keyword research tutorial - tips, tools & process for seo
TRANSCRIPT
About Me – Sam Partland
• 10 years digital marketing experience
• Lead generation & affiliate marketing for various
niches
• Covered all aspects of digital marketing for small
businesses through my own business
• Worked agency side and currently in-house at
realestate.com.au as a Digital Search Manager (SEO)
The Presentation
• Objectives of Keyword Research
• Establishing Depth
• Learn the Lingo
• My Preferred Tools
• Presentation
• A Few Tips
• A Keyword Research Example
• Establish what and how people search• Categories / Locations / Intents
• Discover areas of opportunity
• Show your client value for money $$$
Objectives of Keyword Research
How in-depth do you want to go?
Work out how in-depth you would like to go, as this
will guide what tools you use.
• Light touch / quick & dirty to discover the top terms
• Medium-level gathering with a few longer tail’s included
• Full market analysis to cover 10’s of thousands of keywords
The more effort you put in, the more understanding
and possible opportunity you will uncover.
Learn the lingo
Learn the language used by your client / niche.
• Map out the services offered by your client
• Check competing websites for the language used• ‘car hire’ vs ‘car rental’ – ‘plumber’ vs ‘blocked
drains’
Learn the lingo – Mapping the services offered
Simply use Excel.
Columns for categories, and rows for the different language used or
subcategories that are closely related.
Available tools
With so many tools available, what ones do I
feel are worth using?
There are plenty more available, but you
should be able to cover almost everything
using a combination of the above.
• Google Search Console
• Google Analytics
• Google Keyword Planner
• Google Auto Suggest &
Related Searches
• KeywordTool.io
• SEMrush
• LongtailPro
• Excel
• IMforSMB Keyword Generator
Tools – Google Search Console
Search console should be the first tool you open up if
you have access and it has history.
Pros• Will give you seed keyword ideas you may not
have thought about
• Find out exactly what customers are searching to
find yours or your client’s business
• Can segment site sections to get more targeted
Cons• Approx. 3 day data delay and only 90 days history
• Requires access for decent period to be useful
• Only data where your website was actually shown
so not always best to analyse new opportunities
• Limited export of 999 rows or 4k through the api
Tools – Google Analytics
Google Analytics is more of a sense check for me if it’s available. Making sure
nothing abnormal stands out before I kick off the research.
Pros• Investigate landing page performance so you can
more appropriately target keywords and do your
research in sections to save time
Cons• ‘Not Provided’ hides ~90% of keyword data
• Not really ‘keyword’ based insights, more just
knowledge about the clients current landing pages
so you can extend your research
Tools – Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is still a common go-to for any
analysis, but must be supported with other tools.
Pros• Will give a quick overview of the keywords
searched
• Data straight from Google
• Can export month-by-month volumes
• Visual device / location breakdowns
Cons• Doesn’t reveal all keywords that match your search
• Capped at 800 keywords visually, or 3k uploaded
via csv
• Search volumes are rounded, could be rather
inaccurate
Tools – Google Auto Suggest & Related Searches
Just something quick you can look at to get some
ideas to extend your research.
Pros• Great keyword ideas immediately
• Can get some good longtail keywords
Cons• Not always country specific (ie, type ‘plumbers
Melbourne’ and you’ll get Florida keywords)
Tools – KeywordTool.io
An amazing tool for longer tail keywords to fill
gaps and extend your research.
$68usd / month (but also free!)
Use it Here
Pros• Google Autocomplete scraping on steroids
• Get extreme amounts of longtail keywords
• Will assist content-centric keyword analysis
through the ‘questions’ search
Cons• Not always country specific (ie, type ‘plumbers
Melbourne’ and you’ll get Florida keywords)
• Can get A LOT of junk so you need to spend a bit of
time filtering
Tools – SEMrush
My absolute favourite tool, and can save you
hours on your research!
$69.95 - $149.95usd / month
Sign up Here
Pros• Extremely fast and easy to get massive
amounts of keywords, search volumes, and
ranking performance for multiple sites
Cons• Limited to SEMrush’s data, so there are gaps and
not great with longer tail / lower volume keywords
Tools – Longtail Pro
A decent tool to add to your arsenal that is
worth the monthly fee that’s paid.
$37usd / month
Sign up Here
Pros• An all-in-one solution to quickly pull together
all levels of keywords.
• Search volumes and keyword competition
• Fast filtering of low volume keywords
Cons• You’ll have to jump on a monthly subscription
• Competition can be slow, as it is one keyword at a
time but you can queue a full list up.
Tools – Excel - Generation
It’s like throwing mud on a wall and hoping some sticks.
Some does, and you wouldn’t get it any other way.
Pros• Can generate mass amounts of keywords off
the back of your initial research
• You won’t have location gaps because you run
a list
Cons• Bit slow when you want to run heaps of
keyword types & locations through it
Tools – Excel - Management
Excel is the ONLY keyword management software
that I currently recommend.
Pros• Do it your own way!
• Run advanced formulas and bring in any data
• You’re only limited by your Excel skills
Cons• A bit of Excel knowledge is required
• Slows down / sometimes crashes with large
data sets (100,000’s keywords)
Tools – IMforSMB Keyword Generator
My go-to for any bulk local keyword research.
Use it Here
Pros• Faster and easier than bulk generating with Excel
• Specify keyword templates to get variations of
your keywords
• Will give you a CSV export and text field to copy
Cons• Currently freezes up generating above 50k
keywords
Exportable Top-Level Analysis
Generate some categorised keyword top lists for your client.
Excel Dashboard
An Excel dashboard will give your client an interactive experience.
A Few Tips
• Your research will only be as good as your starting keywords
• You won’t nail it the first time
• Know how much effort you’ll put in from the start
• Do independent research on a couple tools, then combine
Preparation – Map Out Categories
Map out an initial level of services / categories / products offered.
Research – Initial SEMrush Exports
Run them all through SEMrush and export.
Research – Initial SEMrush Exports
Paste all the raw files into the keyword research table.
Research – KeywordTool.io
Run each primary keyword category through KeywordTool.io and
copy everything onto the bottom of the SEMrush list.
Research – Download Search Volume
Turn all keywords into CSV files of up to 3000
rows and run through Keyword Planner.
Research – Download Search Volume
Paste all source in separate tab. This keeps
track of ALL keywords you’ve checked.
Presentation – Categorisation
Categorise the shit out of your research.
• Primary
• Secondary
• Location
• Brand
• Intent
• Negatives
Presentation – Dashboard
Build the template out with pivot tables & slicers.
What’s Been Achieved
I know what’s
searched.
I know the categories
of opportunity.
Shown value for
money with pretty
dashboard.
Next Steps
• Analyse ranking performance if existing site
• Map out actual opportunities based on rankings
• Perform a content gap analysis
• Package it up for client to discuss
• Begin optimisations
