How to Do Keyword Research to Improve Your Website's SEO

You’ve invested a ton of time and money into building a beautiful website for your business. Maybe you’ve even written some blog posts. 

But why is no one looking at it?

There might be one simple reason: they don’t know it exists.

To enhance your brand’s visibility that leads more business, you need an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. And it all starts with keyword research. 

What is Keyword Research?

Keywords are words or phrases a user inputs into a search engine like Google to find an answer or information. They are also the building blocks that provide the foundation for SEO. 

Does SEO really matter that much? 

The short answer? Yes. And I’ve written about its importance and how you can improve your website’s SEO here. 

An effective SEO strategy allows you to:

• Boost organic traffic to your website

• Increase visibility for your business online 

• Provide better customer service

• Earn more leads and ultimately more sales and revenue

In the old days, marketers used to game search engines by stuffing web pages full of keywords, whether they actually made sense or not. 

Today? Search engine algorithms have gotten much smarter. Randomly inserting keywords into your site won’t cut it.  In fact, it can actually hurt you as Google has gotten pretty good at figuring out when you’re “keyword stuffing” and will penalize you for it.

So how can you ensure that people find your business online? 

By learning to speak the same language your audience is using, also known as keyword research. 

Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing words or phrases your target audience enters into search engines to find websites like yours. 

It’ll help you uncover details like:

• Potential organic traffic your content can get

• Whether people are using the search terms

• The difficulty of ranking on search engines using a specific keyword

• The type of content people are looking for when using the keyword

Why is Keyword Research Important for SEO?

Without good keywords, your website won’t rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Search engines retrieve relevant information based on a user’s search query. The primary focus is to connect the user to the website(s) that provides the best answer to their query. 

This is the core principle underlining SEO. 

Given this understanding, think of keywords as clues. If you knew exactly what your customer needed or how they felt, how would that change your business? How would you change your marketing strategy to meet their needs? 

Good keyword research allows businesses like yours to connect with their target audience – and potential customers. 

In other words, keyword research is the foundation for building content that your ideal client is searching for and fulfilling their needs.

What Makes a Good Keyword?

If you don’t use good keywords, your site won’t appear in search engine results pages. Most people don’t click beyond the first page of results, so ensuring that your site ranks at or close to the top is critical. 

Additionally, choosing the right keywords is essential for attracting the right customer. For example, the keyword “therapy” is far too generic. But “physical therapy in (location)” or “back pain treatment” is much more targeted and relevant.

Here’s our guide to choosing good keywords.

Search Volume

Search volume is the number of searches a keyword gets on search engines. You may end up ranking first for a particular keyword or phrase, but what if no one is searching for it? 

There’s no point in optimizing for keywords that nobody is typing in if it won’t drive traffic to your site. 

But you don’t want to choose keywords that have a very high search volume either. That means your website will face stiff competition, often with competitor sites that are already well established. 

Consider the term “website templates” for example. 

“Website templates” gets a lot of searches, but with a high difficulty score of 72, it’d be difficult to grab the top spot. 

But if you use the keyword “squarespace templates,” you might have a better chance of ranking higher.

You want to achieve a balance in selecting keywords that have a search volume that is significant enough, but not too high.

Keyword Relevance

Keyword relevance, then, is the significance or value of a keyword to your business. It helps a search engine’s algorithm analyze the topics covered on your website. 

Your keyword choices must represent the topics relevant to your brand, service, or product. 

And while the exact algorithms used to remain a mystery, we do know keyword relevancy plays an important role in your brand becoming a topical authority. 

Choosing keywords relevant to the topic of your brand helps draw in your target audience, too. By being diligent about keyword relevancy, you’ll improve your brand’s visibility and attract leads that are more likely to convert into customers.

Search Intent

Whenever you’re conducting keyword research, understanding search intent (also known as keyword or user intent) is important. This is the main purpose of a user when looking for information on a certain topic using a search engine. 

But why is this important? 

Because Google’s #1 goal is to deliver results that best match a user’s query. This means your content will only rank if it’s relevant – and if it provides significant value – to the searcher. 

Search intent also helps business owners stay focused. For example, let’s consider the query “website templates.” Is the user looking to create templates? Do they want to purchase website templates? Or maybe they want to learn how to sell templates. 

Simply put, search intent is everything. If your content lacks an understanding of search intent, you won’t achieve the results you’re dreaming of. 

Competition

SEO can help your content rank higher than your competitors’. But there’s a catch. As we discussed in the Search Volume section, high competitiveness means more people are using the same keyword for their content. 

And unless you have backlinks from hundreds, if not thousands, of other sources for the keyword, your chances of ranking high are slim. 

Ideally, you should look for keywords that have high search volume but low competition.

Authority

Does your voice matter?

Search engines use many factors when ranking pages, and authority is one of them. Out of the millions of pages available for ranking, Google’s algorithm looks for ones that are most likely to satisfy the user. 

That means you must do your best to provide accurate, helpful information. 

If you’re seen as a topical authority, you’ll have a higher chance of ranking at the top with your keywords. 

As a business owner in the health and wellness field, one great way to add authority to your site is including references from authoritative sources like PubMed to your blog posts. 

Another way is to get backlinks from other (hint: more established) websites. Backlinks are links from one website to another. Google loves backlinks. Think of them as “votes.” The more backlinks (“votes") you have from other websites to specific pages on your site, the more relevant and authoritative your content is in Google’s eyes. 

How to Do SEO Keyword Research

Now that you have a better understanding of SEO keyword research and its importance, let’s look at how you can get started. 

Step 1: Consider Your Target Audience

First and foremost, you need to understand your target audience. Yes, even before you optimize your content for Google. After all, everything should be about your audience and their needs and wants. 

Ask yourself these questions: 

• Who is most likely to buy from my business?

• What topics are my customers most likely searching for information on?

• Why are they looking for this information? 

• How can I add more value to my customers?

Try to look through your competitors’ blogs, comments on their social media, forums, and even platforms like LinkedIn to generate your ideas and keywords. 

Step 2: Start With Seed Keywords

Seed keywords are high-level, short keywords that can act as starting points. Think of seed keywords as guides to help you brainstorm ideas for topics you want to rank for. 

For example, let’s use “dog” as our seed keyword. “Dog” is such a broad topic that it would be incredibly difficult to rank your page. Instead, think of related topics, such as:

• Dog walking gear

• Dog food storage

• Best dog trainer

• Best dog food for sensitive stomach

It’s also important to pick phrases that people actually search for. Always keep in mind that people searching online are real people. A query like “women’s health + physical therapy + veganism” is not something that a lot of people would actually put into a search engine. 

A better, more realistic query would be something like “plant-based diet for beginners” or “natural remedies for hair loss.” 

We recommend coming up with 5 to 10 relevant topics that include your keyword. Look at your website and write down the main topics on a spreadsheet. The idea here is to just start. You can always refine the list later. 

Step 3: Research Related Search Terms

Now that you have your inventory of seed keywords and related topics, it’s a good idea to expand on them with related keywords. 

Google makes this step really easy. Type your keyword into Google, and you should see suggestions at the bottom. Here’s what comes up when searching for “women’s health”: 

Spend some time clicking through these suggestions. They’re often queries that people actually input into Google, so it’d be worth adding them to your inventory. 

Additionally, keyword tools like Google Trends can help you find long-tail keywords (queries composed of 3 or more words). Long-tail keywords can be better at attracting your target audience since they allow for greater insight into user intent.

Step 4: Study Niche Trends and Resources

As a health and wellness professional, you may have continuing education requirements to keep abreast of the latest knowledge in your field. 

In many ways, this step is similar. 

To develop your brand as a topical authority, it’s important to study up on the trends in your industry, topics people are discussing, and questions they may have. This will help you identify which keywords you should use for your SEO strategy.

Social media can make this task easy. Many thought leaders now have social media presence, so follow them and/or subscribe to their email lists to learn their views on certain topics. 

Step 5: Follow Your Competition

Your competitors’ websites are goldmines of valuable information. They’ve already done a lot of the research for you! 

Discovering keywords your competitors are trying to rank for is an opportunity to evaluate your list. If you find out that your competitor is ranking for keywords on your list, work hard on your strategy to rank your site as well. 

Don’t be so quick to eliminate keywords that your competitors aren’t targeting though. It’s worth conducting further research to find out why. And if there are keywords they missed, you could take advantage of the opportunity to fill in these content gaps. 

Following doesn’t mean copying. Just because your competitors do something, it doesn’t mean you have to do the same thing. 

Step 6: Analyze and Sort Your Keywords

Now that you have a raw list of potential keywords, it’s time to analyze them. 

For this step, we recommend using a keyword analysis tool. There are many available, but we recommend Ubersuggest, an SEO tool from online marketing expert, Neil Patel. 

Although you’ll have to pay to unlock all of the features in Ubersuggest, it is still much more affordable than other premium SEO tools. 

Here’s what makes Ubersuggest stand out from its competition:

• It’s user-friendly and easy to navigate 

• It suggests keywords and assigns them a search difficulty and search volume score

• It allows you to analyze your competition

• It can perform an SEO audit of your site, giving you helpful insights like keywords you rank for, critical errors, organic traffic, and backlinks 

As you analyze your keywords, these are some of the factors to consider:

• Search volume

• Search difficulty

• Traffic potential

• Search intent

Overall, look for the following winning combination:

• High search volume

• Low search difficulty

Step 7: Refine and Rank Your Keywords

We’re listing this as the last step, but it doesn’t have to be. You can refine and rank your list throughout the keyword research process. 

So, which keywords are the best to start with?

Consider the following questions:

• What is the purpose of your website? 

• Can this specific keyword give you the best return in the shortest amount of time?

• How difficult is it to rank with this keyword?

• Can this keyword help meet my business’s goals? 

You’ve Done Your Keyword Research – Now What?

SEO is not a one-and-done type of deal. How to do keyword research for your website is the starting point for a well-rounded and SEO-optimized website. It takes time to refine your strategies, and you may not see results right away. But the time invested is well worth it in the long run. And the benefits can continue to pay off for years to come. 

If your website is due for an overhaul, consider using our website templates that have been built with copy and SEO strategy in mind. 

Shop Well Sites’ pre-made Squarespace website templates — and come away with an elevated and strategic website for your business.

Here is a glimpse of a few of our templates available now:

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