6 ways to improve keyword research to boost SEO

Follow these six steps when developing your SEO strategy to improve your company’s visibility and authority online.

Without proper and intentional search engine optimization, your company’s website won’t reach the visibility you need to establish brand authority. To create a successful SEO strategy, follow these six SEO tips:

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1. Understand your consumers and their goals.

The first step to developing successful keywords is to understand your target audience. One way to do that is by creating buyer personas. 

Buyer personas are fictional profiles based on a target market that can help you better understand your audience’s buying habits. These personas will help you determine issues your target audience has and how to get people to purchase your products or services. 

When determining your personas, know your target audience’s demographics, interests, pain points, search behavior, and preferred communication channels. 

2. Determine topics relevant to your company and industry.

The topics you focus on for your social and web content should pertain to your industry and what your company wants to be known for. Having a clear focus ensures your web and social content will remain relevant and valuable to your target audience. 

3. Identify what terms your consumers are searching for. 

Now that you have your buyer personas and understand what topics you want to focus on, look to see what your potential consumers are searching for online. Tools to help you determine this include Google Trends, AdWords, and MOZ. 

4. Select a specific search volume and competition.

Determine the search volume and competition for each keyword or phrase you see your consumers using or those you want to rank for. The best keywords to use are those with a high search volume and low competition. However, this doesn't mean you need to disregard keywords with more competition if they’re relevant to your company and industry. 

5. Organize your keywords into topic clusters.

Once you develop your list of keywords, you can organize them into topic clusters, grouping related words for different topics. For example, a PR agency like Axia can group keywords into topics like crisis communications, social media, and videocast. This grouping helps you develop a strong content strategy and helps with internal linking. 

6. Prioritize the keywords you want to focus on first. 

You won’t use all of the keywords you come up with in your strategy right away. So, it’s important to prioritize which keywords you use first. Consider what you want to rank for first or what’s most important to your company to determine which keywords to prioritize. 

For more information on how to improve your company’s website content and SEO strategy, check out our webinar on 10 Tips to Improve Your Company’s Website.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov