:14):
And then you'll see a menu item there,or a big button that says discover
keyword ideas or something like that.
And you will click on that and thenjust enter in the space provided,
enter one or more of your keywords.
You can just type them in, separate themwith commas, or you can type it in, press
enter and add a bunch of your keywords.
(11:34):
You don't have to add all of them.
Just add some keywords.
A really cool feature of this tool,if you haven't already gotten enough
keyword ideas, once you enter somekeyword ideas into the tool, it
will give you more suggestions.
So additional related keywords thatyou might not have even thought of.
And you can add those to your list.
Another really cool feature of thekeyword planner is that you can limit
(11:58):
the data to a specific span of dates.
So it's one of the features when in thesearch results for the keywords, you
can limit the data to certain dates.
You can also limit it to aspecific geographic area.
And that's really useful if you'rea local business and you need to do
work on local SEO because the thingsthat people are searching for in your
(12:21):
local area and the results that you'regoing to get, the data that you're
going to get while you're doing yourresearch could be very different for
local searches versus statewide orCountrywide or even worldwide searches.
So now you're going to createa second list, and we're going
to call this the keyword plan.
And you create this list in keywordplanner by saving the keyword.
(12:44):
So you check off a keyword and you'llsee an option at the top of the keyword
planner to save to keyword plan.
And if you want, you can do this on paper.
I usually do it in the keyword planner,but again, it's called your keyword plan.
Now, when you're looking at the datain the keyword planner, so after you
do your search for some keywords inthere, you'll see a whole bunch of
(13:05):
numbers and the two that I want you toreally pay attention to are going to be
the search volume and the competition.
Search volume is going to tell you howmany people are searching for that term
each month and the competition is goingto give you an idea of how hard it's
going to be to rank for that keywordbecause of how many other people are
(13:25):
also trying to rank for that keyword.
But I do want you to keep in mind thatthe competition value in the keyword
planner is specific to Google ads.
So it's based on the number of advertisersthat are bidding on each keyword.
And that does sometimes correlatewith the competition for organic
search, but sometimes it doesn't.
So you got to kind of take thosenumbers with a grain of salt.
(13:50):
But basically the more results the keywordhas, the more competition for those
first few spots that are in the searchengine results page there's going to be.
But the thing that you're going forhere on that keyword planner, the
results that you're looking for withthose two numbers is going to be a
keyword that has a good search volume.
(14:11):
Your minimum is going to vary, butI would say at least a hundred.
Depending on what you're trying tosearch for, you might want to say
at least a thousand and you cansort, you can filter the results.
Or you can sort the results byany of the columns in there.
But you want to find the ones thathave a relatively high search volume,
but a relatively low competition.
(14:31):
So if the competition is listed as low andyou've got a million of the search volume,
then that's probably a good keyword.
And those are going to be your sortof golden opportunities as far as the
keywords, because they're words that alot of people are searching for, but not
a lot of other websites are targeting.
When you find a keyword that has agood combination of the two, check
(14:54):
it, add it to your keyword plan.
So any keywords that have a high searchvolume, low competition, and that are
relevant to the content that you're goingto create and your offer, you're going
to want to add that to your keyword plan.
Now I do know that looking atall those numbers can be a little
overwhelming, but don't stress out.
The goal here is not to become anovernight expert, but to start to
(15:19):
understand the landscape of everything.
If you find a keyword that is relativelylow competition in the keyword planner, if
you want to verify for organic that it isstill relatively low competition, you can
take that keyword and plug it into Google.
So just open up Google, type it in there.
(15:39):
See how many results come back.
If you get millions or billions ofresults, which some keywords are
going to have, then that's a prettyhigh competition keyword, because
there are millions or billionsof results that are coming up.
So the chances of you getting onthe first page of the search engine
results page are really, really low.
(15:59):
If the search results come back and thereare thousands or hundreds, then it's
probably a pretty low competition keyword.
So again, you can sort of validatethat competition that is specific to
the ads by doing the search in Google.
So that's, that's basically it.
Once you create that keyword plan, youhave your keywords, the keyword plan
(16:21):
that you create in the keyword planner,you can export it to a CSV file.
You can save it to Googlesheets and you can work with it.
And what I do recommend if you're justgetting started and you're doing that
sort of validation where you're searchingin Google for the results, and then
you're going back and I would put thosenumbers, I would create the Google.
The keyword plan and then plugthose numbers into a Google sheet.
(16:44):
So you have that information.
So that's, that's pretty much it.
There are other keywordresearch tools out there.
Once you sort of get started with thebasics, you feel really comfortable
with keyword planner and doing thebrainstorming and everything, then
some other keyword research tools youmight want to add to your toolkit.
Are going to be paid tools.
(17:06):
There are tools like KeywordsEverywhere, which is a browser extension.
I use it in Chrome and it reallygives you additional information.
Uh, additional stats about the keywords.
And then there's also.
SEM rush or SEMrush.
However you want to call it.
Uh, and Moz, which is what I use.
I also use AI to help me with mykeyword research and I am going
(17:30):
to cover that in a future episode.
I let the AI know as much aspossible about my target audience
and my services and everything.
And then I have it give me suggestionsfor keywords that I can then research.
So, what do you do after youfind a bunch of keywords?
Well, then it's time to actuallystart using them in your content,
(17:52):
but I've already covered a lotin this episode and I don't want
to overwhelm you at this point.
So, if you are curious about using thosekeywords after you find them, writing
content with those keywords, doing what'scalled on page SEO and optimizing your
individual pieces of content for thosekeywords, once again, check out the SEO
(18:15):
Success Club that I mentioned earlier.
You can go to websitesuccessacademy.com.
If you go on the resources,there's actually a resource
there for the SEO success clubs.
So click on that.
It's not totally public yet.
I, I, I guess it is public 'causeI mentioned in this episode,
but it's not 100% ready yet.
I'm still building upthe content in there.
(18:37):
I'm taking my SEO action planand I'm making videos for every
single task in that action plan.
And I'm still working on that.
So it'll officially be officialin, probably in late August, but if
you're listening to this now, thisepisode is coming out in late July,
you can still sign up for it, checkit out and you can get access to
(18:59):
the stuff that's already in there.
You'll also get access toa members only community.
And I also do monthly Q&A.
I hope to eventually make those weeklyQ&A, but for now they are monthly.
So if you get in now, you'll getthe founding member price, which
is going to be really inexpensive.
Uh, just because you're sort ofpreviewing it and you also be able to
(19:19):
help me figure out what content to add.
What's going to be useful.
So again, go to awebsitesuccessacademy.com and
then go to resources to sign up.
All right before we wrap up, I do wantto recap the main steps that we covered.
So the first thing is going tobe to identify everything you can
about your business and about yourwebsite, so your offer, your
(19:40):
goals and your target audience.
If you can create an ICA.
Then I want you to brainstormyour initial keywords list.
Then try to think like yourcustomer and expand that list.
Then you're going to use Google'stools like the "people always
ask" and the suggested searches.
Then you're going to use Google's keywordplanner to get ideas about additional
(20:03):
keywords and get data on those keywords.
When you're doing that, you're goingto look for keywords that have a good
search volume and lower competition.
And then final step is going tobe to start incorporating those
keywords into your content.
So that's, that's pretty much it there.
I think I listed seven steps.
Now, if you're feeling inspired afterthis episode to dive right in and
(20:25):
start doing your keyword research,I got a little homework for you.
I want you to take 15 minutes thisweek to brainstorm your keyword ideas.
So start on that, that, well, beforeyou do that, figure out your target
audience, but after you've donethat, I want you to brainstorm some
keyword ideas for your business.
And don't worry so much about the datajust yet just get your ideas down and then
(20:46):
next time you're working on your website.
See if you can naturally incorporatesome of those keywords into your content.
That's all I've got today.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you found this helpful, don'tforget to subscribe to the podcast.
I'll continue doing additionalbeginner, friendly SEO tips and all
kinds of really good informationabout making your website successful.
(21:07):
If you have questions about keywordresearch, feel free to reach out, make
sure you've joined my Facebook groupWebsite Success Lounge, ask questions in
there, but until then, Happy researching.
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