Finding high-volume search terms itself is not enough. You need to ensure that the SEO keywords used in your content matches with your brand, product, or service to the keywords that your customer use. And this is where keyword research happens.
Once you have performed adequate and thorough research, only then will you be able to craft a viable SEO strategy. With a good strategy, you can then create a detailed plan of action to achieve your goals.
For example, if you are in the business of leasing out vacation homes, you may choose your focus keyword as “vacation house.” However, by doing a quick keyword research, we find out that the keyword ‘vacation home’ is much better to use in terms of search volume data. Think from the Customers’ Perspective The first step in finding the right keywords for your new website is to brainstorm and think about how your users could find you. If you already have customers, you could ask them what would be the keywords that they use if they are looking for your business. If not, place yourself in the customer’s shoes and ask yourself – “what keywords would I use?”.
Build a List of Keywords Around your Services
The keywords that you target should be built around the services that you offer. If you have multiple services, you could list down keywords for each service. Let’s say you own an IT company that offers web development, hosting, and cloud management services. You could build keywords for each service to attract more users.
Scout the Competition
Taking a look at the keywords your competitors rank for is one of the easiest ways to get keyword ideas. If you don’t have tools yet, you could go to your competitors’ websites and take a quick scan of the page titles of their landing page and blog posts. That way, you’ll have an idea of the keywords that they are proactively trying to rank for.
Keep in mind that this is just for getting ideas. Some or maybe most of your competitors might have been doing SEO way before you so they might be ranking for high volume and high difficulty keywords but that doesn’t mean you should go for those as well.
Focus on Low-Hanging Fruits
This is where we put easy wins but relevant wins to action. There are three types of keywords fathead, chunky middle, and long-tail keywords. I won’t delve in too much on these but what you need to know is the higher the volume, the more difficult it is to rank for. The keyword I gave a while ago, ‘24/7 gym’, that’s a fathead keyword or broad keyword. The monthly search volume for this keyword is tempting for sure. But it’s hard to identify the intent of the person searching for these types of keywords
That’s why for new websites, targeting chunky middle and long-tail keywords are the way to go. Chunky middle keywords are phrases while long-tail keywords are very specific search queries and mostly come in question form.