How To Do Keyword Research For SEO: A Free Step-by-Step Guide

Keywords are terms or phrases web users enter into a search engine to find relevant websites.

Therefore, when optimizing your site for search engines, you want to choose keywords which match the terms or phrases your target audience will use to find a site like yours. But how do you do that? How do you determine what keywords will drive traffic to your site? Further, which keywords will drive qualified, targeted traffic?

Keyword research.

One of the first, and possibly the most important, steps in any comprehensive search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is to determine the best keywords to use on your website.

This series will provide a thorough but easy step-by-step guide for how to do keyword research in 4 basic steps or phases, to be covered in a series of blog posts.

1. Build an initial list of keywords
2. Expand the list
3. Research the list
4. Select the best keywords

You can find a lot of information online about keywords and keyword research. In fact, I’ll write a post after this series with recommended links.

Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to find information about keyword research that is

1. Comprehensive,
2. Easy to understand,
3. Gives you step-by-step instructions so you don’t have to figure out on your own how to do what they’re talking about,
4. Helps you organize the research, and
5. Covers every aspect of the process in depth.

The last item is particularly crucial. You’ll find lots of online resources for building a keyword list and expanding it. You’ll find fewer resources for how to research that list once you’ve compiled it. And then, it’s quite challenging to locate good information to help you understand how to interpret the research, and use that information to make your final selection.

This how-to guide does all of that, with easy-to-follow steps.

I’m going to walk you through a comprehensive keyword research methodology. I’ll help you organize the data, and then interpret it. When you’re done, you’ll have information that’s good not just for optimizing your website, but for any potential PPC (pay-per-click) ad campaigns you might want to pursue.

This is not the exact methodology I use when doing keyword research myself. For one thing, I wanted this methodology to be no-cost, so it doesn’t include any of the fee-based tools and services that I use. For me, those are logical business expenses. You, however, may not do keyword research every day; and it’s entirely possible to get decent-to-excellent results using only free keyword tools.

Even though this method is no-cost and simple, it’s thorough. Lengthy, even, depending on how many shortcuts you take. So at the end of the series, I’ll throw in a couple of posts about Quick-and-Dirty Keyword Research when you’re in a crunch.

Like so many things in life, you get out of the research what you put into it. An exhaustive process is going to yield better information than a fast, cursory method. But sometimes you don’t have that option, and I know that. (Of course, when it’s because you don’t have the time, maybe that’s an opportunity to consider having a professional do it for you … like me. Ahem.) So I’ll also give you some techniques for doing basic research in an hour or two.

In the next post, we’ll talk more about what makes a good keyword.