Blog #3 or 30: Super simple keyword research for beginners
The first thing people or business think about when they hear Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is ranking words, keywords or phrases on Google. And everyone wants to Rank #1 and on Page 1 for Google Search, that is the goal of 90% of the clients that come to me for SEO. They believe if they are number 1 on Google they’ll have tons of people calling, requests, visits, etc… this is just part what you need for a successful online marketing campaign.
So let’s get into how to do simple keyword research and what tools you can use to help you.
I recommend the Google Keyword Planner tool. It’s a free tool that is offered by Google and shows data on how many times a keyword was searched a month, how competitive a keyword is, and if you want to run Google Ads how much it costs per click.
Step 1
Sign in to the Google keyword planner using your Gmail account or sign up at the Start Now button in Green.
Step 2
You should be on the below screen. If not, go to Tools and select “keyword planner”.
Step 3
Select the Highlighted box below.
Step 4
Enter one or more keywords in the “Your Product or Service” box. I’ll keep it simple and do a Search for “SEO Torrance”.
The box in red (Search Term) is your search showing Average Monthly Searches & Competition. The box in Green (Keyword – by relevance) is a list of keywords that are similar to your searched keyword.
Keyword (by relevance) is a good way to get ideas for keywords that you can target.
Step 5 (optional)
If you want to be more specific with your research, you can filter your current search with filters on the left.
You can filter by location, language, negative keywords, and date range and use the customize your search section to really get more specific with your search.
Negative keywords are words that you don’t want to show up in your search. This will remove results that use those words in the Keyword (by relevance) section.
This is a really simple version of how to get started with keyword research. I’ll warn you, it does get more complicated when you start looking at the competition, your website, target market, etc. This is a good start if you really want to see what is out there.