Now you have a list of keywords, you need to understand how much traffic
these keywords receive in Google. Without search traffic data, you could end
up targeting keywords with zero searches. Armed with the right knowledge,
you can target keywords with hundreds or even thousands of potential
visitors every month.
Unfortunately, in recent years Google has restricted access to the data behind
Google's search box, leaving us with two options for finding keyword traffic
data.
Firstly, if you have a Google Ads campaign running with Google and are
already spending a modest amount, then you’re in the clear, you can access
this info for free in their Keyword Planner tool. If this isn’t you, the other
option is to use a paid keyword research tool for a small monthly fee, such as
keywordtool.io. As a result of Google making search data unavailable to free
users, free keyword tools disappeared from the market, making paid research
tools the only viable option for finding traffic data for keywords these days.
If you're on a tight budget, then you can sign up for a paid plan with one of
the many paid keyword research tools on the market then ask for a refund
after doing your research. It's not nice, but it's an option—either way, you
need the traffic data behind your keywords otherwise you are running blind.
1. Estimating keyword traffic data with Google’s Keyword Planner.
Google Ads Keyword Planner
https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/
As mentioned, to access all the juicy traffic data provided by the Google Ads
Keyword Planner tool, you need an active Google Ads campaign running,
and must be spending at least a modest amount of money regularly. If this is
you, sign in, click on Tools in the top-menu, click on “Keyword Planner”
then click on “Get search volume data and trends”, copy and paste your
keywords into the box. Select your country, and then click the blue “Get
search volume” button. When finished, you will have the exact amount of
times each keyword was searched for in Google.
Mmm. Fresh data. This is just the kind of data we need.
Now we know which keywords receive more searches than others, and more
importantly, we know which keywords receive no searches at all.
2. Estimating keyword traffic data with a paid tool like KWFinder.
KWFinder
https://kwfinder.com/
If you want a research tool with a stronger SEO focus, then you can use a
paid tool such as KWFinder. I like KWFinder for its ease of use, relevant
keyword suggestions, and competitive data, but you're not limited to this tool
—there’s many alternatives floating around you can find with a couple of
Google searches.
Using KWFinder as an example, after creating an account, simply log in,
select the local area you are targeting (i.e. Los Angeles, California, if that is
your customer focus), enter your keyword ideas and download the juicy data.
Now you can ensure you spend time focusing on keywords with traffic
potential, as opposed to chasing after keywords with no traffic and little
opportunity for growing your business.
How to find keywords for easy rankings.
Now you need to find out how competitive your desired keywords are.
Armed with an understanding of the competitiveness of your keywords, you
can discover keywords you can realistically rank for in Google.
Let’s say you are a second-hand bookseller and you want to target “book
store online”. It's unlikely you are going to beat Amazon and Barnes and
Noble.
But, maybe there’s a gem hiding in your keyword list few people are
targeting—maybe something like “antique book stores online”.
You have the advantage if your competitors haven't thought of targeting your
keyword. You simply have to do better SEO than they are doing and you
have a really good chance at beating their rankings. Part of this includes
having a large keyword list for your research.
Next, you need to wash this list and separate the ridiculously competitive
keywords from the easy keywords no one are aggressively targeting.
There are many schools of thought on how to find the competitiveness of
your keywords. The most popular practices are listed below, with my
thoughts on each.
1. Manually going through the list, looking at the rankings, and checking
if low-quality pages are appearing in the top results.
This is good for a quick glance to see how competitive a market is. However,
unreliable and you need real data to rely on.
2. Look at how many search engine results are coming up in Google for
your keyword.
The amount of results is listed just below the search box after you type in
your keyword. This tactic is common in outdated courses teaching SEO, but
completely unreliable.
The reason? There may be a very low number of competing pages for a
particular keyword, but the sites ranked at the top of the results could be
unbeatable.
3. Using the competition score from the Google Ads Keyword Planner
tool.
Don't be tempted. This is a common beginners mistake, and sometimes
recommended as an easy way to judge SEO competitiveness for keywords on
some blogs, and it just simply doesn't work!
The competition score included in the Google Ads Keyword Research tool is
intended for Google Ads advertising campaigns only. It is an indication of
how many advertisers are competing for the particular keyword through paid
advertising. Completely irrelevant for SEO.
4. Using a competitive analysis tool, such as KWFinder ’ s SEO Difficulty
report.
To get a realistic idea of your chances for ranking high for a particular
keyword, you need to understand the strength of the pages currently ranking
in the top-10 search results for that keyword.
A great tool for this is KWFinder ’ s SEO Difficulty report. With
KWFinder ’ s SEO Difficulty report, simply enter your keyword into their
tool, click “check difficulty”, and it will show vital stats for pages appearing
in the top 10.
Of these stats, the most important are Domain Authority, Page Authority,
Links, and Facebook Shares … If you don ’ t have high Domain Authority or
Page Authority—don ’ t freak out. If your site is more relevant to the topic,
you can often nudge your way up the results by focusing on building up
backlinks to your page and improving your social media activity, especially if
those stronger sites have little amounts of links and social activity on their
pages, and are non-specific, generic directory or aggregator type sites.
Next up, if you enter your own website into Ahref ’ s Site Explorer tool, you
can see the same stats for your site, and set targets for beating the
competition.
Ahrefs – Competitor Research Tools & SEO Backlink Checker
https://ahrefs.com/
Armed with this knowledge, you can hunt around to find keywords with
reasonable levels of traffic, weak competition, and set targets for how many
links you need for a top listing. You can even find keywords competitors are
using, estimates of how much traffic they are getting from those keywords,
even where they are getting their links from!
There ’ s many keyword tools and site analysis tools which can be found with
a couple of Google searches. Every SEO professional ultimately has a
different favorite tool they prefer, the following tools are well known in the
field and I often use myself.
KWFinder – Keyword research and analysis tool
https://kwfinder.com/
Ahrefs – Competitor Research Tools & SEO Backlink Checker
https://ahrefs.com/
Moz - Keyword Explorer
https://moz.com/explorer/keyword/
Moz – Link Explorer
https://moz.com/link-explorer
When finished reading this book, you can work through the keyword research
points in the free SEO checklist included at the end of the book, with the
above process outlined in a step-by-step approach.
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