How To Do Keyword Research For SEO For Free

In today’s competitive digital landscape billions of people search online every day. Ranking your website at the top with relevant search queries is the top priority of every business. We are here with an in-depth guide to resolve business owners’ issues on how to do keyword research for SEO.

In this article, you can explore why keyword research is important, and how to do SEO keyword research with the different techniques, and tools. You can explore the paid and free keyword research tools and the most important section on how to do keyword research for free with a keyword planner.

Let’s dive and learn the strategy for effective SEO results. We will first explain the term keyword research so beginners can understand the basics.

What is Keyword Research?

A process of searching, analyzing, and finally identifying the words and phrases that people search for when looking for information or products online is referred to as keyword research. The search terms, words, or phrases that people use during the research are called keywords.

Keywords play a vital role in search engine ranking. A good keyword selection that your target audience uses helps you to rank in the top search results. That’s why it is important to learn how to do keyword research for SEO.

Why is Keyword Research Important?

The following reasons explain why keyword research is important:

• Identify your target audience: Knowing what keywords your target audience is using during the research phase can help you generate content accordingly. You can know your audience’s preferences and you can utilize them to write better relevant and quality content.
• Improve your website’s visibility: If you have used the right keywords in your website content or optimized it with relevant keywords. This will increase the chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
• Drive more traffic to your website: If your websites rank with the right keywords that people are searching then the chances they click on websites increase.
• Generate more leads and sales: By targeting keywords that are relevant to your products or services, you can attract potential customers and generate more leads and sales.

Hopefully, now you understand the importance of keyword research. In the next part of the article, we are going to describe how to do keyword research for SEO. We will explain the keyword research process with an example that helps you to understand better.

How to do keyword research for SEO

Before diving into the process of how to do keyword research for SEO, we will explain a real-world case scenario. Which helps you understand each step clearly.

Let us consider Mahesh, who has just started a bakery shop in Kolkata and is interested in promoting its business with the help of digital marketing.

So, let’s see what strategies Mahesh and his team use to grow organically.

Brainstorming “Seed” Keywords

The first step starts with finding the seed keywords. Now understand the term seed keyword what it is and how to get it.

The term seed keyword is in a very simple language, the basic word, primary term, or phrase that describes your business or your products or services. Follow the below steps to find it:

1. Identify your business: Your business types and what they offer to the target audience help you in searching seed keywords. For example: Here Mahesh has a bakery shop that offers cakes, cookies, and bread to the customers. So, his seed keyword is Bakery Shop, Bakery Shop in Kolkata, Bakery Shop Near Me.
2. List your products or services: The second way to get a list of seed keywords is by listing all the products that you offer to your customers. For example: Here, Mahesh offers Chocolate Cake, Pineapple Cake, Chocolate Cookies, Dryfriut cookies, Butter Cookies, Milk Bread, Fruit Bread, Whole Wheat Bread, and more.Now all these products can be used as a single seed keyword for specific product pages to target.
3. Consider your target audience: In this step, explore what your customers use while searching for your product or services. For example, While searching for a cake shop, Mahesh customers might use the terms, Birthday Cake Shop, Bakery Near Me, Cake Shop Near Me, Baked Cookies Shop, and more…….
4. Analyze your competitors: The most important part is to check what your competitors are using to rank in the top results of SERP. There are many tools available, which will help you to find it.
5. Use a synonym finder: Create a list of all the related terms and synonyms that might be relevant to your business.

These are the foundation steps of the keyword research. Hopefully, now your basic concepts are a bit clear on how to do keyword research for free.

Analyzing Competitor Keywords

It’s important to research what your competitors are doing and how they are performing in terms of SEO. In this basic analysis, you can start by identifying the keyword on which they are ranking. There are various tools nowadays available to perform competitor keyword research.

You can use the tools like Ahref, Semrush, Moz, keyword tool.io, and more to find it. Let’s read some more insightful articles on SEO here:

Steps to Analyze Competitor Keywords:

• Identify your competitors: When you start your business, you know with whom you must compete. If you still need to, analyze your competitors soon. Prepare a list of competitors with their domain links and move into the next step.
• Enter their domain names into a keyword research tool: You can choose any tools of your choice, put the domain name, and analyze their organic keywords.
• Analyze their top-ranking keywords: Once your list is created, segregate the keywords they’re ranking for and assess their relevance to your business.
• Identify keyword gaps: If your business is old, then identify the keywords your competitors are ranking for but you’re not. These could be potential opportunities for your website.

By performing competitor keyword research, you can get the keyword data into the search terms that are driving traffic to their websites. This data helps you to identify potential opportunities for your own business.

Using Keyword Research Tools

The most important section is where we will get insights on keywords with their respective monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, competition, and more in-depth data. There are many free and paid tools available that will help you to find the data.

Free Tools: Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, Ubersuggest, Answer the Public

Paid Tools: SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz, KWFinder.

We will explain the complete process of how to do keyword research for SEO with Google Keyword Planner. Google keyword planner is a part of Google Ads the most popular ad running platform.

You can use the Keyword planner and learn how to do keyword research for free.

If you are interested in learning the complete SEO in depth then, explore the courses mentioned below:

How to Use Keyword Research Tools: Google Keyword Planner

Step 1: Account Setup

Perform the initial account setup in Google Ads. Once you log in you will see the following dashboard. In the menu section, you will find the keyword planner.

Step 2: Enter Your Seed Keywords

In this step, you have to enter the seed keyword that you have already gotten in the previous steps. Start by entering your initial keywords into the Discover New Keyword section. Once you click you will navigate to the dashboard

Here you can enter your seed keyword in the start with keyword section. Let us understand this with the example of Mahesh’s bakery shop in Kolkata. Enter the keyword, bakery shop, bakery shop in Kolkata, and more that you think are relevant to your business and see the results.

Step 3: Explore Suggested Keywords

In addition to the keyword you entered, you will get the suggested keyword ideas list, when you scroll down. From the list, you can choose the most relevant by keeping search volume, competition, and growth parameters in mind.

Step 4: Analyze the Data

The last step involves the detailed analysis of the complete list of keyword ideas. Prepare an Excel sheet mentioning all the important data like search volume, keyword difficulty, competition, and YOY growth, and filter your results. Once you refine your data choose one primary keyword to target your website for search engine ranking.

By effectively using keyword research tools, you can discover valuable keywords that can help you improve your website’s visibility and attract more targeted traffic.

I have tried to explain to you with an example for better understanding. Hopefully, it will help you. Still, if you need assistance then comment your queries. We will try to help you out.

Conclusion

By mastering how to do keyword research for SEO, you can unlock the full potential of your website and achieve your online marketing goals.

Keyword research is the fundamental of SEO strategy, which decides your website traffic and visibility. If you are a beginner and interested in learning how to do SEO keyword research then a keyword planner is the best option to learn for free.

An important note for the students who are in the learning phase, explore the different free tools also to practice how to do keyword research for free. Practical learning helps you to clear your concepts and that’s what we follow in our IDCM curriculum also.