Content that is designed to appeal to the search engines will usually incorporate one main keyword at a 2% keyword density and other long-tail keywords naturally placed throughout the text.

A long-tail keyword is simply a phrase that consists of 2, 3, 4 or more words.

Step 1: Make a List of Keywords to Research

The first step to discovering which keywords will most effectively target your market is to create a list of keywords that are relevant to your business or the content that you are going to put on the website. To illustrate, if you are running an automotive business in San Antonio, you will want to target keywords like San Antonio car repair, automotive repair in San Antonio, etc.

For organizational purposes, you may want to record your list in a spreadsheet.

Step 2: Use a Keyword Tool to Evaluate Each Phrase

Google’s Keyword Tool is one of the best for keyword research because it’s free, and it evaluates information on keywords directly from Google rather than siphoning it through a third party. However, there are some great software programs that can give you a more thorough look into how keywords perform.

Google’s tool will show you the competition for each keyword, the amount of times that the specific keyword was searched globally and locally each month, and it will also give you a list of other related terms. You can use the related terms to find other keywords similar to the ones that you entered that are searched for more often.

When you have entered your phrases into the search tool, make sure to note the frequency that the phrase is searched so that you can refer to it later on your keyword research sheet.

Step 3: Record the Search Results for Each Phrase

At this point, you may have already narrowed down your keywords to only those that are the most relevant and frequently searched. To understand how easy it will be for you to rank well with these keywords, you can look at the competition for each keyword or Google each keyword phrase to see how many results are listed.

This is an integral component in your keyword research because it will allow you to calculate a supply/demand ratio for each phrase. With this keyword research strategy, you can discover which phrases have a high demand (search frequency) and a low supply (results listed on Google)

Step 4: Assessing the Motivating Factors Behind Each Phrase

Now that you have recorded the search frequency and the volume of results for each keyword phrase, it is time to assess the motivation that a person would have to type in such a phrase. This is more subjective, but it is important.

Let’s use the same illustration as above. If you are a car repair technician in San Antonio, the phrase ‘car repair’ returns 1,220,000 results each month. The phrase car repair San Antonio returns 1,600 per month. However, the people that are actively searching for car repair in San Antonio are much more likely to be looking for a qualified technician in that area than those that are just searching for ‘car repair.’

When you look at the motivation behind specific keywords, you may find that some are more relevant for attracting potential customers than others, and the former are the ones that you should be targeting with your content marketing plan.

Conclusions about Keyword Research

By applying these keyword research tips, you can improve your search engine rankings by targeting low-competition phrases that are regularly searched by Internet users. Your website performance is very closely linked to the keywords that you use and the other SEO strategies that you employ, and it is important to first compile a solid list of keywords to refer to for your content marketing efforts.

Written by: Lauren Wilkison