Why Keyword Research is Important for SEO
If you were launching a new product, you wouldn’t do so without first researching your target audience. The same principles apply for search engine optimization (SEO) – you need to conduct keyword research in order to attract and engage the ideal audience.
Search engine optimization is the process of creating online content that attracts the right people. Who are the right people? They’re the ones that are most likely to find your content useful and, in the future, relevant enough to convert them into buyers.
How do they find this type of high-quality content? They type a word or phrase (both referred to as keywords) into a search engine such as Google or Bing. The results that are delivered are the ones that best match the word or phrase they typed in.
Here is an example for the keyword “holiday travel packages to costa rica”:
These are the top three results for “holiday travel packages to costa rica.” As you can see, the search engine returned these pages because they include some variation of this keyword, therefore making it relevant to the user’s search.
So if you want to get your web page content in front of the right people, you need to make sure that your content includes the right search terms, or keywords.
Keyword research is the only way to ensure that you’re using the best keywords to reach the right people who want to buy what you’re selling.
How Keyword Research Delivers Higher Quality Traffic
Think for a second about a travel agency that wants to promote holiday travel packages to Costa Rica on its website. Without doing any keyword research, the agency may choose to optimize for the keyword “travel packages,” thinking that this is the most obvious choice for the page. It could, in fact, achieve a high ranking in search engines for “travel packages” if the SEO is done correctly; however, this keyword is quite vague, and most likely won’t attract the kind of people that specifically want to purchase a holiday travel package to Costa Rica.
For example, if someone wanted a travel package for Siberia and they typed in the search term “travel packages,” they might find this page all about Costa Rica. This isn’t likely to convert into a sale. Even if the travel agency gets many visitors to the “travel packages” page, they need quality visitors (those that want to go to Costa Rica for the holidays) in order to convert and make a profit. This is why keyword research is so important for your SEO.
Let’s recap. With keyword research, you can ensure:
More relevant content
Better qualified website visitors
Higher conversion rates
Greater profits
The best place to start your keyword research? Check out your website’s keyword analytics to see which terms people are already using to find your site, and use that information as you go through the SEO process.
