Keyword research is the foundation of SEO and your entire digital marketing strategy.

When people think of keyword research, they often think of it in terms of SEO (search engine optimization); however, the truth is that the importance of keyword research extends far beyond SEO. It’s actually the foundation of your digital marketing strategy as a whole.

Whether you’re writing a blog for your website, creating a Facebook post, making a video for your YouTube channel, or designing a Google ad, you’ll need to do so with your keywords in mind. Your keyword research will guide almost everything you do to market your business online, and that’s why it’s so important that you get it right.

Are you new to keyword research and unsure of where to begin? You’ll be glad to know that there are a lot of ways that you could go about finding keywords for your website and digital marketing strategy, and below, I’ve outlined a few of the most efficient options.

5 Steps to Help You Find the Right Keywords

Step #1. Determine what keywords you’re already ranking for.

If you’re unsure of where to start, often, the best way forward is to figure out which keywords your website is already ranking for. This will help you identify what kinds of terms Google already considers to be relevant to your brand, as well as opportunities for gaining more visibility moving forward.

Just because you’re already ranking for a keyword, it doesn’t mean that your work with that keyword is done. For one thing, unless you’re already ranking number one for that keyword, there’s always room for improvement. Additionally, even if you’re already ranking number one for a keyword, it doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way. The fact of the matter is that you’ll have to fight to keep that top spot.

There are lots of tools out there that you can use to figure out which keywords you’re already ranking for. Some of the most popular are SEMrush, AccuRanker, and Google Analytics.

Step #2. Figure out which keywords your competitors are going after.

Unless your business is a unicorn — in other words, completely and totally unique, which is something that’s few and far between these days — there’s a strong possibility that you have a competitor or two out there who offers similar services or products. And, figuring out what keywords they’re targeting will help you figure out which ones you should be targeting as well.

I’m not saying that you should target every single keyword that your competitors are targeting; however, knowing which keywords they’re targeting will give you a great jumping-off point to do your own keyword research. This can be especially important if what you’re offering is niche and you’re unsure about where to begin looking for keywords.

How do you go about figuring out which keywords your competitors are targeting? Luckily, there are a plethora of tools that you could use to get the job done. Some of the best are BuzzSumo, SpyFu, and Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool.

Step #3. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes.

Ultimately, the product or service you’re offering is there to meet a need. So, when you’re setting out to figure out which keywords you should be targeting, it’s important to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and think as they would.

This might take a little bit of reverse engineering of your product or service. First, think about the benefits or solutions that your product or service offers, and then think about what need those benefits or solutions could alleviate. From there, you’ll want to think about what kinds of keywords you might use if you were in their shoes.

For example, let’s say that you are a plumber that is offering drain cleaning. To figure out what keywords might be relevant to your website, you’ll need to think about what keywords you might be looking up if you had a clogged or backed-up drain, like “drain cleaning near me” or possibly “emergency plumbing services.”

Step #4. Utilize Google’s free tools.

Google offers some truly great tools for helping you find more keywords for your website and digital marketing strategy. And, best of all, they’re free, fast, and easy to use, which makes them perfect for busy small business owners.

The first Google tool that you should know about and utilize in your keyword research is autocomplete, which will show you the most popular searches related to any given search term. For example, if you start typing “drain cleaning” into Google, the related terms that come up are, “drain cleaning tool,” “drain cleaner,” “drain cleaning near me,” etc.

When you examine the search results for a specific keyword, you’ll also be able to easily see who your competition is for that keyword. Knowing who your competition is will tell you whether or not it’s worth your time and energy to pursue certain keywords. For example, if your competitors are other small businesses, you’ll be much more likely to be successful than if your competitors are big box stores or huge corporations with endless marketing budgets.

Last but not least, Google also makes it easy to find related search terms right at the bottom of page one of the SERP (search engine results pages).

Step #5. Target long-tail keywords.

There are lots of different keyword types that you could target in your digital marketing efforts, but for most small to medium-sized businesses, the most effective strategy lies in targeting long-tail keywords.

Essentially, long-tail keywords are just more specific keywords, and they’re ideal to target because they generally have lower search volumes, are less competitive, and are usually searched by people who are further along in the sales funnel.

When someone searches for a more generic keyword, like “vacuum cleaner for sale,” they’re probably still in the research phases of the buying process. This kind of broad keyword indicates that the searcher doesn’t really know what they’re looking for quite yet and are just seeing what’s out there.

On the other hand, when some searches for a more specific, long-tail keyword, like “best vacuum cleaner for pet hair, “ or “Dyson V8 Animal,” it’s clear that the searcher knows a little more about what they’re looking for, and when they find it, they’ll be closer to being ready to actually making a purchase.

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Whether we’re talking about video marketing, social media marketing, paid ads, or SEO, it all starts with keyword research.