For many people and businesses with websites, search engine optimization and keyword research is the last step in building a new site. In all honestly, this is not how you should do it if you are interested in online marketing. When you create a new website, keyword research should always be one of the first things you should do before you even design your website.
There are millions of websites online and your website should stand out from the crowd. You don’t just want to attract visitors to your website, but the right visitors that will complete an action or engage with you on your site. This is all possible if you design your website from the start with keywords that your visitors will type into Google to find anything related to your business. Find below a couple of tips on starting with keyword research.
Keyword research tips
Create a list of topics: This list will consist of a list of topics that you are going to talk about throughout your website. This could be your services, products, blog topics, and even article topics that you will use on your website.
Keyword list: With your topic list, which keywords will your visitors use to find your website? These are the keywords and phrases (more than one keyword) users will type into Google to browse to your website. These could be the same as the topics in your topic list, but try not to use more than 2 keywords per topic when you start out. You can refine your keywords later on.
Research: There are many keyword research tools you can use that will show you how many times the specific keyword is search for on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis. Some of these tools will also show you the level of competition associated with each keyword. One of the best free ones is Google Sktool.
Relevant keywords: With the keywords you have selected, rate each of the keywords on their relevance to your business. This will give you a good indication of which keywords to focus on first.
Final step: When you have your keyword list and know which keywords you should target first, refine your keyword list and start planning how you are going to integrate these keywords in the content of your website. Keywords can be used in the page names, topics, titles, headings, links, menus, etc.
