How to Do Keyword Research

You're chasing growth and looking for every edge you can get. Paid advertising is great, but it's a cashflow nightmare and can be fickle at the best of times. You need a way to grow organically.

After a little research you discover SEO and content marketing — which leads you to keyword research, the key to being found on search engines.

Unlike traffic from paid advertisements, eyeballs coming from search engines can carry a higher level of intent. The users made the time and came seeking what you have. And that intent becomes even more lucrative when you don't have to pay for each click.

## How do I improve my Google search results?

The process you go through to improve your Google search results is called search engine optimisation (SEO). Here's where to start:

- Build a fast website that offers the best user experience - Publish relevant content and keep it up to date - Answer frequently asked questions - Always optimise the metadata for each aspect of your website - Create content that other people will share or link to - Fix broken links and other technical errors - Use relevant H1 and H2 headers and H-tags

## What is a keyword (with example)?

Keywords are the focus words in a piece of content. They're usually a group of nouns and verbs, and they're extremely important for helping search engines understand what your content is about.

For example, if you sell manuka honey, the two keywords you'll want to focus on are "manuka" and "honey" — and you'll also benefit from focusing on long-tail keywords like "the health benefits of manuka honey" and "when can children have honey."

## What is the fastest way to rank a keyword?

1. Conduct keyword research and identify high-volume, high-intent, low-competition keywords 2. Write an article — or better yet, create a YouTube video and post it live. Embed the video into the article and submit the URL to Google Search Console for indexing 3. Optimise your Headers, H-tags, Meta Description, Alt Tags, first sentence in each paragraph and Schema for the target keyword 4. Ensure the page loads quickly — under 3 seconds on mobile ideally 5. Promote the page on social media 6. Be patient — it can take between 6 days to 6 months for keyword rankings to stabilise, especially for a new page 7. Track your keyword rankings to monitor your progress

## How to do keyword research (for beginners)

**Step 1:** Brainstorm a list of important keywords related to your product or service (these are called "seed keywords"). Think about what your customers will type when searching for what you offer.

**Step 2:** Organise the keywords into buckets (also known as content silos). For instance, if you're an accountant, you might silo your keywords into "Tax Accounting," "Bookkeeping," "Outsource CFO," etc.

**Step 3:** Use a keyword research tool (like Google Keyword Planner) to expand the list of related searches for each content silo.

**Step 4:** Sort to the top the ones you already rank close to the first page for, with high volume, high purchase intent, low competition — and if you're producing the content yourself, topics you're genuinely interested in.

**Step 5:** Repeat Step 3 for your top 25 keywords to get a very niche list of semantic keywords. These outliers often have less competition and are easier to rank for.

## What is the most accurate keyword research tool?

For doing your own keyword research, it's best to go straight to the source: **Google's Keyword Planner**. It won't show you competitor rankings, but it gives you direct data from Google.

For competitive intelligence, tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, SpyFu or Serpstat can be valuable — just keep in mind these tools are looking at search results from an outside perspective and apply their own calculations to the data, so treat results with some healthy scepticism.