Importance Of Keyword Research Before Content Writing

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Introduction of Keyword

When a user types some words on a search engine to find out something, these words are called keywords. Therefore, to understand the interest of the target audience, it is important to know what they are searching for online. Thus, the concept of ‘Keyword Research’ originated in the field of content writing. As we know, the world is going digital where the traditional ways of sales and purchase of products are now excessively going online, thereby increasing competition in the market.

So, business enterprises must market their products in such a way so that they are visible to the end-user for purchase. The only solution for this is the proper keyword research for that particular item and then, including those keywords carefully in the content writing process of the same.

What is Keyword Research in Content Writing?

In this paragraph, we will discuss why keyword research is important for content writers. As the term suggests, researching, or the process of finding out the most common keywords which people use to type in the search engine, is the concept of keyword research. By doing this activity, you can easily find out the requirements of customers who are searching for products or services online that can be related to your product or service.

In other words, keyword research helps you to find out your target audience.

Once you discover the related keywords to your product, then you can use that particular keyword in the process of content writing of your product, service, or information. As a result, when people search for something by entering that keyword in the search engine, your content will rank higher on the webpage. Thus, keyword research helps you to fetch organic traffic to your website or content. 

Keyword research is important for content writing because it tells us about – 

1. People’s requirements of product or service related to your offerings.
2. Types of keywords people are entering on search engines to find those products or information.
3.  The time-frequency of that search online. 
4. The level of competition to rank on a webpage related to that particular keyword. 

The above points are the reasons to curate the content in the lines of SEO. It is ideal to first do proper keyword research related to the product and then go ahead with the content writing process so that the content can be SEO Optimized and ranked on Google.

You can enroll yourself in a content writing course by Henry Harvin to learn the art of infusing keywords while writing content for a blog or website. In other words, this course will help you understand the concept of keyword research, its importance and will equip you with the necessary skills required to make content SEO-optimized by proper use of relevant keywords.   

Role of keywords in SEO

Now, what is SEO? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a practice to improve the ranking of your website or content on the search engine result page. How to do this? The answer is simple, just by optimizing the content of your website according to the search engine so that your website ranks on top results.

SEO is all about keywords, the proper use of keywords, and optimizing content. Without keyword research, SEO is not possible. Similarly, without putting those keywords in content, the content writing will not be that effective in bringing a crowd to your webpage.

People use Google to search for something or when they want to know something. Any answer they are looking for, they just open google and type on the search bar to get an answer to that intent.

Intent search falls into the following areas –

1. They are looking for some information. (e.g.What is the largest continent in the world?)
2. They want to do something. (e.g. How to make a YouTube channel?)
3. They want to go somewhere. (e.g. What is the best hill station near me?)
4. They want to buy something. (e.g. What is the best brand to buy a digital camera?)   

For this, people may enter a single word or a group of words. Now in SEO, those words entered are the ‘keywords’ which you need to find out to optimize your content. Next time, when the users enter the same keyword, your webpage will be visible to them because you have used those keywords in the content of the same.

Why is Keyword Research important before Content Writing?

As discussed above, we have understood that it is a smart way to first discover the relevant keywords on search engines and then use those keywords in writing the content of the related product and service.

 Now, let’s discuss the benefits of keyword research for content writing –

1. It tells you the questions of the target audience

By doing Keyword research, you get to know what questions your target audience is asking on Google. By knowing what’s in their mind, you can curate the content in such a way that will answer their questions. Suppose the product you’re selling is a mobile phone and when you do keyword research for this product, you find that most people who are searching for a mobile phone online are typing “ Mobile phone with long-lasting battery”. Now you know that customers are looking for a battery feature in mobile phones. So, now you know the keyword “long-lasting battery. You can plant this keyword number of times in the product’s content, so that whenever the user searches it with the same keyword, Google will show your product to the audience.

2. To engage the audience

When a user searches for a product or service, they have a lot of questions in their mind and they try to get answers to those questions by searching online. You can find out all these questions by keyword research and then write your product’s content in such a way that will answer all their questions, thereby making the audience engaged with your product. 

3. It gives new ideas to write content

Detailed keyword research will help you to know the requirements of customers. Sometimes, this process reveals information that you didn’t know before and gives you more ideas to write your product’s content. The more you dig keyword research, the more ideas to write content you will get.

4. To write SEO-optimized content

SEO is the most important thing in the digital marketing of products and services. In On-Page SEO, content plays a significant role. Whether the content is optimized or not, largely depends upon the correct usage of relevant keywords within the content. The main goal of effective content writing is to rank top on search engine results pages. Thus, the strategically placed keywords while content writing will improve its SEO ranking.

5. To route more traffic on the website

Keyword research will get you the pulse of the target audience. Using this information in the product’s content is definitely going to make it rank on Google, and when this happens, more users will see your page and thus, drive more traffic to your website. The traffic will be organic and as a result, you can get loyal customers.

6. Understanding competition

With keyword research of the product, you will get to know the competitiveness of that particular keyword. Is your rival also using the same keywords?  Are competitors ranking by using those keywords? You will get these answers by keyword research activity. Therefore, it will help you to get competitive on Google to rank your website too.

Types of keywords

 Whatever a user is typing on the search bar are keywords. Now, it can be a single word or a group of words entered for different purposes or queries. Broadly keywords are divided into 3 groups based on queries or intent.

Keywords on the basis of intent are –

• Informational query keywords – Keywords entered to satisfy this query are to find information about a product or service.
• Navigational query keywords – in this category, the user enters keywords when he wants some information about a site or a brand.
• Transactional query keywords – Here, the keywords are entered when the user wants to buy something online.

Keywords on the basis of length are – 

• Short-tail keywords – These keywords are small, of one to two words. Consequently, they are common in nature. Short tail keywords are mostly searched and that is why they have high competition also.
• Medium-tail keywords – these keywords consist of 4 to 5 words, are a little specific, and are medium in length. The competition and search frequency is also medium, not too low, not too high. 
• Long-tail keywords – These keywords are quite long with 7 or more words. Entered like a sentence, that is why they are more specific. These keywords are entered in low volumes, thus low competition.

So, in content writing, you have to select which type of keyword you want to place in the content to achieve the desired results.

Step-by-step process of Keyword Research For Content Writing

So, we have learned all about keywords, their importance, and their types. Now let’s find out how to do keyword research in the first place. The process is – 

1. Perform Business Analysis

The first step is to analyze the business to find out the product category, target audiences, their demography, and other parameters. Business analysis helps us to find out answers to the following questions – 

• Niche category of business
• Target Audience
• Places or locations you want to rank
• The goal of Research is to rank
• Category of the product – Making a separate category or subcategory of each product to avoid duplication of keywords.

2. Brainstorming to find out relevant keywords

Next, we have to brainstorm to find out the related keywords. As products are categorized, it is easy to focus on targeting potential keywords of that particular product. Suppose the business is of mobile phones and the company is making different types with different features. So first, we will categorize all the products and then start searching for keywords for each mobile phone as the keywords will be different for each one. Assume we are doing keyword research for the product Redmi Note 10.

So, the different keywords we can get after brainstorming could be –

• Redmi Note 10 features
• Price Redmi Note 10
• Redmi Note 10 price in India
• Buy Redmi Note 10
• Redmi Note 10 reviews
• Buy Redmi Note 10
• Redmi Note 10 online

Listed above are the most common keywords which the target audience might be searching online. But we don’t know the search volume and competitiveness of these keywords. To find out we have to use keywords research tools.

3. Using keyword research tools

In this step, we have to do detailed research to find out the actual potential keywords related to our business. This research will give us real-time data on mostly entered keywords on Google with its search volume and competitiveness. To do this, there are many tools available in the market. But, the most commonly used free tool is Google Keyword Planner. 

The steps of using Google Keyword Planner are – 

• Firstly, go to Google Ads and log in to your account.
• Secondly, go to the tools and settings option and click on Keyword Planner.
• Then, press on the ‘Discover New Keywords’ option on the menu. 
• Enter the target keyword and then on ‘get results’.

Lastly, you will see all the relevant keywords for that product entered by users based on their interest, search volumes, time frame, and competition level. You can easily remove the columns which are irrelevant to you. This list is simplified with all the potential keywords.

4. Analyzing Keywords

Once we get the list of all relevant keywords, the next step is to analyze all of them and select the most relevant ones to use in content writing. It is a crucial task as choosing the best keyword is necessary for the website to rank. A lot of research is to be done for narrowing down to the most relevant keywords from all the given ones. Keywords are selected by analyzing various parameters like the number of times it has been searched on search engines, the time frame, keywords used by competitors, etc.

5. Selection of keywords

Based on step 4, you will be able to shortlist the relevant keywords to be included in the content. These keywords are best suited as they have high search volume with low competition. These keywords can be short, medium, or long-tail but will be the best ones for the relevant product.

Best Keyword Research Tools

A keyword research tool is a software that is commonly used by professionals for search engine optimization (SEO). This tool helps them to discover the most common keywords which enter in the search bar for a related product, service, or information. A keyword research tool is a powerful software that displays all the aspects of an entered keyword in terms of its usage per month, other related keywords, the location where that keyword has been searched more.

Hence, there are several keyword research tools available in the market to make this task convenient. You can select anyone depending upon your choices and gambit of work.

Following are the most common keyword research tools – 

1. Google Keyword Planner

It is the most commonly used keyword research tool offered by Google for free. Chiefly, most of the searches in the world are done on Google search engine, this tool ensures to give you the most accurate results. As the data comes directly from Google, it is one of the best choices of business websites. This tool helps us to do keyword research by showing its search volume in different locations, most popular keywords, etc.

2. SEMrush

It is the strongest tool for keyword research meant for SEO purposes. It is like a Swiss army knife with many options in one source. Rather than generating a list of keywords, this tool produces a list of 5 to 10 keywords that your rivals are using. SEMrush keyword tool has many features like discovering long-tail keywords, updating yearly trends in keywords, analysis of keyword difficulty, and access to full keyword research toolkit. You can have a free 7-day trial from SEMrush, after that, you can opt from any of their 4 available plans starting from $99 to $375, depending upon the type of features required by you.     

3. Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

For content writers, Ahrefs is the best tool for keyword research available in the market. It can provide you with broad results for more than 1000 keyword suggestions, a detailed overview of the Search Engine Result Page (SERP), available in more than 171 countries, displays correct keyword difficulty score, and also shows click metrics for CTR. They offer a trial period of 7 days for $7 and have different pricing plans for freelancers, medium organizations, online advertisers, and big brands starting from only $82 per month.  

4. KWFinder

It is a tool that is created by a developer known for delivering the best keyword research across the world, Mangools. It is a pretty easy user interface with an option to choose from a list of powerful keywords, easy to find keywords for any language and for any location, detailed stats of keyword competition, SERP Overview, availability of different filters to refine the keyword results. You will get only a few free searches and then you need to subscribe to any of their 3 plans starting from $30 to $80.  

5. GrowthBar

GrowthBar is such a keyword research tool for those who don’t have much time or are always in a hurry like bloggers and marketers, who want quick results by displaying keyword difficulty and suggestions in search results. There is a great feature in this tool that helps content writers in getting content outlined with AI  for their blogs and websites in just one click. It can add a header, footer, images, show word count, and many more features. Besides, it can trace the keyword rank on search engines, suggest you with the long-tail keyword, and can export keyword data with accurate results of ranking difficulty. GrowthBar offers a 7-day free trial as well as you can choose any of their 2 available plans ranging from $29 per month to $79 per month.  

Thus, you can make use of any keyword research tool available in the SEO marketplace to find out the best keyword for your product, service, or information. To select the best option, first, analyze your budget and then consider your business strategic plan for SEO.

Conclusion 

Finally, shared with you all the details regarding keyword research in this article. It may seem a lot of information to grasp if you are starting to do keyword research as a content writer for the first time. But, once you start with the process, it will not take you much time to understand the concept and with the help of a proper keyword research tool, your work will be simplified to some extent.

As a beginner, it may take you some time to understand the world of keyword research and its terms, but soon enough, you will catch your speed as you keep going forward in this area. Remember, content writing without proper keyword research will not yield enough results. The time spent on researching the best keywords, to optimize the content of your website or blog, will be of great worth as it will surely get you a hike in the organic traffic to your posts.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)  

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