It’s sometimes all too easy to form our own opinions on what constitutes quality content. We might think we have hit on a great idea that our customers will love, but how do we know and precisely how do we quantify its real value?
Effective keyword research is at the core of any online marketing strategy. That is why keyword research is important for content marketing. These essential keywords are the voice of our customers, and marketing content should always be designed primarily to respond to these exact queries.
You can find out more about general keyword research and using synonyms and related keywords in your content strategy by checking out our previous blogs.
Today, we at Topcontent are looking at the importance of keyword research for content marketing, how we can better master it and make our SEO even smarter during the upcoming months and years.
What does keyword research for content marketing mean today?
Today, the newest trends in Google’s search algorithms focus on multiple factors that are specifically designed to discover customer intentions. Researching keywords is no longer about identifying the most popular words and stuffing them relentlessly into our content. Most of us are acutely aware of this, but still find it difficult to make essential changes and discover the best solutions that yield results.
There are several productive techniques that can help to identify useful keywords. Most of them are designed to determine which customer type is searching in your niche market, why and how they are searching, and what style of language they use.
An important focus is also designing and creating optimum landing pages. They allow us to learn about and understand all of these key pointers. Armed with this vital information, we can then move towards building keyword marketing strategies that will yield much higher conversion rates.
Why keyword research is an important factor for content marketing
Meaningful and in-depth keyword research for content marketing allows us to expose the many quirks and whims that customers or users have. These phrases, expressions and questions, together with intent, are incredibly instrumental in achieving marketing goals. Whether this is obtaining more page views, generating new leads or increasing sales volume, keyword research is exactly what it says. Key.
Doing it effectively will enable us all to build marketing strategies that improve existing content or increase it, bringing higher rankings across a more extensive range of diverse terms. This, we all know, will not only drive organic growth but will result in much more relevant and productive website traffic.
The old days of identifying a single keyword and trying to optimise text with it have undoubtedly disappeared forever. However, using long-tail keywords and related phrases are here to stay for a while. Examining their individual popularity and how they relate to each other can provide useful insights. It can also help us to satisfy those elusive customer intents. This can relate not only to optimising a website but also to UI, general navigation, product selection and a host of other critical areas.
A reminder of those handy keyword research tips
- Create buyer personas related to the solutions your brand offers
- Determine appropriate pillar page topics for products and services
- Identify niche keywords for these topics which are not overused
- Determine any ranking opportunities using long-tail keywords
- Utilise research tools like Google Trends, Quora or Reddit for extra insight
- Test keywords to identify the high conversion keywords and prioritise these
- Continually track progress to analyse the keywords that perform well
Make your SEO smarter and slicker
Keyword research for content marketing still remains the very foundation of any sound marketing plan and the cornerstone of superior SEO work. Both Google and our competitors are continually changing, evolving and getting smarter. During the upcoming months and years they will be producing better and more targeted content. This mean we all need to be up to date with the latest developments and continually on our toes!
Establishing authority in any niche market now means being more strategic and focusing on fully optimising content for semantic search and intent. Remember, it’s no longer purely about search engine rankings, but about delivering a superior and complete user experience.
We can all make a start with productive changes that offer a significant long-term effect:
- Devote time to refining and improving your existing content. Add fresh, new text rather than stuffing it with focus keywords
- Start discovering and focusing on long-tail keywords and phrases that can really help you to stand out from the crowd
- Produce more unique and conversational content to improve visibility in question boxes and featured snippets
- Choose to invest in some of the many tools that will make SEO more productive
- Change the primary goal from top SERPs ranking to other important approaches like featured snippets and visual ranking
Turning your tools & strategies into consistent revenue
Now we all know why keyword research is important and what actions we should take to improve our websites’ performance. However, adapting to all the constant changes can be both challenging and time-consuming. With the best keyword research strategy and tools, we are all able to improve organic traffic and conversions. And that’s just the start of the many measurable benefits.
We all need a marketing campaign that is evidence-based and tailored to individual business goals. Many companies find themselves with insufficient time, inefficient strategies or just simply struggle to keep up with Google’s algorithm changes.
At Topcontent, we are here to help you; we can revise your existing content or create compellingly fresh text which includes keywords that will offer a measurable and sustainable SEO impact.
Make a strategic change today and contact us. We promise you will not look back!
