Keyword Research
What You Will Do
In this unit, you'll be further refining your list of keywords. You'll use the keyword research tools to get more ideas for keywords, and you'll be seeing how frequently they are used and how competitive they are. Armed with this new knowledge, you'll be picking your ten top keywords to base your optimization campaign on.
By the End of this Unit, you will be able to:
- Employ keyword analysis tools to refine a list of important keywords for a site
How to Proceed Through the Unit
- Read this Overview
- Read the Tutorials
- Do your assignment - see the instructions on the assignment page
Further Refining Our Keywords
Before you finalize your list of keywords, it's really important that you research them online. You'll want to know how many times people actually search for those terms, and also how competitive they are. It's important that people are actually using those terms to search on, but the terms that get the most interest may also be the hardest to get good rankings for. They could be very competitive. The ideal thing is to find terms that are the most relevant and specific to your site, are used the fairly often, and are also less competitive. Even if some terms are searched on less frequently, you might be able to make the top of the search engine rankings with them, and users will be happy to find your pages, because it's what they are looking for. They won't just leave immediately.
Fortunately, Bing, Mozilla and Google have research tools that can help you do keyword research. These research tools are really meant to help you choose adwords to bid on for their Pay Per Click ads. However, they also can help you decide which terms are worth optimizing your site for.
The list of free keyword tools is forever changing. The free tools are getting harder and harder to find. Fortunately, the Ninjas are keeping their information up to date. They even have negotiated a free 14-day trial of their favorite tool for us. It's called Semrush. The link to obtain the free trial is: https;//thankyouninjas.com
List of Keyword Tools from the Video Courses
Here are some of the keyword research tools from the video courses and a few more that we have added. You'll be trying to determine the volume of searches for each of your keywords and how difficult or competitive they are to rank highly on. Not all of these tools provide the competiteveness for each word, but many do. Many also have a host of other information and lots of suggestions for related keywords to try. You might have to sign up for a free account to use some of the tools. Some offer a free trial account which will work for the class.
Peter Kent tells how to use some of the research tools in his video course on Udemy. Here is a list of some of those tools plus a few more:
- Bruce Clay SEO Tools - There are both free and paid tools with explanations on how to use them.
Student reports: Easy to use and helpful - Bing Keyword Research Tool - Volume, trends and suggestions - also countries that get more hits on that keyword
- Wordtracker - Volume and competitiveness - can indicate country - Lots of suggestions
Student reports: Good reporting and suggestions, easy, explains what features are for, clear, more informative, gave me multiple alternatives with their corresponding results - Moz - has tools for volume and competitiveness - lots of good info
Student reports: Competitive rating is for SEO ratings - not just paid ads, easy, good suggestions - Keyword Discovery- gives volume and lots of suggestions for new versions of the keyword
Student reports: free, no competitiveness results - KeywordSpy - Analysis and reports on competitors
- SpyFu - Lots on Competitors, SpyFu offered in-depth analysis, which I found really helpful,
- SEMRush - Must have account to test - Tells how a keyword is trending
Student reports: free, shows competitiveness, more informative, seemed to have more detailed results - SEOMonitor - Volume and competitiveness
- Adwords.com - Help with using Google Ad Words
- WordStream - Shows number of searches and how competitive the keyword is
Student Reports: Free, clear results, easy to use, competitiveness ratings is for paid ads - SEO Book - I don't think it shows competitiveness, but not sure
Student reports: free - UberSuggest - Has both the volume and the competitiveness/difficulty
Student Reports: Get 3 free word searches per day - otherwise must pay for the service. Competiveness is both for paid ads and SEO results. Easy to use and good alternative keywords. Must remember to cancel after your free trial period. - Google AdWords Keyword Planner -
Student reports: Easy to add in multiple keywords and compare
Here is a list of the Keyword Analysis tools from the SEO Foundations Course by David Booth on Linked-In Learning:
- Moz Keyword Explorer - There is a free 30-day trial
- Google Trends - What keyword searches are trending - not for volume and competitive ratings
- Keywords Everywhere - Keywords Everywhere is a browser extension that helps you with SEO, content marketing, competitor research, PPC and social media marketing. It shows you keywords, metrics and insights for various websites, such as Google, YouTube, Amazon, eBay and more.
- Spy Flu - SpyFu exposes the search marketing secret formula of your most successful competitors. Search for any domain and see every place they've shown up on Google: every keyword
- Ahrefs Keywords Explorer - Free tool for volume and difficulty
- Semrush Keyword Magic - Keyword research tool powered by AI
Google Ad Words Keyword Planner Tool
Google Ad Words Keyword Planner is a really meant to help people who are planning to pay for keyword ads to plan their approach, but it's also a good tool for information on keywords to use in your site. That site keeps changing on whether they allow people to use it if they don't have an active adwords account. At last report, they were allowing anyone with a Google account to use it to research keywords. Try it here.
To use Google Ad Words, you have to set up an account and start a "campaign." You do have to enter your billing information, but you don't have to actually spend money to use the keyword planner. You can "pause your campaign" so that no money is deducted.
Moz Tools
Moz, at https://moz.com, has some very good SEO tools. You can get a free 30-day trial. You just have to give them your credit card number and remember to discontinue your membership before you are charged at the end of the trial period.
You can also go directly to https://analytics.moz.com/pro/keyword-explorer to try the keyword research tool without signing up for the trial account. However, you'll only be able to search for 10 keywords during the month. It's worthwhile to try out the keyword search, though, so that you can see what they offer. You can see how many times your keyword has been searched on, and you can also see the competitiveness of the keyword. In addition, they provide a nice list of alternative keywords and tell you how many times those keywords have been used.
Besides the keyword search tool, there are other SEO tools that you can use to see how your site is doing. To use the free tools, go to https://moz.com/free-seo-tools. The various tools will only allow you limited results unless you sign up for an account.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a free tool that can help research keywords. Find it here at https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/ Type in a keyword. It will tell you the number of queries that keyword gets per month, as well as the competitiveness of the keyword. It will also give you related keyword suggestions and data for those words, as well. This is a good site to try for free.
WordStream
Wordstream will give you a free trial for the first 30 keyword searches. That will let you see if you like it or not. It will give you the number of searches on your term and also the competitiveness. Find it at https://www.wordstream.com/keywords.
Important Note
The SEO tools are always changing, and it can be difficult to keep up with their changes. The information on this page might not be up-to-date. Please be sure to check the rules of any site that you use, so that you don't get charged when you did not intend to. Double check any site that wants a credit card number. Some do give you a free trial period. You want to be sure that you know when they will start charging.
If you find out any information on any tool that you are using, it would be wonderful for you to share that with us on the Discussion Board for this Unit. We would all appreciate the information.