What is Keyword Research?

Hello there my name is Martin Henley, this is the what the series and in this, episode number eight, we are answering the question What is Keyword Research?

In addressing this question what is keyword research? there are six things we’ll be sharing with you. We are going to Wikipedia for a definition of keyword research, we will be defining what is a search engine, we’re going to think about why you need to do keyword research, how you do keyword research, how you use the Google tools and when to do keyword research.

Let’s go Ricky.

Did we find a definition of keyword research?

If we are going to understand what keyword research is we’re going to need a definition and thankfully we found one at Wikipedia. Wikipedia tell us that keyword research is “a practice SEO professionals use to find and research alternative search terms that people enter into search engines while looking for a similar subject.”

Now, we are challenged a little bit here because we haven’t defined SEO or search engine optimization, that will be happening in a future video – and we haven’t actually defined at this point search engines but that will be happening in point number two. I’m going to make an adjustment to this definition, what I’m going to tell you is that keyword research is a really important part of your market research because it gives you the opportunity to see what people are searching for. So, I’m going to tell you that keyword research is a practice effective marketers use to find and research search terms that people enter into search engines whilst looking for products and services. We’re not interested at this point in the SEO aspect, we’re not interested in the alternative aspect we just want to know what it is that people are looking to buy online.

What is a Search Engine?

Before we move forward we do need understand the importance of this phrase – search engine. So we went to dictionary.com who tell us that “a search engine is a computer program that searches documents, especially on the world wide web, for a specified word and provides a list of documents in which they are found.” So we know that this is what a search engine is, you know that Google is a search engine and Yahoo and Bing, if you are in China you might be using Baidu if you are in Russia you might be using Yandex. You also know that Facebook is essentially a search engine and you know that YouTube is essentially a search engine. The important thing to know here about search engines is this is where people go for information, specifically they go to search engines for information about products and services when they are thinking about buying those products and services and especially if they don’t know where to source those products and services. So what we’re looking at here is a situation where people are demonstrating what it is that they want to buy and the search engines provide us with this information.  This is why keyword researh is so important to your market research, because what you want to know is what it is that people are looking to buy.

Why do you need to do keyword research?

So we’ve established that search engines are the place that people go when they are looking to buy things and they don’t know where to buy them. So the question now is why do you need to do keyword research?

The answer, the most important answer is because keyword research will tell you if your market exists – if people are searching for the things that you are looking to sell and they don’t know where to buy them. If there is an unsatisfied market, this is where you will be most successful as a marketeer. If people are not searching for the things that you’re selling it doesn’t matter how good or innovative your product is, you’re going to have to educate the market before they come to buy it and that is an expensive process. So keyword research is going to tell us if our market exists and what exactly it is that they’re searching for.

Now, the most important thing I’m ever going to say to you is this – be the thing that people are looking for. Your life will be so much easier as a marketer if you know that there is a market of people who are looking actively for the things that you are selling.

What we’re dealing with on search engines is proactive buyers. These people aren’t dreaming about owning these products and services, they are actively searching for the products and services that they are going to buy.

Your keyword research will tell you not only what they are searching for, it will tell you when they are searching.

Keyword research should inform the products that you develop and when to invest your marketing time, energy and money most effectively to get the results that you’re looking for.

How to do keyword research?

Now you’re understanding that you really should be doing some keyword research, now the question becomes how do you do keyword research?

Well, there are hundreds if not thousands of tools that will enable you to do keyword research. Tools like Wordtracker and Wordstream, SEO Book, Ubersuggest and AH Refs.

These different tools have different strengths. Wordtracker for example is brilliant at finding misspelled keywords, Ubersuggest is brilliant at finding what they call longtail keywords.

However, as I understand it these different services typically charge and most of this data originally comes from Google.

Because Google owns the search engine, because Google is plugged into 70% of the websites in the world, of course Google knows exactly what’s going on.

This is why my recommendation for you is that you look at three Google services.

How to use the Google keyword research tools.

We’re going to look at the Keyword Planner, we’re going to look at Google Trends and we’re going to look at Search Console which brings us then to point number five which is, if I’m recommending that you use Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends and Google Search Console how do you use these tools and what do you need before you can use these tools.

If you are going to use the Keyword Planner what you will need is a Google Ads account.  Google – Google Ads and it will take you to the account sign up pages. Google will demand that you put in your credit card detail and it will demand that you create a campaign straight off the bat, my recommendation is if you haven’t used these tools before cancel that campaign immediately – do not be spending money with Google at this point.

If you want to use Google Trends all you need to do is access the site. Google – Google Trends and you can start firing in keywords and seeing when people are searching for those keywords immediately.

If you are going to use Search Console what you’ll need is a website and you will need Search Console installed. If you’re not the technical type you might need your web developer to install that for you, certainly my web developer installs it on my websites.

So now what’s going to happen is we’re going to look at these tools and how you should be using them.

This is what Google Ads looks like, you get here by googling Google Ads. Once you have created your account, created your campaign AND DELETED YOUR CAMAIGN what you need to do is head here to the tools and settings button. Then select the Keyword Planner tool and select one of your accounts. Once you’re here you can discover new keywords. If for example we’re interested to know if there is a market for marketing we simply enter the word marketing and we get the results. What Google will now tell us is that in the United Kingdom, there are 27,100 searches on average per month for the phrase marketing. So this is suggesting already that there is a market for marketing and Google will give us lots and lots and lots of other suggestions which might support us to think more carefully about what it is precisely that we want to be marketing ourselves for. For example the term “Marketing Agency” also gets 27,000 searches. “Digital Marketing” gets 22,000 searches. “Marketing Consultant” gets 4,800 searches. Because people are searching for marketing agency and people are searching for marketing consultant this suggests to me that people are happy to pay for these services because you pay for marketing agencies and you pay for marketing consultants.

What we’ve established in two minutes is that there is clearly a market of people who are looking to buy marketing services. Having established what people are looking for it’s now really interesting and useful to establish when they are looking so now we have come to Google Trends. Now we can do the same search here on Google Trends, we just enter the keyword, which in this instance is marketing and search for this term. What Google will tell us is when people search for the phrase marketing. We can see it’s pretty constant so this has gone on in the last year and the only time it slows down is Christmas week and in the middle of the summer holidays. If you’re in the northern hemisphere the time where it picks up and is at its highest is September, when people come back from their holidays. So we’re getting a sense already of when people search for this term. We can also drill this down and we look worldwide, or we can look in your particular country if your country is listed. Countries like Malta and Cyprus sometimes aren’t listed but for example if I’m interested in the United Kingdom then I can see exactly, a similar trend Christmas week people aren’t interested in marketing other than that they’re pretty interested all of the time. We can also change the time scale so we can see for example when people searched in the last hour, now the time in the UK right now is something like seven, actually five o’clock in the morning, so I wouldn’t expect there to be too many searches. But we can see that people have been searching in the last hour for the phrase marketing.

It might be interesting to look and at the last day and see when in the day people are searching for marketing. Interestingly they are searching from 8 in the morning is that the row till around no this is when the peek searches happen so what I’d be looking to do now is focus my marketing on those times.

We’ve established what it is that people are searching for and we are getting a sense of when they are searching. What I’m interested to do now is look at Search Console because Search Console will tell us what exactly it is that people are finding us for. This is what has happened on my website over the last three months. We can see that currently I am ranked in position 7.3, this is a global figure for the phrase Marketing Strategy Workshop and I’ve had 36 clicks for that particular search phrase.

It’s interesting that using these tools we can see what people are searching for, when they are searching and what they are actually finding us for.

When ashould you do keyword research?

Which brings us then to point number six, which is the final point, which is when to do your keyword research?

For me, if you’re thinking about starting a business, if you have an idea for a business now is the time to do your keyword research. Don’t ask your mom if she likes your product and she’s going to buy it, don’t ask your cousin’s, don’t ask your brother’s, don’t ask your sisters – because if they like you they will tell you it’s a great idea and you should do it.

Go and have a look at the search engines, go and have a look at the keyword tools and see if there is a market for the thing that you’re looking to provide.

If you’ve already started your business then now is a great time to be doing your keyword research. You should be doing this regularly. If you are looking at Search Console every month you will see the keyword terms that people are using to find you. You should be doing your keyword planning to go back to what the SEO professionals do which is to look at alternatives, other keyword phrases that people could be finding you for.

Did we cover keyword research adequately?

If you are still with us well done you now know exactly what keyword research is, you know what a search engine is – it’s where people go to buy things when they don’t know where to buy things, you know why you need to do keyword research, you know how to do keyword research – using the Google tools Google Keyword planner Google Trends and Search Console, and you know when to do your keyword research.

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We are done here Ricky