Keyword Research Best Practices for Your Link Building Campaign

A blended approach is required for effective keyword research. It’s not as simple as just discovering the related search terms with the highest search volume and chasing after those. There’s more to it than that. 

Here are some steps to follow and things to consider when performing keyword research. 

Targeting the Largest Search Terms or Starting Slowly? 

It depends on the age, relative power and trust of your website whether it’s sensible to target the most relevant search terms with the highest search volume or build up slowly. 

When you look at the top 10 search results in Google for a popular term that seems relevant, you need to consider several things. These include what type of websites are ranking, their domain authority and page authority rating, how many backlinks they have pointing to the page that are ranking for the term, and the domain age.

By looking at these items, it gives you a good idea what you’re up against for that term. You may decide it’s just too tough to aim for, especially if your website or company is fairly new and hasn’t built up much trust with Google yet. 

Taking a clothes shop as an example, you may decide to look for long-tail search terms like “best winter coat with a belt” instead of “best winter coat.” Alternatively, you may choose to target other related terms that not as many sites are aiming for. Informational searches to answer questions about how to adapt a coat for winter or how to clean a spot from a wool coat would be good too. By starting smaller, the site can build relevance for related terms and relevant questions, and then target more difficult search terms in the second year. 

Using Google Instant for Keyword Gathering

Google Instant provides ideas about searches based on what’s been typed into the Google search box on their website. When more words are typed in, it narrows down the choices. While typing in search queries doesn’t confirm the search volume of the search query – Keywords Everywhere can do that – it is a good indicator that people searched for that terms at some point. 

Using Google in this way, it’s possible to build up a solid list of useful keywords that have been searched for previously and the search engine is familiar with. That’s never a bad start. The terms are not only long-tail terms, but also other queries. 

Begin to make a spreadsheet of keywords and the search volume as given by Keywords Everywhere, which is a free browser add-on/extension.

Using AHRefs to See the Competitors’ Keywords

Using a keyword search tool like AHRefs, typing in a competitor’s website brings up their Dashboard. It displays their trust ratings, but also the number of backlinks and anchor texts too. 

It’s possible to view all the keywords they rank for or narrow them down to just the most recent ones. Depending on whether you have a free account or paid account access, you can download the keywords that a competitor is ranking for currently. Also, look at the top pages that have the best traffic and see all the keywords that rank for those pages. Sometimes it’s literally hundreds - most of which were never mentioned in the page’s copy - Google just decided that page was relevant for many different search terms. 

By repeating the process for several competitors, it’s possible to get a good idea of what each are ranking for. Typically, each competitor ranks well for a different selection of keywords. You can also look at the anchor text on their inbound links to see whether they’ve promoted those pages and keywords or just got lucky. 

Brainstorming Alternative Keywords

Beyond looking at competitors and brainstorming with Google Instant, there are several other ways to find good keywords to include.

Alternative searches relating to the current search terms are shown within many Google searches now. These provide useful alternative search terms to consider. Also, look at the bottom of the search page because Google also includes some related searches there too. 

Beyond Google, look at related sites to see what people are talking about. If there are popular forums around a topic or hobby that the keyword research is based on, then take a visit to see what people are saying. They may have common questions and pain points where juicy keywords come to mind. Check if there is any search volume for them. 

Almost everyone has a different approach to keyword research;it’s a personal thing. Something to bear in mind is that in a world filled with intensive competition, you need to get creative about finding interesting, low-competition keywords that other people aren’t looking for. Doing the same thing that everyone else is doing to make a list of keywords means you’re competing for the same ideas. With some brainstorming, it’s possible to widen the search and make ranking that bit easier.