How to find the right keywords for your business?
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2024 8:16 am
If you want to promote your website in any search engine, the first step is to create a list of keywords you want to be displayed for. Without this, your actions will be chaotic and will bring less than expected results.
So how do you choose keywords to reach potential customers?
First, analyze your offer. Think about what potential customers might type into a search engine to find your product or service. Then, based on those phrases, create a list of keywords and verify it in one of the ways given below.
Keyword Planner
A widely used tool is the Keyword Planner from Google. It is a free web application that, with an active campaign, provides information such as the average monthly number of searches (volume), trend, or competitiveness in Google Ads. In addition to information on the phrases we provide, the tool will present its own suggestions for words with similar themes.
screenshot from keyword planner
With an active advertising campaign, Keyword Planner will provide accurate data on the average monthly search volume.
Senuto
This Polish tool offers a range of functions useful for positioning websites, including keyword analysis. Here too, after entering the phrase of interest, we will find information on the average monthly number of searches, the trend and the rate in Google Ads. In addition, we will find out what variations of the keyword are and what additional functionalities appear in the search results (map package, Google Ads ads, photo gallery or "zero result").
Additionally, for each keyword you will receive a list of phrases in the form of questions and dependent words, i.e. those that show a high connection with the base words.
Screenshot from Senuto
Senuto will tell you when the peak season is for your searches.
Ahrefs
The prepared list of phrases can also be verified in the Keywords Explorer module, which is part of the multifunctional Ahrefs tool. In addition to the search volume for a word, you will learn its difficulty (i.e. how hard it will be to place a website for this phrase in the Top 10 search results), matching phrases, questions, position history, or the linkedIn database current list of pages that appear for this phrase in the Google search engine.
Interestingly, you can also use Keyword Explorer to check phrases in the keyword databases of other search engines (YouTube, Amazon, Bing, Yahoo, Sezam, Baidu, Daum or Naver).
Screenshot from Ahrefs
In addition to search volume, Ahrefs will provide the best ranking result or number of searches in specific countries.
Keyword Surfer
The last tool I would like to introduce is a Chrome extension. Keyword Surfer is a free plugin that will provide search volume for a given word and suggest related phrases directly in Google search results. It can be used to pre-assess saved entries or to find new ones.
Screenshot from Google with Keyword Surfer extension running
Screenshot from Google with Keyword Surfer extension running
Is there another way to build a keyword list?
When creating a list of keywords, you can also use another strategy. If you have access to paid tools such as Senuto or Ahrefs, analyze your competition. Collect 3-4 URLs of competing sites and examine what phrases they appear for in search results. In Senuto, you can do this using the Visibility Analysis module, in Ahrefs, in turn, in the Site Explorer module.
I have a list of keywords, now what?
Selecting keywords is the first step towards gaining visibility in search engines. The next step is to assign specific phrases to the appropriate subpage within the website. During the work, it may turn out that you will not have a dedicated subpage for some words. In such a case, it is worth planning to create a separate landing page that will be optimized for that keyword.
When matching phrases to subpages, it will be useful to know the user's intention (see: Division by intent ). This will help you know whether an offer page or a blog post would be better for a given word.
How to use keywords to optimize pages in the positioning process?
After building a list and assigning phrases to appropriate subpages, it's time to start optimizing. Without going into details - optimization involves placing primary and secondary words in appropriate places on the page. Phrases should be in the URL, meta tags, headings, content, and "alt" attributes of graphics and photos. Avoid the unfavorable phenomenon of Keywords Stuffing , or optimizing several pages for one phrase (the phenomenon of keyword cannibalization).
You can read more about content optimization and cannibalization on our blog:
Optimizing articles on a company blog
Keyword cannibalization and positioning
What mistakes should you avoid when creating keyword lists?
At the stage of analyzing key phrases for your business, you can make a number of mistakes that will affect the success of your positioning.
Choosing too general keywords
Focusing on general phrases at the beginning of building your visibility in the search engine is not a good idea for two reasons. First, they are highly competitive, which means that the sites that are in the top 10 have put in a lot of effort to be there. Beating them can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process, and sometimes even impossible.
Secondly, if you manage to achieve a high position for a general phrase, you will reach a very wide audience and a significant part of them will not be interested in your offer.
Imagine you run a shoe store for elegant men with the option of online shopping. The phrase you want to be visible under in Google is "shoes" - 135,000 searches per month. Is this really a good choice?
Analyzing the first 10 search results, you can see that yes, the intention is purely commercial, but most of them feature stores offering shoes for women. So the effort associated with positioning for this phrase would be futile.
In this case, it would be better to focus on more specific phrases such as:
elegant men's shoes - 3,600 searches,
men's dress shoes - 2,900 searches,
men's patent leather shoes - 1,900 searches,
men's formal shoes - 1,600 searches.
As you can see, high search volume cannot be the only criterion when choosing phrases. User intent and the competitiveness of words are also important.
This doesn’t mean that general keywords aren’t worth considering. The visibility of your site for these types of words in the search engine will help build brand awareness. However, they shouldn’t be your first choice.
So how do you choose keywords to reach potential customers?
First, analyze your offer. Think about what potential customers might type into a search engine to find your product or service. Then, based on those phrases, create a list of keywords and verify it in one of the ways given below.
Keyword Planner
A widely used tool is the Keyword Planner from Google. It is a free web application that, with an active campaign, provides information such as the average monthly number of searches (volume), trend, or competitiveness in Google Ads. In addition to information on the phrases we provide, the tool will present its own suggestions for words with similar themes.
screenshot from keyword planner
With an active advertising campaign, Keyword Planner will provide accurate data on the average monthly search volume.
Senuto
This Polish tool offers a range of functions useful for positioning websites, including keyword analysis. Here too, after entering the phrase of interest, we will find information on the average monthly number of searches, the trend and the rate in Google Ads. In addition, we will find out what variations of the keyword are and what additional functionalities appear in the search results (map package, Google Ads ads, photo gallery or "zero result").
Additionally, for each keyword you will receive a list of phrases in the form of questions and dependent words, i.e. those that show a high connection with the base words.
Screenshot from Senuto
Senuto will tell you when the peak season is for your searches.
Ahrefs
The prepared list of phrases can also be verified in the Keywords Explorer module, which is part of the multifunctional Ahrefs tool. In addition to the search volume for a word, you will learn its difficulty (i.e. how hard it will be to place a website for this phrase in the Top 10 search results), matching phrases, questions, position history, or the linkedIn database current list of pages that appear for this phrase in the Google search engine.
Interestingly, you can also use Keyword Explorer to check phrases in the keyword databases of other search engines (YouTube, Amazon, Bing, Yahoo, Sezam, Baidu, Daum or Naver).
Screenshot from Ahrefs
In addition to search volume, Ahrefs will provide the best ranking result or number of searches in specific countries.
Keyword Surfer
The last tool I would like to introduce is a Chrome extension. Keyword Surfer is a free plugin that will provide search volume for a given word and suggest related phrases directly in Google search results. It can be used to pre-assess saved entries or to find new ones.
Screenshot from Google with Keyword Surfer extension running
Screenshot from Google with Keyword Surfer extension running
Is there another way to build a keyword list?
When creating a list of keywords, you can also use another strategy. If you have access to paid tools such as Senuto or Ahrefs, analyze your competition. Collect 3-4 URLs of competing sites and examine what phrases they appear for in search results. In Senuto, you can do this using the Visibility Analysis module, in Ahrefs, in turn, in the Site Explorer module.
I have a list of keywords, now what?
Selecting keywords is the first step towards gaining visibility in search engines. The next step is to assign specific phrases to the appropriate subpage within the website. During the work, it may turn out that you will not have a dedicated subpage for some words. In such a case, it is worth planning to create a separate landing page that will be optimized for that keyword.
When matching phrases to subpages, it will be useful to know the user's intention (see: Division by intent ). This will help you know whether an offer page or a blog post would be better for a given word.
How to use keywords to optimize pages in the positioning process?
After building a list and assigning phrases to appropriate subpages, it's time to start optimizing. Without going into details - optimization involves placing primary and secondary words in appropriate places on the page. Phrases should be in the URL, meta tags, headings, content, and "alt" attributes of graphics and photos. Avoid the unfavorable phenomenon of Keywords Stuffing , or optimizing several pages for one phrase (the phenomenon of keyword cannibalization).
You can read more about content optimization and cannibalization on our blog:
Optimizing articles on a company blog
Keyword cannibalization and positioning
What mistakes should you avoid when creating keyword lists?
At the stage of analyzing key phrases for your business, you can make a number of mistakes that will affect the success of your positioning.
Choosing too general keywords
Focusing on general phrases at the beginning of building your visibility in the search engine is not a good idea for two reasons. First, they are highly competitive, which means that the sites that are in the top 10 have put in a lot of effort to be there. Beating them can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process, and sometimes even impossible.
Secondly, if you manage to achieve a high position for a general phrase, you will reach a very wide audience and a significant part of them will not be interested in your offer.
Imagine you run a shoe store for elegant men with the option of online shopping. The phrase you want to be visible under in Google is "shoes" - 135,000 searches per month. Is this really a good choice?
Analyzing the first 10 search results, you can see that yes, the intention is purely commercial, but most of them feature stores offering shoes for women. So the effort associated with positioning for this phrase would be futile.
In this case, it would be better to focus on more specific phrases such as:
elegant men's shoes - 3,600 searches,
men's dress shoes - 2,900 searches,
men's patent leather shoes - 1,900 searches,
men's formal shoes - 1,600 searches.
As you can see, high search volume cannot be the only criterion when choosing phrases. User intent and the competitiveness of words are also important.
This doesn’t mean that general keywords aren’t worth considering. The visibility of your site for these types of words in the search engine will help build brand awareness. However, they shouldn’t be your first choice.