How To Do Keyword Research In 2022

The Best Way To Do Keyword Research In 2022

By Arsalan HaroonPublished 2 years ago • 8 min read

In the 2000s, most websites do keyword stuffing to increase their website ranking for higher search traffic on Google.

Today, If you do keyword stuffing, Google will more likely catch you and penalize your website. Keyword stuffing may have worked for you in the past. But in SEO, what worked yesterday won't work today. So you have to know how to do keyword research in 2022 to improve ranking on your keywords.

Before diving into how to do keyword research. Let's learn What keyword research is and why keyword research is necessary for 2022.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the process of finding words that the audience is searching for on a search engine and, you use those keywords in your website to increase your chances to rank on those keywords.

Why is keyword research important?

If you don't find a keyword, the audience is searching for it in the search engine. You may rank for keywords that aren't getting any traffic. Keyword research still plays a critical role in ranking websites on Google.

Most people have misconceptions about keyword research. One of them is Google has an advanced algorithm. So it can automatically pick keywords on your website and rank you on search results.

Although Google indeed has an advanced algorithm that can automatically pick a keyword and rank you on search results.

But the big problem is that Google may rank you on keywords that aren't receiving any traffic on search results. So even if you rank on those keywords, it doesn't give you any search traffic.

Doing Keyword research is still a great way to pick keywords that can increase your search traffic and rank on those keywords.

There are many free and paid keyword research tools you can use to get keyword ideas to rank on top search results. Some of them are.

Free keyword research tools

Paid keyword research tools

Before using those keyword research tools to find keywords, You have to know what to look for in a keyword to select the valuable keyword for your website.

If you are a new or very low-traffic website, you should focus on those characteristics. Without them, you won't rank on top search results.

So what are the characteristics to look for in a keyword to get a higher ranking in Google?

Volume
Relevancy
Keyword difficulty
CPC(Cost per click)

Volume

Volume means how many searches a keyword has on the search engine. Every website wants to target keywords with high volume, Which means more traffic.

But the problem is high-volume keywords generally have more competitive websites that already ranked on that keyword. So it would be hard for a new website to rank on that higher volume keywords.

You have to focus on keywords with a minimum of 100 or 50 search volumes. It is the right place to start and rank your website on these keywords.

When you already rank for keywords that are easier to rank for. Then, You should start focusing on competitive keywords.

In keyword research, You need to know that higher volume searches don't equal more traffic. You won't get high traffic because popular websites ranked on that keyword.

So you have to start with a low-volume keyword but remember it should have a minimum of 50 or 100 search volume.

Relevancy

Relevancy means how relevant your keyword is to the topic. You have to target keywords that are highly relevant to the topic. It increases your chances to rank on those keywords.

Keyword difficulty

Keyword difficulty tells you how difficult it is to rank on a particular keyword. If a high domain authority website is ranking on a keyword, it will be harder to increase the rank of a new website on that keyword.

In simple terms, domain authority means how much Google trusts a website the more popular a website, the higher the domain authority. Google trusts high DA websites more and ranks them more than new websites.

If you have a new website, you should target keywords with 0 to 40 keyword difficulty because you can easily rank on top search results.

CPC (Cost per click)

CPC (Cost per click) means how much websites pay-per-click to Google to rank on top search results. It is a critical metric to look at. If people are paying more to get ranked on a keyword, it may be providing more value to the website.

You have to look for a keyword that has a higher CPC. Typically that keyword provides higher value to the websites.

Competitors keyword analysis

Analyzing competitor keywords can be a great way to rank for keywords your competitors are ranking on, But you don't.

One of the best things about a competitor's keyword analysis is that you save a lot of hard work and time to find this valuable keyword.

You can use keywords everywhere to find what keyword your competition website is ranking on and put those keywords into your website as well.

Discovering competitors' keywords is one of the underrated keyword research tips. It can increase your chances to rank on those valuable keywords that your competitors work hard to find them.

Long-tail or short-tail keyword? Which is better?

Short-tail keywords are keywords that have two or fewer words in them. Long-tail keywords are keywords that have two or more words in them.

Short-tail keywords are bad, so it doesn't specify what the audience wants.

For example, If the audience is searching for a t-shirt. Then what type of t-shirt do people want? Do they want more information about t-shirts or do they want to buy them? T-shirts for men or women? There are so many questions that are unanswered by this short-tail keyword.

Short-tail keywords are typically harder to rank for because it has more competition than long-tail keywords. For example, the "T-shirt" keyword has more competition than a "black t-shirt for men".

These long-tail keywords will typically have less competition and, you more likely get traffic that is relevant for you.

If the audience is searching to buy a black t-shirt for men, mostly when somebody wants to buy something, they write long specific keywords. So it is more likely to increase your chance to convert your audience into customers.

Long-tail keywords typically have less volume than short-tail keywords. In long-tail keywords, the audience is specific about what they want.

A long-tail keyword is crucial for targeting a keyword that tells you exactly what the audience wants. You have to focus more on long-tail keywords than on short-tail keywords.

What to do after keyword research?

Knowing How to do keyword research is crucial. But if you want to rank on that keyword, you have to know where to put that keyword. It plays a big part in ranking websites on top search results.

If you find a valuable keyword, but you don't put it in a place where it needs to be. Then it's unlikely that you would rank on that keyword.

Some of the places to include your target keyword are.

Title tag

Putting your target keyword in your title tag is crucial because Google first analyzes your title then your content. So when you include your target keyword in your title tag, then Google will more likely rank you on that keyword.

Meta description

It is a description that appears below the title in SERP ( search engine result pages).

When somebody searches on Google, people only see your title tag and meta description. So by including your target keyword in the meta description. Google will notice this and more likely rank you on that keyword.

Alt image text

It describes to search engines what is in the images. If your target keyword is related to the image you have, include your target keyword in alt image text. It increases your image chances to rank on that keyword.

If your website images rank on a keyword, Google likely will rank your webpage on that keyword.

Starting of your content

When Google notices that you include the same keyword in your content, title, and meta description, It increases your chances to rank on that keyword.

Middle and ending of your content

By including your target keyword in your content, you significantly increase your chance to rank on that keyword.

Make sure you include your target keyword in both the middle and end of your content so that Google recognizes what keywords you want to rank on search results.

Conclusion

Most websites don't think that keyword research is still a crucial SEO step to increase rank on search results. Keyword research still plays a critical role in ranking websites on Google.

But you should not expect that you get top ranking on Google by just doing keyword research. Although, keyword research will increase your chances to rank on Google.

It is not the only SEO technique that you would do to rank on top search results. You have to do other SEO techniques to get a top ranking on Google.

Continue Reading:

Top 4 Underrated SEO Techniques

Top 4 Google Ranking Factors In 2022

How To Increase Google Traffic in 2022

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