E190 – Keyword Research 201

We have already done a number of shows on various Keyword Research topics so if you missed them or want to check them out again here they are:

Unique Ways to Do Keyword ResearchCompetitive Research Beyond Just KeywordsKeyword Tools for Trends and Shopping101 Guide to Writing Blog Posts

So if you want Keyword Research 101, tips on writing blog posts, help with your ecommerce keyword research or to dig into some competitive research beyond keywords - DO check out those past episodes.

Hashtags

What hashtags are similar or competitors using? Look at Twitter and Instagram to get ideas on what people care about.

Leverage them to better optimize your title, description and maybe even give you new ideas for content. Look at the numbers of posts using various hashtags - is it a small number or large number? Use those data points as validation of what keywords people are thinking about.

Matt with his photography is often digging into how and what people are tagging to give him ideas.

Intent

When you have lists of 10,000, 40,000 or even 200,000 or 400,000 like Dave has had for some projects recently it is hard to just sort through so many.

Think of the "intent" of keywords - informational, transactional or navigational. Dave gives some examples of keywords, intents and questions that you can ask.

For SaaS companies that want to rank for "best X software" - sorry but Google isn't likely going to list your product page unless you are the biggest in that space. It is going to show lists of rated/sorted products.

What do people want to do? Learn and be educated? Buy something? Compare something? Think about the intent of the keyword, the content on the site and think about how best to create content that has a chance to rank and help people.

Content Ideas - Where to Find More

Go right now (unless you are sure) and make sure you have Google Analytics set-up to track your site searches. There is gold in that data and lots of FAQ/content ideas that you likely need to add to your site.

Yearly Review

Do you need to review your keyword target lists monthly or quarterly? Maybe if you are in the ecommerce space and have lots of seasonal/product turn over. If you aren't though, once a year or so is likely enough.

Businesses change. Product and service offerings change from time to time. When those things happen for you, take a look at the keyword targets and evaluate what you are going after. Check your content plan and make sure that your new keywords and business priorities are all in line!

Full Transcript

Matt Siltala: [00:00:00] Welcome to another exciting episode of the business of digital podcast, featuring your host, Matt  and Dave roar. Hey guys, excited to have you join us on another one of these business of digital podcast episodes as always Dave, on the other end. How's it

Dave Rohrer: [00:00:16] going? My friend, I am. It is, it is a rainy here. Oh yes.

I know. You're like going 115 degrees already and it's raining here.

Matt Siltala: [00:00:25] Well, we're not quite at 115. Thank goodness. But, uh, it's coming soon. Well, guys, um, we're going to just jump right into it. We want it to. Um, you know, Dave reminded me that we're approaching, uh, you know, we're, we're coming up to a high number of episodes that we've done.

And it just crazy because I don't know, um, you know, it's, we've been doing this for a long time and you just get into the routine of doing it and, and, uh, you just, you, you tend to forget like where you're at and what you've accomplished and, you know, over three years [00:01:00] and approaching 200 episodes and it's crazy day, but, uh, What we wanted to jump in today with you guys is, um, a little bit more of a high level, uh, keyword research.

We've done keyword research in the past. Um, but it's always good to go over it again, but also we had some ideas that might take it to the next level and, uh, that's where we're really going to jump