By Rachel Feddema
Keywords are the terms and phrases that people enter into search engines to find answers and discover new things, and keyword research is the process of figuring out which keywords are high ranking (frequently used) for a particular topic.
If we utilize high ranking and relevant keywords in our online writing, it can make it easier for our content to be found by those searching for it, make it more relevant to our audience, and help improve website search engine rankings.
- Inspiration
Running out of ideas? Not sure what the next hot topic is? Look no further than Google Trends, where Google shares insights on the searches that are trending around the world. Browse through highlighted trends, compare different keywords, and search specific topics to get an idea of how they have trended over the past months or years.
2. Stay Relevant
By discovering what keywords are used by those actively searching for your topic, you can create content that better serves your audience. We might have a rough idea of the keywords used for a particular topic, but sometimes the keywords that have the highest volumes (meaning the most commonly and frequently searched) can surprise us. There are many free tools available that will help you discover new keywords and understand their ranking.
- Use Soovle to get an idea of the top queries used on multiple platforms like Wikipedia, YouTube, and Google all in one place.
- Experiment with tools like Semrush Keyword Magic (sign up required), Ahrefs Keyword Generator or WordStream Keyword Tool to see related keywords and get a better idea of the volume of searches behind each.
- Try HIgher Visability’s Keyworddit to discover what is being searched within subreddits on Reddit to find the searches commonly performed by niche audiences.
3. Optimize for Bots
Your top priority is writing for human readers, but by embracing keywords, you also can increase the search engine optimization (SEO) of your content. Search engine bots scan through every website and by including high volume keywords in your copy, you can help the bots recognize your content as relevant to your topic. The number of times the keywords appear is referred to as keyword density. The goal is to have your main keywords and a few keyword variants appear throughout your text sounding natural. There is no official rule for the best SEO keyword density, but a good rule of thumb would be 1-2% which is one to two keywords per 100 words. There are many tools available to check your keyword density such as SEO Review Tools or Small SEO Tools.
