➤ SEO: How to do keyword research (2024)

What is keyword research and why is it important?

Let's start at the beginning. Let's first define the term “keyword research.”

Finding popular search terms and using them on your web pages to improve site traffic is how I define the term keyword search. It increases your organic traffic if you focus on finding the “right keywords” for your websites.

If you can't find profitable keywords, you won't be able to drive targeted traffic to your websites. If you don't get search traffic, you won't be able to make money with your blogs. Keyword research is directly proportional to the money you earn. It's as simple as that!

Keyword research includes a few important factors:

Keyword competition

It shows us how difficult it will be for a few keywords to rank in search results. The higher the competition, the more difficult it will be to rank for a keyword. Try to focus on <1000 average monthly searches if you want to rank high in Google search results.

Keyword density

The number of times your keyword appears on your web pages, articles, or videos is simply called keyword density. Google considers the repeated use of the same keywords to be spam. Generally, you can use your main keywords every 200 words. It's even better to use “relevant keywords” for your primary keyword ideas to get more traffic from Google search results.

Long tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are those that are generally more specific and consist of 2 to 3 words. We'll talk more about long-tail keywords in this article.

Why is keyword research so important?

It's what defines the volume and type of traffic you get from search engines.

Regardless of what keyword you want to rank for, you need to do the right keyword research analysis to attract the right kind of visitors to your blog posts.

Understand purchase intent.

As a blogger deciding your niche, you can write about anything you want. Crossfit exercises, dog training, barbecue grilling, golf, camping, financial services, how Jeffrey Epstein didn't commit suicide, how to deal with your mother-in-law - just about anything you can imagine.

And when you've finally decided on your niche, you need to come up with blog post ideas — maybe five at first to launch your blog, then 10, and maybe even up to 100+ blog posts if you're consistent.

So what the hell are you writing about?

How do you avoid the common mistake of “doing” keyword research without thinking about monetization?

As you know, I am for blogging to be a business and for making money to be the number one priority.

To make money, you need to know the intention to buy.

In other words, the amount of money you can earn with a keyword - that's the transaction value.

Here is how I summarize the situation:

Bloggers need to find keywords that have purchase intent and affiliate revenue potential.

The good news is that they are very easy to find.

A brief introduction to how websites make money

When you think about it, websites can only make money in four different ways:

Products

Selling your own products
Examples: e-commerce brands, course sales, digital products

Affiliate marketing

Selling someone else's products
Examples: affiliate links, text ads

Services

Selling your time
Examples: advice, coaching, hourly work

Advertising revenue

Selling your eyeballs
Examples: banner ads, sponsored posts

Any online business sells either their own product, someone else's product, their time, or your eyes.

That is all.

And remember, when it comes to keyword research, we're talking specifically about bringing people to your website from a Google search. Not from social media, not by clicking between pages on your site, just from Google.

And with Google, the advantage is that we understand search intent, that is, the meaning of the search. We can plan our blog posts around the transactional keywords that people are looking for when they're looking for something to buy.

That's why your main monetization goal for keyword research should be transactional affiliate marketing keywords.

Here's why it's the best form of keyword monetization:

Advertising revenue is essentially a catch-all for items that can't be monetized more profitably.
Initially, bloggers don't have their own products to sell, and even if they sell a course, the sales funnel doesn't include sales page rankings on Google.
Services are generally low volume search terms. Again, the sales funnel doesn't usually include ranking your service pages on Google.

So if affiliate marketing is the best form of monetizing a blog, what are you writing about?

Tips for researching keywords

1. Searching for keywords in the FAQ

Finding what your audience types on Google can be helpful when researching keywords. Internet users usually ask questions before they buy something online. You can use the keywords in the FAQ as long-tail keywords to incorporate into your content marketing strategy.

So how do you find the questions your target audience is looking for?

The best way is to use Quora, the best question and answer platform where millions of people from around the world meet online to ask questions and get quality answers.

Here's what a sample FAQ looks like;

When you type in a question like “what are the best stocks to buy” on Quora, not only does the site offer you very useful answers from experts, but it also displays related questions in the sidebar, as you can see in the image above.

So if you want to use the FAQ keyword research to find high-quality keywords based on questions, Quora is the best place.

You can also use Google Search to quickly find FAQ keywords. Here's what that looks like;

As you can see above, Google shows “People also ask” questions for the keyword “keyword stuffing.” When you click on one of them, Google gives you even more lists of questions that people ask in searches.

All of this data can be very useful in coming up with LSI keyword ideas and long-tail keyword phrases to improve organic traffic to your blog.

2. Use Google trends

Did you know that you can use Google Trends to search for keywords? Yes, Google Trends is one of the underrated tools that can offer you great perspectives on any topic you want to cover.

Here's how it works;

From the illustration above, you can see that nutrition is getting a lot more interest over time in Google than SEO. You can also add other topics to compare to find out what the audience is interested in.

Go to Google Trends and follow these simple steps to do keyword research.

Enter a search term and search
Then, enter a search term in the “+ Add comparison” search field.
On the right side of the first search field, click More Edit filters.
Select a time period or enter a custom time range and click OK to continue.

That's all! It will show you all the data you need based on your search.

Recommended: How do I use Google Trends?

3. Search the sites of your competitors

One of the quickest ways to find successful keywords is to do a competitive analysis. You should always have a list of 10 to 15 of the top blogs in your industry. So you can use these sites to get a ton of blog post ideas as well as keyword ideas.

Make sure you find a list of the blog posts that get the most traffic as well as the posts that generate the most profit for your competitors' sites. That way, you can also consider creating 10x better content around the same topics to be able to generate more search traffic and sales.

We highly recommend that you try tools like Semrush or its alternatives to research the competition, as these two tools help you find it easily;

Traffic-generating blog posts
Profit-generating blog posts and keyword ideas

Take a look at the screenshot below to see how competitive analysis works on Semrush.

As you can see above, Semrush gives you a list of all the top organic competitors when you enter any URL into the dashboard and you can easily find a list of common keywords, search engine keywords as well as a list of competing websites.

4. Evaluate keywords

The best way to find profitable keywords is to assess their cost and value at the CPC. While there are plenty of tools for finding the CPC value of a keyword, we highly recommend trying Semrush as it provides a ton of information, including the following.

Key word : These are keywords that are ranked for a specific page on search engines like Google.
Position : The position of the keyword in the search engine (specific). In this example, I've already selected the Google US default database, but you can change it for other locations and search engines.
Volume : This is the number of exact match requests for this keyword.
CPC : Average cost per click for the keyword (THE MOST IMPORTANT when evaluating the profitability of a keyword)
URL : URL to which the keyword is generating traffic
Com : It shows the competition of advertisers for this keyword. A lower number means there is little competition and a higher number means more competition for that term.
Results : This is the number of search engine results
Tendance : You need to make sure that the traffic trend for this keyword is not dying and the column shows the search trend for this keyword over the past 12 months.

Keyword research tools

1. Semrush

If I had to choose only one SEO tool, I would choose Semrush. Note that, I've been a long time happy user of the Semrush tool, but it helped me increase my search traffic by 15% in just 30 days.

Semrush is much more than a keyword research tool, but I'm not going to talk about its other features in detail, because instead, we're going to talk about how it will help you find the most profitable keywords for any niche.

If you are wondering what Semrush is, let me explain it briefly.

If you want to spy on your competitors' top-performing keywords and learn about their best link building strategies, Semrush is for you.

You may be asking yourself “why should I focus on my competitors?”

The reason is simple: if you want to get the best search results for a keyword you're targeting, you first need to know who currently ranks at the top of Google.

Once you know their top keywords that get more traffic and the inbound links they get, it becomes easy for you to outrank them.

That's where Semrush comes in. It allows you to spy on and crush your competitors, no matter what niche you are in.

Use Semrush to do advanced keyword research

I know that the majority of bloggers use Google's keyword planner (which is a free tool that anyone can use), but the only problem is that even if you find keywords that are not very competitive, there is a lot of competition for them because everyone uses the same tool.

To get rid of this problem and really discover the hidden keywords that help you increase your website traffic, you need to find a few other ways.

I highly recommend that you try Semrush, a fantastic tool that gives you details about search volume, number of competing pages, average cost per click, related keywords, and more.

It is surely 100% better than Keyword Planner. Here's how to use it to do better keyword research.

For example, if I want to rank for the keyword “WordPress tutorial,” here's how I can use Semrush to find really good keywords that actually help me increase traffic.

In the screenshot above, you'll notice that Semrush gives you monthly search visits for the keyword you're entering. You can also choose the database for the country you are targeting.

On the same page, Semrush also provides you with a list of all the keyword ideas that are relevant to your main keyword. See screenshot below.

You see! Instead of trying to rank for your targeted keyword “WordPress tutorials” that has a monthly search volume of around 10,000, by focusing on the keyword “WordPress tutorial” (with 880 monthly visits), you are sure to get more search traffic. That's how you should do your keyword research.

2. Long Tail Pro

They say content is king. That's really true, but have you ever wondered why your blog isn't getting any search traffic, even if you're publishing quality articles?

Maybe it's because you're not using long-tail keywords in your content. If you are wondering what they are, here is a simple example.

Short keyword : “cars” (very competitive keyword and almost impossible to rank higher)
Normal keyword : “best sedans” (still competitive to rank for this keyword)
Long tail keyword : “best sedan cars in India” (Now guess what? You can rank for this keyword by publishing quality articles around it)

Anyone (even if you have a new blog) can rank higher in search results by using “long-tail keywords.” But the only problem is how do you find them without hiring an SEO expert who charges you thousands of dollars?

Long Tail Pro comes in two versions: one is the basic tool (sufficient for most bloggers) and the other is Long Tail Platinum (an advanced version that allows you to control keyword research campaigns).

How do I use the Long Tail Pro keyword research tool to find keywords?

Here is the simple tutorial.

Step 1 : After downloading the Long Tail Pro tool, to find the best keywords, you must first start a new project by clicking on the “+” in the upper left corner. Then, simply name your project and select the option you want in the new project window.

Step 2 : Now add the starting keywords. You'll get the result with details including “local searches”, and average CPC. Choose the best keyword that has low competition and a better “Avg KC” (Keyword Competitiveness).

Step 3 : Focus primarily on finding long-tail keywords with 3 words or more for better results (note: be sure to choose keywords that are under KC 40).

While there are many, the best use of this tool is that it allows you to find long-tail keywords that can be generated from a starting keyword or phrase. It's extremely useful if you're stuck somewhere and don't know what long-tail keywords to use in your content creation.

In case you are wondering what this tool offers, here are a few benefits of using it.

Keyword research (quickly find up to 800 keywords per starting keyword)
Competitor analysis (quick analysis of the top 10 results for each keyword you enter)
Pay per click analysis (find out what competitors are willing to pay for their PPC ads)
Real-time filtering
Checking the exact correspondence of the domains (good for SEO!)
Rank Checker (automatic control of domain ranking factors)
Unlimited keyword searches and results (that's what makes this tool amazing)

3. Keywordtool.io

The only downside to using Google's keyword planner is that almost every other blogger in your industry is already using it.

Even if you find keywords that are less competitive, they're still used by most other bloggers in your niche, leading to increased competition and it's hard to rank higher.

That's where Keywordtool.io comes to the rescue, it's the BEST alternative to the keyword planner.

Not only does it give you keyword ideas that are not provided by Keyword Planner, but it also helps you easily optimize your articles with long-tail keyword phrases.

How do I use Keywordtool.io for keyword research?

Step 1 : Go to Keywordtool.io and enter your favorite keywords (it's free!)

Step 2 : Now choose long-tail keywords with more than 3 words. You can use all of them in your blog posts or web pages to rank higher! (Note: You can use tools like Semrush to find out the competition and monthly searches for the keywords you find on this tool).

For example, let's say you want to know the monthly searches for the keyword “best SEO tools free”, here is the Semrush search result.

Ok, wait... but what about Google's keyword planner?

Here are a few more reasons why Google Keyword Planner isn't the right option for you.

It won't help you search for multiple keywords at once.
No real-time filtering (filtering of keywords as they are typed)
No in-depth analysis of the competition
No verification of the authority of the page or the domain and much more.

4. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is the SEO tool managed by the expert himself Neil Patel. Ubersuggest is a free keyword research tool that you can use to easily find a ton of useful keyword ideas to get more traffic and sales.

Here's what it looks like;

As you can see above, immediately after entering the keyword of your choice (e.g. marketing), Ubersuggest gives you a ton of keyword ideas as well as the following metrics.

Tendance
Search volume
DPC value
Difficulty paid and
SEO difficulty

You can also click on the other “Related” tab to find a list of keyword phrases that are highly relevant to your target keyword.

5. KW Finder

KW Finder is one of the best keyword tools if you're looking for accurate keyword data. Unlike other premium SEO tools like Semrush, Ahrefs - KW Finder also offers you free limitations for each registered user (up to 5 keyword searches per day), making it a great tool even for beginners.

Here's what it looks like;

Here are some of the metrics you can find in KW Finder that can be very useful when extracting successful keywords.

Tendance - search trend over the last 12 months
Research - average monthly search volume (exact match) over the past 12 months.
CPC - average cost per click for the listed keyword
PPC - level of competition in PPC advertising (min = 0; max = 100)
DIFF - SEO difficulty of a keyword, based on SEO statistics (DA, PA, MR, MT - we'll talk about that later) of the pages of the first Google SERP (min = 0; max = 100).

6. Keyword Planner

We'll start with Google's keyword planner because not only is it free, but it's also widely used by the majority of bloggers to do keyword research.

Google's keyword planner is perhaps the best free keyword research tool for finding profitable keywords for your websites. Simply create an account in Google Adwords and you'll be able to use the free keyword planning tool to start finding keywords for any topic.

Here are some of the benefits of using the Keyword Planner tool;

You can search for the best performing keywords using this tool. No matter what niche you are in and what topics you want to rank for, the Google Keyword Planner tool helps you find the best keywords. You can also find additional keywords and add them to any existing campaigns to improve your keyword research.
You'll also get a traffic estimate using the keyword planning tool. They include, estimated clicks and historical statistics for finding good keyword ideas.

Here's how to search for keywords using Google's keyword planner.

Now let's get into the details of how to use Google Keyword Planner. Open your Google Keyword Planner tool and follow the step-by-step process mentioned below.

Step 1 : Click “Search for new keywords and ad group ideas.”

Step 2 : Now enter the keywords you are targeting.

Always select keywords that are high-volume keywords that are less competitive.

In general, low-competition keywords are those that receive a sufficient number of monthly searches but are easy to rank for, unlike high-competition keywords that are nearly impossible to rank for unless you are a brand and have a high SEO budget.

Here's the rule of thumb for using Google's keyword planner:

If you're a niche marketer, focus on keywords that have low competition and high CPC.
If you want to increase SEO traffic, focus on keywords with low competition and low CPC.

The only 2 blog post formats you need

To launch and manage a successful blog, you only need two types of articles:

Product feedback
Practical guides

That is all. You could start a successful multi-million dollar blog with just these two types of posts.

Remember, when doing keyword research, you need to find keywords that can generate revenue. One point that's all. Otherwise, you're ranking for random keywords that can't be monetized or that only generate low ad revenue.

It's one of the biggest mistakes newbie bloggers make. They write their first 10 articles, but none of them have transaction value, and so they wonder why they're not making money.

Product reviews are transactional research that directly generates affiliate revenue. How-to guides are informative searches that generate lots of traffic, build trust, and expand your email list for future sales.

Here's why those are the only two types of articles you need (and how easy it is to search for keywords).

Product reviews

Bloggers should first perform a keyword search by finding terms related to products in their niche. These are keywords that people search for product reviews for and that usually contain the word “best.”

Their search intent is transactional.

For example, if you Google “the best credit card,” look at what you see:

All of the top ranked sites are affiliated — Nerd Wallet, Bankrate, Creditcards.com, USNews, and WalletHub. There is no Visa, Capital One, Chase, or other banking institution.

It's dominated by affiliates.

And these affiliates earn money every time a person signs up for a credit card through one of their affiliate links.

Let's look at another research looking at the “best running shoes”:

Again, we see Runner's World, Fleet Feet, and Running Shoes Guru. There is no mention of Nike, Adidas, Brooks, or other racing brands.

We see bloggers dominating. Growth Marketing Pro, your servant, G2 (a popular review site), GoToMeeting (the first real brand), then Capterra, another review blog.

Why?

Internet users looking for product categories are looking for reviews from trustworthy third parties. For these searches, they're not ready to be directed directly to a brand's product page — they want in-depth information from a blog first.

For example, if they want to go directly to a product page, they will look for the exact product, that is, “Brooks Adrenaline GTS 20", because they've already done their research and know what the product is (and probably first read about it on a blog).

Extra tip: The goal over time is to rank for the keyword that includes the word “best,” and then eventually rank for the keyword itself without “best.”

For example, in the case of “best running shoes,” Runner's World ranks first. However, it also ranks first for “running shoes,” which has a higher search volume. Try looking for products without “best” ones, like credit cards, webinar software, men's boots, etc. Here, you see more real e-commerce brands on page 1, but there are still a lot of affiliates competing quite often.

Start with “best,” get links to your content, and you may eventually be able to rank for the main term itself without “best.”

When I was an affiliate manager, someone smart once said this to me:

Affiliates are like an indirect sales team.

Find products that are sold in your niche and that you can rank (and sell) for. Then, you can outperform the brands themselves and get a share of their profits.

For example, even though Nike is ranked on page 1 for “running shoes,” it can't rank in the top 10 Google search results. They need to work with other websites to get their message out there. That's where affiliate relationships come in.

It's my favorite form of blog monetization and a way to earn over $70,000 per month. It's the ultimate way to use your personal brand to take back your power.

How to find keywords for product reviews:

The best way to find the revenue potential of keywords is to use theAhrefs Keyword Explorer tool. It's the tool I use to find new keyword ideas.

For example, let's say golf is your niche.

Go to the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer and type in “best golf.”

Now, “best golf” doesn't make much sense and only has 150 monthly searches.

However, when you click the “Have the same terms” button on the left, you can see all keyword variations that include “best golf” - that's where you find your transactional product keywords.

In this list, you get columns for the keyword, keyword difficulty, monthly search volume, estimated monthly clicks, CPC, and more.

Based on this search alone, take a look at all of the easy potential assessment jobs we've just found:

Best golf balls
Best golf shoes
Best golf rangefinder
The best golf grips
The best golf shoes
Best golf bags
The best hybrid golf clubs
The best golf clubs for beginners
Best golf GPS
best golf simulator
Best GPS golf watch

All of these products have good search volume and low competition. By doing a quick search with Ahrefs, we just got 11 new ideas for blog posts about product review.

Searching for keywords is easy. You just need to know what you're looking for.

How do you find the affiliate revenue potential of a keyword?

Follow your instincts.

Honestly, that's what I do when it comes to affiliate marketing. There are a lot of factors to consider when promoting a brand and ranking products.

All of the following factors determine how much money you can earn by promoting an affiliate product:

The price of the product: Higher prices earn you more commissions, but too high a price can lower conversion rates.
Brand reputation: Well-known brands convert so much better than unknown brands.
The company's buying and paying experience: If it's a SaaS business that only pays on paid memberships, the trial experience has a HUGE impact on conversion rates and how much you earn.
Commission rate: Your commission, which can be a one-time payment or a recurring payment.
Cookie duration: The length of time you are credited with the sale after someone clicks on your affiliate link. This duration is generally 30, 60, or 90 days.

That's a lot to take into account. And as a new blogger, it's nearly impossible to know which post will perform better than another.

That's why, if you start a blog and find keywords for product reviews, go for it.

Look for the 11 keywords above and don't plan too much. Just try to reach each product review and a few of them will stick around.

Bonus tip:

I try to stick to products that sell for a reasonable price (between $50 and $150), have strong brand recognition, and offer high commission rates. You can see some average commission rates by industry in My guide to the best high-paying affiliate programs.

Bonus tip 2:

You can also search for the term on Google, go to a competitor's site, and click on their affiliate links. A competitor's article recommendation #1 is usually the one that makes the most money, and you can click on this link and see the price of the product they recommend.

Why you should focus on product review keywords:

These transactional terms will make up the bulk of your income from affiliate marketing.

Think of it that way.

Let's say you publish an article: “13 Best Golf Bags of 2020 (Ranked and Reviewed).”

In this post, you rank 13 different golf bags with comprehensive reviews, pros, cons, and characteristics of each. Your first choice is the TaylorMade 2020 Supreme Cart golf bag.

Whenever you mention the brand, use an affiliate link and refer readers to their product page.

It could be an affiliate link Amazon Associates if the product is listed on Amazon It could also be a unique link that you get when you sign up for the TaylorMade affiliate program itself - it seems they have an affiliate program on Viglink - and pay 10% commissions on each sale.

Here's an example of what one of my product review articles looks like on the best website creation tools. You will notice that most of the brands mentioned have affiliate links:

In the section.
In the content.
In a call to action button.

In these lists, you should include at least three affiliate links per product/company. And include affiliate links for as many products as possible - all 13 if possible.

Making money with a blog is a numbers game. The more traffic you get on your articles and the more people click on your affiliate links, the more money you make.

For example, let's do a quick calculation exercise to find out how much money your article on “best golf bags” could make per month:

Your article about golf bags gets 2,500 hits per month.
Of these 2,500 people, 50% click on one of your affiliate links.
Of the 1,250 people who clicked on an affiliate link, 2% made a purchase.
These 25 buyers have an average order value (MVC) of $200.
In total, you generate $5,000 in sales and receive a 10% affiliate commission, or $500.

$500 per month in passive income, that's not bad at all for a single blog post about golf bags.

Here's why affiliate marketing is great:

If you were to monetize this page with ads (not affiliate links), you'd be lucky enough to get a CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) of $10 or $25 per month. $500 compared to $25 is a 20x higher return for affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing has a much higher return on investment than ad networks.

It focuses your keyword research on the transactional keywords that matter.

That's why it's critical, when choosing your niche and coming up with content ideas, to write about things that people actually buy.

I cannot emphasize this enough.

When doing keyword research, don't just look at vanity indicators. Find keywords with purchase intent and affiliate revenue potential.

Don't just “do keyword research,” start by finding monetizable keywords based on the “best” product review keywords.

Practical guides

A blog cannot live solely on product reviews. Sure, there are plenty of product review sites out there, but they lack personality. People don't just want to read product articles, they want information.

To make your blog a real brand with enthusiastic fans, you need to be a teacher and create an audience around the problems you help them solve.

How do you solve their problems?

With informative “how to” guides.

Take the example of a search for “how to create a blog”:

They are all affiliated bloggers who teach people how to start a blog.

And the process of starting a blog involves a lot of steps. There is planning, the selection of a niche, the signing of a contract oflodging, choosing a WordPress theme, writing content, and lots of other tasks that beginners need to learn.

How are these how-to items monetized?

In much the same way as for product articles.

These bloggers almost exclusively recommend web hosting companies like Bluehost and encourage readers to click on their affiliate links.

Do you need to create a blog? Well, you need web hosting. Here is my Bluehost affiliate link.
Do you want to plan your blog? No need - sign up for Bluehost and you can take care of it later.
Do you already have a blog? Why not create another one - click on my Bluehost link.
You don't want to start a blog? You don't even know what a blog is? Well, click on my Bluehost link and buy anyway! I have a special discount code that is not at all the same as everyone else's.

I too have an article on the starting a blog, but I'm trying to make this a very tactical article, which covers a lot more about planning and choosing a niche before going directly to web hosting - and I don't say the word Bluehost before the word 765 haha.

Ultimately, how-to guides are one of the main ways you as a blogger solve your audience's problems.

And the key is that you want to solve their problem with information, and a product as a solution.

You teach your readers how to do something by selling your own course or by selling someone else's products through affiliate marketing.

Let's go back to the golf example.

To find “how to” topics to write for your audience, use the same strategy as before with the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer. Except this time, instead of typing “best golf,” type in “how to play golf.”

How to Golf Ahrefs Keyword Explorer Example

“How to golf” is a bit broad on its own, but again, click on the “Having same terms” link to see all keyword variations that include “How to golf.”

How to Golf Ahrefs Having Same Terms Example

Again, we see a plethora of great how-to golf guide ideas:

How do you rock a golf club
How do you grab a golf club
How do you drive a golf ball
How do you hit a golf ball
How do you hit a golf ball
How do you put backspin on a golf ball

Here are six more great article ideas for our imaginary golf blog.

Why you should focus on the keywords “how to do it”:

Practical articles help create two very important elements: traffic and trust.

First, many people are looking for online tutorials and instructions. If you look at the search volume figures with the SEO tools, “how-to” articles get a lot of searches and can significantly increase your blog traffic.

Second, they build trust because you provide completely free information that demonstrates your expertise and helps your readers.

A Google searcher might find your blog after searching for “how to do a swing with a golf club,” then they might read your product reviews and click on an affiliate link, or they might join your mailing list and buy a course.

Review articles and how-to guides go hand in hand and are the two most important categories for bloggers.

Examples of these types of messages in action

Just look at how some of the most popular blogs are structured.

Nomadic Matt will teach you how to travel the world on a budget, but you may also need travel insurance, travel credit cards, one of its guides, or other products:

Yes, NerdWallet provides lots of useful how-to guides on investing and saving for retirement, but it makes most of its money with lists of credit card and loan products:

Nerd Wallet Home Page — Source: Nerd Wallet

And going back to our golf example, you'll see that One Stroke Golf ranks for “how to rock a golf club,” but its menu directs readers to equipment and product reviews:

These three examples offer informative how-to guides to help their audience solve their problems and transactional product reviews showing which products they need.

It is very simple.

You provide information to help an audience solve a problem.

2. When you teach them how to solve their problem, you're providing them with a transactional product as a solution.

Keyword research shouldn't be a mystery; it's easy. All you need to do is find the keywords “product reviews” and “how to” in your industry and start writing.

In the end, ignore articles that simply tell you to “do keyword research” and instead find ways to generate a return on investment from the keywords you're targeting. Look for the keywords “best” and “how to do it.”

Sample blog posts

If you're starting a blog, write an article in each of these categories.

Let's say you're an amateur photographer and you want to start a photography blog to earn some extra money on the side.

Here's what the might look like The titles of your first four blog posts (with target keywords in bold):

The 13 best DSLR cameras of 2020 (ranked and rated)

Type: Product Review
Seal: Billet d'Or
Notes: This is a high volume keyword that could generate a lot of affiliate sales.

Macro photography: The ultimate beginner's guide

Type: How to
Bucket: Brand Builder
Note: This term gets a lot of search traffic but is not directly monetizable. It could allow you to position yourself as an expert, develop your email address list, and help sell a future course. (There might also be a few affiliate products to promote.)

Best PhotoShop Alternatives in 2020 (Compared)

Type: Product Review
Bucket: A rough diamond
Notes: This is a low volume term, but one that could bring high affiliate income.

How I photographed the Milky Way with my iPhone

Type: How to
Seal: You are unique
Note: This has nothing to do with keyword research. It's about telling your unique story and creating enthusiastic fans.

Writing a few product reviews, how-to guides, and a creative article for fun is a great exercise and the perfect way to start your blogging journey.

Keyword research matrix

Now that we know there are two main types of blog posts to write (product reviews and how-to), let's go a step further.

In this paradigm, all blog posts will also be classified into one of the following four categories, based on keyword search volume and intent level:

Brand builders
Gold bills
Diamonds in their raw state
You are unique

I call it the keyword search matrix.

It's a simple calculation: For any keyword, the higher the search volume and the higher the search intent (transaction value), the more money you can make.

THEsearch intent is a user's main objective when conducting a search. As we saw earlier, research can be informative (how to handle a golf club) or transactional (the best putters for beginners).

Here are the four main categories your keywords should fall into:

1. Golden Tickets (high volume, high intent)

Characteristics: High monthly search volume (over 5,000), high CPC (over $5), strong competition, high affiliate earning potential.

The combination of high volume and high search intent makes these keywords extremely valuable.

In other words, many people are looking for something and need a product to help them.

These are the keywords that all bloggers covet. They may be extremely competitive, but they should be part of your strategy if you are a serious blogger.

In the financial field, the best credit cards or the best business loans are examples.
In the field of marketing, it can be about knowing how to start a blog or how to create a website.
In technology, the most important keywords are terms like “best web hosting” or “best website builder.”
Others include keywords like the best VPNs, the best password managers, or the best antivirus software.

Main objective: affiliate income.

2. Brand Builder (high volume, low intent)

Characteristics: High monthly search volume (over 5,000), low CPC (under $5), medium competition, low affiliate earning potential.

The second type of keywords is that of brand creators. This is the category where most of your how-to guides fall into. These keywords are often searched for but do not offer a direct and easy path to affiliate income.

For example, one of these keywords is “how to make money online.”

Its volume is 296,000 monthly searches - a very high figure. However, the CPC is only $2, a lower value because the keyword is broad and difficult to monetize with a direct offer.

Search intent is hard to understand. People want to make money online in a variety of ways: taking online surveys, starting an e-commerce business, cutting coupons, investing... It is not clear.

Since “how to make money online” isn't directly monetizable with a clear product, brand-building keywords increase your traffic, position you as an expert in your niche, generate email signups, and direct readers to your other high-value-added blog posts.

Main objectives: Traffic, email list, course sales.

3. Diamonds in the Rough (low volume, high intent)

Characteristics: Low monthly search volume (under 5,000), high CPC (over $5), medium to high competition, medium to high affiliate earnings potential.

Rough diamonds are valuable keywords that are not searched very often. They can be very competitive with very high CPCs.

For example, look at the keyword “marketing automation software”:

Marketing Automation Software Keyword Explorer

This keyword is searched globally 4,000 times per month, a moderate figure. The measure that stands out here is the insanely high CPC of $50.

This means that brands that bid on PPC ads for this term pay around $50 for a single click. It is a valuable keyword to rank for. And I bet you there are a number of affiliate programs in this space.

Main objective: affiliate income.

4. Uniquely You (no keyword research required)

Sometimes you have to throw the keyword search out of the window.

You are one of a kind and no one else can take that away from you. You need to highlight your unique voice, life experience, and expertise to help your audience in the best way possible. Get started. Be creative.

Most of the time, it has nothing to do with keyword research. Simply write an article to help, to share your life, to have fun, and to provide as much value as possible to your readers.

*The article you are reading now is an example.

These items won't get much (or not at all) traffic directly from Google. However, you highlight them on your content silos and category pages so that new readers find them, read them, and become die-hard fans.

Primary goals: Enthusiastic fans, course sales.

To summarize, just as there are two types of blog posts to write, each of your keywords will be classified into one of the following four categories.

How does all of this work in practice?

Advanced keyword research: Demystifying the difficulty of keywords

We've covered a lot so far.

We've condensed keyword research for bloggers into two article types and four keyword categories. And we discovered the importance of finding transactional and informational keywords based on purchase intent.

Let's end this article by demystifying the difficulty of keywords so you can better understand what you can actually rank for.

When researching keywords, the standard measure that people look at is the keyword difficulty (KD).

SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz They may all call it slightly differently, but the idea is the same. This is a number from 0 to 100 based on the difficulty of ranking for a given keyword - 0 being the easiest and 100 being the most difficult.

Here's why I don't think it's a very good metric:

Sometimes keywords that are low in difficulty are very difficult to rank for.
In addition, some keywords with a high difficulty score are easier to rank for.

Ultimately, your keyword research should go beyond relying on a single number.

Here's what you really need to do:

Who is on page 1?

It's pretty simple too.

To assess the competition for a given keyword, look at the Domain Rating (DR) and the URL Rating (UR) of the top ten pages of the ranking.

These are the Ahrefs metrics defined as follows:

The Domain Rating (DR) is a number on a scale of 0 to 100 based on the backlink profile (and ranking potential) for a given site. Sites like Google and Facebook are rated 99/100. The brand new blogs are at 0.
URL ranking (UR) is the same as DR, except that it evaluates the individual blog post (URL), not the entire domain.

The first is the ranking by domain (DR).

A 93 DR site like Forbes is more likely to rank quickly for something than my blog with a current DR of 78. The reason is obvious: the site has more links and authority than my blog.

When you're a new blogger, your DR is zero. You can increase your DR in the range of 30 to 50 in 3 to 6 months if you work hard and get high-quality backlinks through invited articles and other link building efforts.

But DR is not everything.

If your DR is lower than a competitor's, you can always outperform it with better content.

New bloggers should always focus on developing the DR, as it helps to categorize all content over time.

The second is URL ranking (UR).

However, the best metric for keyword research is URL evaluation (UR).

When you publish a new blog post, your post's new UR usually starts at 10. By getting more high-quality links to the individual article over time, the UR increases.

While the 80s and 90s are considered to be extremely high DRs, the 30s and 40s are considered to be high URs.

To find out if you can rank for a keyword, look at the difficulty score, but also the DR and UR of the top 10 results.

Here's how to dig deeper.

Difficulty score low, but hard to rank.

Let's say you have a blog about outdoor cooking. You write about how to smoke meat, sell helpful barbecue guides, and recommend grilling products and accessories.

You're looking for the keyword “grilling accessories” in the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer:

It seems to be a good keyword overall, from a metric perspective:

There is a high search volume with 7.6,000 overall monthly searches.
The keyword difficulty score is low (13).

Sounds like an easy way to get traffic, right?

Not so fast.

When you dig deeper, scroll down, and see the top ten ranked sites, the competition seems stronger:

Grill Accessories Keyword Explorer Top 10 Results

The top 10 sites in the ranking have domain ratings (DR) of 61, 95, 90, 67, 79, 91, 88, 83, and 62. Even if Ahrefs gives you a low difficulty score, you'll have to compete with Amazon, Home Depot, Weber, NBC News, Good Housekeeping, and Taste of Home.

There is not a single site with low DR in the top 10.

If you go to page 2, the news won't get any better — you'll need to upgrade Lowes, Overstock.com, NY Mag, Walmart, Crate and Barrel, and Target.

While you can probably make it to page 1 with a DR of 50 with very high quality content, the keyword is much more competitive than the keyword difficulty score of 13 would suggest.

High difficulty score, but easier to rank.

On the other hand, what about a keyword that has a high difficulty score but might be easier to rank for?

Let's take the keyword “how to make money blogging”:

This one has an overall monthly search volume of 11,000 and seems more difficult to rank with a keyword difficulty score of 68.

However, the SERP overview tells a slightly different story.

The domain indexes (DR) for the top 10 sites are 78, 77, 89, 58, 64, 70, 88, 41, and 86. This time, two sites with low DR (41 and 58) are still classified on page 1.

How to Make Money Blogging Keyword Explorer Example

Thus, from the perspective of domain rankings and competition, “how to make money blogging,” whose keyword difficulty is 68, seems easier to rank than “barbecue accessories,” whose keyword difficulty is 13.

While it's not that simple and evaluating URLs plays a role in ranking these individual messages, one thing is clear.

You need to take “keyword difficulty” with a grain of salt and look at real competition.

If you're a brand-new blogger, look for the following to give yourself the best chance of ranking:

At least one site < 50 DR in the top 10 results
At least one page < 20 UR in the top 10 results

To put it simply, you need to know who is on the front page.

Summary.

Doing good keyword research is an art and it takes time to master. You can't find better keywords that increase your traffic right from the start. Once you start spending more time on it and playing with the keyword research tools mentioned in this guide, you'll learn how to rank for any keyword in Google's search results.

How to do keyword research may be the question that most people can't answer correctly. Finding buyer keywords for your articles, web pages, or videos is a difficult task, especially when you're new to search engine optimization. You should first strive to find the right type of keyword ideas for your entire site and make your site search engine friendly by optimizing it for those keywords.

Once you've analyzed your keywords, start focusing on writing quality content (nothing beats quality, you can't expect to get good results from Google by creating thin content) in order to boost your organic traffic. There's also a powerful way to increase your search traffic, which is attracting backlinks from other sites. The more links that point to your websites, the more authoritative your articles will be and can easily rank high in Google search results.

While there are plenty of keyword research tools available, I highly recommend starting your keyword research process using Google Keyword Planner. As this tool is one of the best keyword research tools that is also free to use. Not only can you find the best keywords, you can also analyze keyword competition to rank better in Google search results.

Always focus on using long-tail keywords when doing keyword research because they can give you low competition and more traffic. And it's easy to rank in the top results by focusing on long-tail keywords in your blog posts.

Once you've mastered using the Google Keyword Planner tool to do keyword research, you can start using advanced keyword research tools like HitTail, Moz, WordStream, Semrush, etc. to find the most profitable keywords for your niche.

As a general rule, NEVER write another article without doing proper keyword research. And focus on using high-volume, low-competition keywords to rank higher in Google search results for all of the keywords you use.

Please share this keyword research guide with friends if you find it helpful. Do you have more questions about how to do keyword research in 2022? If yes, please ask them in the comments section below and I will be happy to respond to your feedback.

FAQ - Keyword Research.

Why is keyword research important for SEO?

Keyword research helps you rank easily in search engines like Google. So you can bring more organic traffic to your websites or online stores in less time.

Here are a few other SEO benefits of keyword research.

What are the mistakes to avoid when it comes to keyword research?

Searching for keywords is not child's play. We have been doing keyword research for years and sometimes we still have trouble finding keywords with great potential. That being said, if you are a beginner who is new to keyword research, here are some major mistakes you should avoid to attract more search traffic.

Target long-tail keywords “short term.”

We all know that long-tail keywords are easier to rank for due to their low competitiveness. But here's what it is. If you target long-tail keywords like “short phrases,” you won't get results (especially if you have a new website with a weak backlink profile or domain authority).

Here's what we mean by “long-tail keywords.”

Long-tail keywords can contain 3 words or more, but that doesn't mean you should target a 3-word long-tail keyword, as it's sure to have a lot more competition than a 5-word long-tail keyword.

Here are a few examples of short sentence long-tail keywords (which you should avoid).

The best Apple phones
Cheap Bluetooth Speakers
Apple Macbook Air
Fragrances for men
And the list goes on

As you can see above, all of the above sample keywords are short sentence keywords that are 3-word long tail keywords. And you can't compete for the terms above because you can't rank for them unless you have a ton of budget and quality backlinks.

Ignoring commercial intent

Whether you know it or not, there are several types of keywords, including the following;

Commercial intent keywords, also known as transactional or buyer keywords (the intent is to buy something online or to look for the best deals online).
Informative keywords (the intention is to get more information about a product or service)
Browsing keywords (the intention is to reach a particular site or brand, for example: “twitter”, “Amazon”, etc.)

If you ignore commercial intent keywords and only focus on informative or navigational keywords, you will NEVER attract people who actually buy products from you.

Here are a few examples of commercial intent keywords, in case you're curious to know.

Best Macbook Air Discounts
Semrush free trial
Grammarly promo code
And the list goes on

If you look at the examples above, these are all commercial keywords where people are actually looking for the “best deals” to buy online.

Don't check keyword competition

It's a HUGE mistake when looking for keywords. If you don't keep an eye on the competition for the keywords you're going to rank for, how can you even get into the top 10 in search results?

That being said, here are some keyword metrics you need to find to easily discover the competitiveness of any keyword you're trying to rank for.

Google SERP - the best Google search results for the selected keyword. The overall SEO score is calculated as the average SEO competitiveness of the first 10 pages. Red color = high SEO competitiveness. Green color = low SEO competitiveness.
DA - Domain Authority (developed by Moz) predicts the ranking of a website in search engines.
PA - Page Authority (developed by Moz) predicts the ranking of a specific page in search engines.
MR - MozRank of the URL represents a link popularity score reflecting the importance of a given website on the Internet.
MT - MozTrust of the URL is similar to MozRank, but rather than measuring the popularity of the link, it measures the reliability of the link.
Links - the number of authoritative external links to the URL.
FB - the number of Facebook shares for the URL
Rang - SEO competitiveness rank - the higher it is, the more difficult it is to compete. (min = 0; max = 100)
Est. visits - estimated number of visits per month on this SERP position

Disregard the value of the keyword

Not all keywords are the same. Some keywords have more value (over $10 CPC, cost per click) while others have a low CPC value (under $1 CPC).

So, if you're looking to attract high-potential keywords, you should also consider the value of a keyword. In other words, you should always keep an eye on the CPC to find highly profitable keywords.

That one keyword research error alone could cost you thousands of dollars in the long run. So be sure to give more importance to CPC when doing keyword research.

Failing to find multiple LSI keywords for the main keyword

LSI keywords are essentially keywords that are related to the keyword you are looking for on search engines. In short, LSI keywords are the keywords that are related to your main term.

For example, “apple laptop” might be an LSI keyword for “Macbook air” or “Macbook pro.”

You can easily find a ton of LSI keywords using tools like

LSI chart
Ubersuggest
Semrush
Google autosuggest and so on

LSI keywords help Google better understand the relevance of your pages. A legitimate page about “Apple computers” will likely contain a set of other words related to Apple computers, such as “Apple phones,” “Apple iPhone 5,” “new Apple iPad,” “Apple stock prices,” etc. On the other hand, a page full of keywords about “Apple computers” will likely only contain that single keyword.

That's why Google has moved from the era of “keyword stuffing” to the era of “LSI indexing.” So be sure to find multiple LSI keywords when looking for a primary keyword to index for your website.

What are the best free keyword research tools?

Here are a few free keyword research tools to get you started.

Google's keyword planner (free and used by millions of people around the world)
Ubersuggest (a great keyword research tool).
Keywordtool.io (an ultimate alternative to Google's keyword planner)

What are the best paid keyword research tools?

We highly recommend the following three paid keyword research tools for 2022.

Semrush keyword magic tool (a must-have tool for any blogger, SEO, and marketer).
Ahrefs (gives really accurate keyword metrics).
KW Finder (a better alternative and also cheaper than the 2 tools above).

How long does it take to be ranked in Google?

There is no specific answer. But considering numerous surveys, we can say that it generally takes about a hundred days to be ranked for a keyword in Google. If a keyword has a really low search volume and keyword difficulty score, you can rank even within one day.

How do I find my competitors' keywords?

There are plenty of keyword research tools out there that allow you to easily find the keywords that your competitors are ranking for. Among them are SpyFu, Semrush, Ahrefs, etc.

What is keyword mapping?

Keyword mapping is the process of associating keywords with specific pages on a website, based on keyword research. Based on your mapping process, you can easily come up with incredible site recommendations to make your page more relevant to the mapped keywords.

Overall, keyword mapping helps you align highly relevant keywords to create useful and related pages on your site.

How do I do a good keyword research?

The search engine optimization you once knew is dead and no longer exists. Now you need to follow a specific set of rules to outperform your competitors in search results for the keywords you want.

Without further ado, let's get into the details of how to conduct advanced keyword research in 2022.

Here is the 3-step formula I follow to find profitable keywords for my blog posts.

Brainstorming keyword ideas
Keyword evaluation
Expand selected keywords

Now let's go into the details of the 3-step formula to do a proper keyword research.

1. Brainstorming keyword ideas

Find ideas for keywords that are relevant and highly targeted to your niche. Here is the first rule of SEO: always bring targeted visitors to your web pages. You should get keyword suggestions first before you think about increasing your organic traffic.

The first step in increasing your search traffic is keyword research. Find profitable keywords that improve your overall search engine rankings.

2. Keyword evaluation

Once you have a list of keywords for your next articles, you can then start evaluating them to analyze your keyword competition. It's always best to target keywords with less competition, especially when your website is new.

3. Expansion of selected keywords

Once you've evaluated keyword competition, develop your desired keywords into long-tail keywords. Before doing keyword research, be sure to use long-tail keywords. Here's what I mean.

Soccer: short tail keyword
Soccer players: middle tail keyword
Soccer players in France: Long tail keyword

I hope you understood what I meant. The next time you do keyword research, be sure to enter long-tail keywords to increase your organic traffic.

Here's also why long-tail keywords tend to bring you more organic traffic.

Can you see how your website's click-through rate could increase with the use of long-tail keywords? That's why you need to start using “long-tail keywords” when doing your keyword research.