If you are an SEO writer (or an intending SEO writer), you must have heard about keyword research.
Do you know how important keyword research is? the benefits are mind-blowing.
This article is tailored to help you, as a reader understand what keyword research is all about, its importance in SEO content writing and how you can carry out keyword research.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the action of finding popular search terms regularly used by people who type into search engines like Google. The aim is to include them strategically in content so that the content stands a chance to appear on a search engine results page.
This also involves the process of identifying the popularity and volume of these target keywords and their SEO difficulty.
Why is SEO keyword research important?
Several reasons account for the need to carry out SEO Keyword research and they are:
- To know and understand what people are searching for. This will help you to tailor your content to suit the needs of your audience. You will not have to spend time and resources on what is not needful or appealing to your audience. In SEO writing, what matters more is what your audience needs and not what you can write or what you think they need.
- To know the SEO difficulty of the word/topic you intend to rank for on search engines or write on respectively.
- As an SEO writer, keyword research aims to create content that will rank higher on Search Engines and also appeal to the needs of search engine users. One good way of doing that is to identify low-competition keywords and create content around them. Keyword research makes this possible.
- Keyword research also helps in generating content ideas.
How to do keyword research before writing content
There are various methods and tools through which keyword research can be carried out. In this section, my focus will be on how Ubersuggest is used to carry out keyword research.
There are two ways of carrying out keyword research using Ubersugest.
The first method is to visit https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/
Enter the keyword you have in mind into the space provided as indicated in the picture above and choose your target country and click on “search”.
In the picture, the keyword I entered was “foreign foods” and the search volume, SEO difficulty, and cost per click are seen above.
The search volume: is the number of searches the word has in a month.
The SEO difficulty is the estimated competition the word has in searches. The number 84 is quite high. It means many domains already rank well and have good authority in this area and it will be quite hard to rank well on the search engine optimization page.
It is best to have a keyword with SEO difficulty between 0 and 49. The lesser the number, the better the chances of ranking high for the keyword.
The trick is this, find words with good search volume (the higher the better), lesser SEO difficulty, and a good cost per click.
The cost per click is the amount you get to earn for every click you get on your blog. So, we can say keyword research also helps you make better decisions that can help you get good revenue just from owning a blog.
Scrolling down on Ubersuggest’s page you would find keyword ideas and content ideas. Filter them to find the keywords you could work on.
The second method you could apply to use Ubersuggest is to install the extension.
Look to the left side of the page. Click on “chrome extension”
The video will help you understand how to install the extension.
Click “Add to chrome”. Then, follow the process. Ensure you log in to Ubersuggest to use the extension.
Adding Ubersuggest as an extension gives you access to up to 100 searches per day. You can also hide the extension when you are not using it and you are trying to conserve your searches.
RELATED ARTICLE: How to Use SEO in Content Writing (Step-by-Step Guide)
Note that free users of Ubersuggest get 3 free searches per day. If you want to get more, you should upgrade your account.
How to use keywords in SEO content writing
The best way to use keywords is to naturally use them. What do I mean by that? Knowing fully well that your keyword has to occur in your content as often as possible makes it tempting to keyword stuff your article.
You just want to put your keyword anywhere and almost everywhere; whether it is appropriate or not. However, doing this will most likely not earn you the desired result.
Never Keyword stuff your content!
All you need do is to write naturally with the keyword in mind. Focus on the topic and you will eventually find out that your keyword appeared as often as necessary without making a conscious attempt to do so.
SEO Content Writing Dos and Don’ts
There are rules to follow when writing SEO Content.
1. Create original content. Do not plagiarise.
2. Use keywords in your article.
3. Ensure your headline is compelling and appealing. Your headline is one of the foremost things most visitors will see before they head to visit your site and read your content. Therefore, you should put enough energy into getting the right headline. Your headline must contain your keyword.
4. Write to please your readers and not just the search engine. Do not write like you are writing for a robot. SEO is needed to know what to write so it is important. However, it is more important to cater for your readers by giving them what they need.
5. Properly outline your work. Don’t muddle everything up. Organize your content. Add enough spaces, have an introduction, a body with subheadings when appropriate and a great conclusion.
6. Do not forget to properly edit your work when you are done.
7. Write comprehensively. Ensure you provide long content. The goal is to provide your readers with enough information and answers they need. This means you will have to write as much as is needed.
However, never augment your work with irrelevancies.
To have long content posts, you may be tempted to add irrelevant content or keep rephrasing words but it will be bad to do that. Your readers will most likely not enjoy reading such content. Do enough research and write comprehensively.
8. Add high-quality images to your work. Beware of using copyrighted images. There are sites you could get free images from. One of which is stock adobe. Others are Pixabay and Pexels.
Key Takeaways
- Learning to carry out keyword research is very important in writing SEO Content.
- Ubersugest is a great Keyword research tool.
- Ubersuggest can either be used by visiting the site or by adding it as an extension to chrome.
- Never Keyword Stuff your article. Be natural in your writing.
