What is Keyword Research and Why You Need it?

Keyword research is a research technique used by content creators and SEO experts. It helps you discover words users enter into search engines to find content, products, and services in your industry.

You can then use those words and phrases into your website to get more search traffic.

Many beginners assume that they have a clear idea of what their users are looking for. However, you don’t need to make educated guesses when there are powerful tools available that can help you make data-driven decisions.

Properly using keyword research as a part of your content strategy can help you achieve the following:

• Find the popular keywords your users are actually looking for
• Find content ideas that are easy to rank for and have decent search volume
• Find out what your competitors are doing and then beat them to it with a better content strategy
• Get more search traffic and grow your audience with each new article

That being said, let’s take a look at how to properly do keyword research for your WordPress blog and boost your search traffic.

We have hand-picked the best keyword research tools that we have personally used for our own projects. We will show you each one of them and how to properly use them to do your own keyword research like a pro.

1. SEMRush

SEMRush is one of the best SEO Tools on the market. It is the complete SEO suite with tools to perform organic research, paid advertising research, keyword research, and in-depth competition analysis.

To get started, simply go to SEMRush website and enter a keyword or your website URL.

You will see an overview of the keyword you entered showing search volume (number of average searches), CPC for paid advertising, and number of search results.

Scroll down a little and you will see an overview of keywords matches and related keywords. You can click on the view full report button to explore the complete lists or export them to a CSV file.

Scroll down further and you will see the list of top search results for the keyword you entered. You can click on each of these links to view full report which will help you understand why these pages rank for these keywords.

You can also use their new ‘Keyword Magic Tool’ which gives you faster access to broader keyword research on related terms. You can click on the add button next to a keyword to add them into keyword analyzer.

Once you have figured out the best keywords with highest search volume, the next step would be to analyze competition for those keywords. Click on the links already ranking for those keywords to see a detailed analysis.

You will be able to see the backlinks for that particular URL, other keywords that page rank for, and how much search traffic it gets.

Overall, SEMRush is the best keyword research tool on the market. It not only gives you keyword ideas, it also helps you find out how you can rank for those keywords.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the most powerful keyword research tools on the market. It helps you learn why your competitors are ranking so high, and what you need to do to outrank them in search results.

Ahrefs crawls more than 6 billion pages every day, with over 12 trillion links in their index from 200+ million domain names. That’s a lot of data, but the real beauty is how their platform helps you use this data to your advantage.

It has an intuitive user interface which breaks down all the data into different sections. Simply enter a domain name in the search field and Ahrefs will pull a wealth of information in an easy to understand format.

It will show you an overview of the results with the total number of backlinks, referring domains, organic keywords, and content review. You can click on any of these sections to drill down further.

Click on ‘Organic Keywords’ report and Ahrefs will show you a list of keywords for the domain name with search volume, search rank, URL, and more.

You can also generate keyword ideas by entering keywords in the search box. Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool will generate a list of keyword suggestions with search volume, difficulty score, and clicks.

Ahrefs also comes with powerful tools for content analysis, rank tracking, web monitoring, and more. You can export all reports in CSV or PDF format and then work on them in your favorite spreadsheet software.

3. AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic is a free visual keyword research and content ideas tool. It utilizes Google and Bing’s auto-suggest feature and presents the data in a more understandable visual format.

Simply visit the website and enter a keyword or phrase. The tool will then load keywords and present them into visual maps. Reports are divided into questions, prepositions, comparisons, alphabetical, and related keywords.

You can click on any keyword and it will show Google search results in a new browser tab. This allows you to quickly view the questions people are searching for, and how you can answer them with relevant content.

All keyword research is presented on a single page. You can download the data in visual format as images or export them to a CSV file and use with your preferred spreadsheet software.

More Keyword Research Tips

All the above-mentioned tools will provide you a treasure trove of data. Here are some more tips on how to narrow down your keyword research and find the most profitable ideas.

• Start your keyword research with broader keywords and then narrow it down to find keywords with low competition and more search volume.
• Enter your own URL in SEMRush or Ahrefs to see your own keyword performance and then compare it with your competitors.
• Focus on finding keywords that answer your customer’s questions and help them make a buying decision.
• Don’t limit your keyword research to most searched keywords. You can easily rank for longer keywords and build upon that.

How to apply keyword research in your business or blog?

The main goal of keyword research is to find out what your customers are looking for and then rank for those keywords in search results. There are multiple ways to do that depending on your content strategy.

• Plan a proper content marketing strategy around your new keyword research
• Create useful content articles, blog posts, infographics, videos, and more using those keywords.
• Business websites can create landing pages, documentation, FAQs and other content targeting new keywords
• If you run an online store, then you can use those keywords in your product titles, descriptions, product categories, and more.

Need help creating engaging content? Check out our expert pick of the best content marketing tools and plugins.

How do I track the performance of my keyword research?

First, you need to sign up for Google Search Console. It provides you insights into how Google views your website. You will also be able to see keywords you rank for, and average position in search results.

You will also need Google Analytics to track the performance of your content. MonsterInsights is the easiest way to install Google Analytics in WordPress. It shows you top content in your WordPress dashboard and enables you to track user engagement on your website.

We hope this article helped you learn how to do keyword research for your WordPress blog. You may also want to see ultimate step by step WordPress SEO guide for beginners.

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