The cornerstone of any content/search engine optimization campaign is keyword research.
Keyword Research.
It’s the most fundamental aspect of online marketing. Searching for low-hanging fruit—or long-tail phrases that aren’t competitive in the search results—can help you grow your website with less effort.
It’s a cold hard truth:
If you don’t include the right keywords in your website content, your whole content strategy could fall apart.
It is important to learn how to effectively market online in order to be successful.
The interesting thing is that the methods for finding the keywords that your target audience is using have changed a lot over the years.
Marketers should focus on contextual relevancy instead of monthly search volume and exact-match keyword stuffing.
There are many ways you can research the competition of your keywords, ranging from using a great keyword research tool to seeing what negative keywords could do for your campaign. Each marketer seems to have found his own effective method, which is often a combination of his intuition and the results from search engine optimization tools.
This article will focus on the limitations of keyword research.
You’re doing market research to help you understand your customer and get a list of keyword phrases. You will only improve your search engine ranking if your insights about your customers are accurate and relevant.
There are three limitations to keyword research that could potentially negatively impact your marketing campaigns.
Keyword averages inside the Google Keyword Planner show you a skewed picture
You’ve probably used the keyword planner a lot to come up with a list of keywords for your campaign. The graph below displays the average monthly keyword volume that many marketers use to determine whether they want to target a specific keyword.
But have you ever wondered how the search engine produces this average value?
The average Google Keyword Planner search volume is calculated over a 12-month period.
How will the accuracy of your research and the relevancy of your keyword list be affected?
The average of 10, 100 and 1000 is 366.67.
Although 367 is not a good representation of the extremely variable sample. If you have outliers in your data, the average number is not a good representation of that data.
If you specialize in a topic that has increased interest at certain times of the year due to events or celebrations, you may be mislead by the keyword planner and end up trying to rank for keywords that don’t result in consistent traffic.
The fix?
Look for the number in the middle of your sorted list and go after it.
The Median.
It gives the most accurate representation of your sample.
Although you are unable to export search volumes for each month, you are still able to use Google. It takes a lot of effort to do this for every search term on your keyword list.
A better solution is to just check the volume of searches for your keyword over time.
Would you be willing to create and promote content in exchange for traffic for only 3 months, knowing that it could take a few weeks or even 3 months for your content to show up in search engine results?
Your keywords should have consistent volume throughout the year.
If you do not take these steps, you will have traffic problems and will not be able to do A/B testing.
Keyword volumes are not just averages. They are also rounded-off
The search volume for keywords may vary depending on the location.
Google categorizes similar keyword volumes into specific groups for ease when handling data. This means that if you are targeting keywords that are not commonly searched, you might only get results rounded up to the nearest 10.
When there are large monthly search volumes for a keyword, it can make it difficult to see differences of 10,000 searches/month between keywords.
Is there a way to resolve inaccurate traffic estimates?
You will not see much of a difference if you go after long-tail keywords. The solution for reducing the risk of depending on Google is to use your own data from Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools, and to get traffic from sources other than Google.
Google Monopolizing search results: Showing lean SERP for certain keywords
Glen from Viper Chill recently researched and concluded that 16 companies dominate Google search results.
They are using their brand authority to gain huge traffic numbers for their new websites.
He showed that for competitive keywords in most popular niches, these companies have gained control.
It’s unfortunate that the search engine favors some websites and brands over others in its search results.
But, how does it relate to your keyword research?
Some keywords will only bring up results for certain types of websites. Your website may not be able to compete with other websites – even if you find that the pages in the search engine results page (SERP) are not authoritative and are less competitive.
For example, if you type in a commercial keyword like “shirts for female,” the results will only be eCommerce websites. I hope you have success in improving your website’s ranking for the chosen keyword.
If you search for a keyword and most of the results are from websites with the .edu domain or are specific to one geographic location, this means that these websites are considered to be authoritative on that topic. Hayden came up with the term ‘lean SERP’ to describe the way Google dominates search results. He thinks you should think twice before trying to compete with Google.
You can improve your chances of ranking by avoiding keywords that have a lot of competition, even if they seem like they would be easy to rank for.
Looking for keywords that are easy to rank for and will generate a lot of traffic? You need a keyword research tool.
The best keyword research tools: Uncover Traffic Generating Topics
Semrush
There is an argument to be made that Semrush is the most advanced keyword research tool available. The platform has everything enterprise customers could want and is very easy to use. However, it might be overkill for some users.
The price is higher than some other choices, which could make it unaffordable for cash-strapped entrepreneurs and small businesses. If you have the money for it, you will get a lot out of this program in terms of accurate data, extensive research options, and powerful tools for SEO and content marketing.
It’s also important to note that it has higher usage limits than most other tools, so even though it appears to be expensive, you can get more use out of it than with many other tools.
The integrated keyword tool works differently from some of its competitors. Semrush provides you with a list of keywords that your biggest competitors are ranking for, rather than requiring you to enter a seed keyword to generate a list of related suggestions.
If your competitors are targeting certain keywords, it is likely because they are valuable. They’re also very difficult to find using other tools.
To use this tool, simply enter a competitor’s domain into the search box, and then select the location from which you want to generate suggestions. The database can be searched for keywords from all over the world or from specific countries.
The “Organic Research” section shows an overview of the website’s total organic traffic, ranked keywords, and traffic cost.
The Organic Keywords data will show you an overview of the competitor’s domain that is receiving the most traffic. You will be able to observe the typical position they rank for every one of these keywords in addition to other essential metrics.
You can view a complete list of every keyword that they rank for by clicking on “View all organic keywords.”
There is a lot of data available that can be used to find new keywords for content strategy. You can also find your competitor’s top organic keywords by going to the Competitors section and clicking on any of their competition results. If you want a never-ending list of keyword ideas, simply rinse and repeat the process outlined above.
You can also use Semrush to find long-tail keywords related to a seed keyword. The Keyword Magic tool accesses Semrush’s large database of over 20 billion search queries to generate suggestions.
SE Ranking
SE Ranking is an affordable keyword research tool that provides users with a balance of features. It has built-in collaboration tools, a white-label interface, and flexible pricing plans that make it affordable for a lot of users and projects.
The tool provides a suite of SEO solutions and has access to one of the largest databases, with information on 7 billion keywords from across the globe.
You can type a keyword into the search box and the system will analyze it. You can use any search engine you want and specify the country you want to search in. The app will then collect the data and display it in an easy-to-read format.
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SE Ranking will also generate a list of similar keywords and related keywords based on these parameters. You can use filters to sort the results by search volume or difficulty to find the best opportunities, and export the data to create a keyword list for your project from scratch.
The keyword tool can be used with SE Ranking’s keyword position checker to monitor your performance in the search results. The data from different devices (desktop and mobile) can be viewed separately, the organic position can be tracked, results can be mapped, rich snippets can be used, etc.
You can also track the rankings of your website against up to 20 other leading sites in your niche to measure your performance. There are also tools for checking backlinks, optimizing content, and auditing websites.
SE Ranking offers agencies a white label feature, which lets you share the tool with your clients through your own domain and under your own branding. You can set up custom user accounts with different access privileges for all the people working on your project.
Mangools
KWFinder by Mangools is an excellent keyword research tool for beginners. SEMrush is a great tool for finding low-competition, high-volume keywords. It is affordable and easy to use.
Mangools’ philosophy is that SEO should be easy. The platform is designed to be as easy to use as possible so that everyone can achieve their goals. The interface is easy to use: you can search by keyword or by domain. Either option will generate a list of keyword ideas.
If you search a site’s domain, you can view that site’s keywords, average ranking position, search volume, and other data.
You can select keywords by their difficulty ranking to ensure that they are easy to rank for. The level of difficulty for a keyword is based on how many other webpages are also trying to rank for that same keyword. A difficulty score of 1 means that there are very few other webpages competing for that keyword, while a difficulty score of 100 means that there are a lot of other webpages competing for that keyword. In addition to being able to see search volume, you can also view the CPC and all of the other important metrics.
If you have a local business, you can target keywords that are specific to your location. You can get more specific information on over 50,000 locations by searching through the local search results. Find out what local markets are searching for.
Mangools’ KWFinder also allows you to access historical keyword data. A keyword’s search volume can give you an idea of how popular it is, but it’s also important to know whether that popularity is increasing or decreasing. The historical search volume data can reveal longer-term trends and whether a search term is increasing or decreasing in popularity.
When you sign up for Mangools, you also get access to SERPChecker, SERPWatcher, LinkMiner, and SiteProfiler.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a popular SEO software suite. If you are in need of a keyword research tool, Keywords Explorer is a great option and definitely worth looking into.
The Ahrefs Keywords Explorer uses clickstream data to provide more accurate metrics than other keyword tools. It provides super in-depth information for all your keywords. The tool not only provides you with information about the search volume for a given keyword, but also gives you a breakdown of the competition on the first page of results and tells you how many people actually click on pages in the results.
Conclusion
Keyword research is vital. This service requires various tools and data from Google in order to function properly. However, it is easy to not see the limitations of keyword research tools and spend months trying to rank with search engines for keywords that will not help your earnings.
The article lists three common constraints with possible solutions to mitigate the negative effects.
