The keyword analysis is a fundamental step in the content creation process. It’s closely related to keyword research, which we’ll discuss in more detail below. Once you have your keywords, you can move on to the next stage of creating content that will drive business.
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1. Begin with a plan
Before executing any kind of keyword analysis, it’s important to have a clear plan. Decide, for example, whether you will conduct a keyword analysis to find more leads, boost SEO traffic, or boost social media engagement. Each of these goals might require slightly different strategies, so make sure you take that into consideration as you formulate your plan.
People often use keywords in isolation without considering the big picture. They’ll want to rank for a particular keyword, and that’s it. They don’t necessarily see the link between that keyword and the performance of their entire website or digital platform.
That’s why it’s important to understand how keywords fit into your overall business strategy clearly. Does this keyword support your SEO strategy? Does this keyword draw more traffic to your site than you’d expect? Is there a specific conversion point you’re trying to reach with this keyword?
2. Use the right keywords throughout the text
When we’re analyzing keywords for SEO or content marketing purposes, we usually look for words or phrases with the highest search volume. People search for these words or phrases when they’re looking for a product or service related to our niche.
We express the same idea in multiple ways through synonyms or “near synonyms.” Let’s say, for example, that you are the marketing manager of a law firm, and you want to boost online inquiries about personal injury lawsuits.
For that matter, you might consider using keywords like “personal injury,” “PI,” or “PI lawsuit” because these terms are searched for frequently.
Or, if your firm handles worker’s compensation cases, you might want to consider using keywords like “workers compensation,” “WC,” or “sick leave” because those words are searched for frequently as well.
The idea is to use as many keyword variations as possible because each variation might capture a different audience. You can’t measure the effectiveness of your keyword campaign unless you have data to back it up.
That’s why it’s important to use keywords in your content, throughout the text, when possible. Incorporating keywords into your headings and subheadings will help draw the reader’s attention to the text and increase the chances of them scrolling down to read the entire article.
Don’t worry about overusing keywords; however, you should aim to use as many variations as possible because that’s how SEO works. The more you use, the better. Just make sure that whatever you’re using relates to your niche and is relevant to your audience.
3. Identify and analyze keywords & their competition
This is the single most important step in the whole process of keyword analysis. The competition for a certain keyword is defined as the total number of people searching for that keyword as a proportion of the total number of searches performed on that topic.
To find the highest search volume keywords, you should look for competitive analysis tools on the market. Some of the most popular ones are Ahrefs Keyword Tool and SEMrush.
Both of these tools offer a variety of features that make them invaluable for any marketer or content strategist. The first thing you’ll need to do is sign up for a free account.
Then, you’ll have to pick a niche and enter a few keywords to get started. Once you have entered a few keywords, both tools will begin to show you a list of the most competitive keywords in your niche.
Remember that the competition for each keyword varies from hundreds to thousands, depending on the type of product or service you are offering and the size of your niche.
Finding the right keywords and analyzing their search volume takes a bit of research and practice. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes quite intuitive.
4. Understand how search engines work
When we search for something on Google or another search engine, four things happen:
- Type in your search query
- Hit the enter key
- The search engine attempts to rank the results based on our search query
- Either click on a link to a website or scroll down the search results to read an article.
To fully comprehend how SEO and keywords work, it’s important to understand how search engines rank websites and organic content. The process is highly complex, but for the sake of simplicity, you can think of it as a game of chance where the algorithm plays a major role.
The closer you get to the top of the rankings, the more visitors your site will receive.
Essentially, the algorithm chooses the highest-ranking results from millions of websites based on the search queries that are performed the most frequently.
5. Identify the right geographic locations
When we’re doing business research, we usually want to target the areas where our customers live, as opposed to just a general location. That’s because we know that people in certain locations buy a specific product or service more often than people in other areas.
For instance, let’s say you’re a clothing company and want to know where your customers are.
Enter “USA” as the location and “clothes” as the product. You’ll see a long list of cities and towns in the U.S. That’s because the algorithm considers the popularity of the keywords + location pairing when generating the results.
For that matter, if you search for a specific city or town, such as “Los Angeles,” you’ll only see results for that location, not for the entire country of America.
Similarly, if you enter “London” as the location and “rugs” as the product, you’ll see a long list of stores and venues in London, England. That’s because people in London search for “rugs” more often than people in other locations, and that location has a high search volume for “rugs.”
You can do the same for other locations and cities around the world.
6. Identify the right time of day
The last thing anyone wants to do on a Saturday morning is going online and search for their favorite products or services. That’s mainly because most online searches are typically performed during the week, on weekday afternoons.
Weekday mornings are also when many people wake up and get ready for the day, which might explain why most searches are concentrated around that time.
Weekday evenings are also popular times to search, mainly because that’s when people get home from work, get around to doing some laundry, and prepare dinner, which is usually the last thing people want to be doing at 5 pm on a Thursday.
7. Identify the right day of the week
If we consider the times when most people are searching for their favorite products or services, it’s quite evident that the weekends are quite possibly the worst days to try and achieve any type of online marketing or SEO goal.
On the weekends, there’s a massive exodus of online shoppers, as people are either doing their own shopping or are catching up on some much-needed rest.
That’s why it’s important to try and achieve your SEO goals on weekdays, during the hours when people are most likely to be searching for your product or service.
It’s quite obvious that the influence of social media in today’s world can’t be overstated. With billions of people using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, it’s quite likely that your product or service is being discussed or promoted online through social media platforms.
Consider Your Audience
Whatever you create, make sure that it provides value to your audience. Be sure to think of something that will intrigue, inspire, or educate your readers. When you do this, you’re choosing content that will be valuable to your target audience.
