Is Keyword Research Really Important?
Think of the first thing you do when you’re looking for new information. I’m sure pulling out your laptop or smartphone and going to ‘Google’ immediately came to mind (unless you’re more of a Bing kinda guy/gal).
Search engines are the main gateway for information and want to provide you with the most accurate and beneficial content in their database. As users, we want to find what we are looking for and we want to find it quickly.
By using properly targeted keywords, content can be moved to the top of results pages, directly in front of those who want to receive that content. Considering 60% of all organic clicks go to the top 3 search results, it’s crucial that your content is being ranked highly.
So, the quick answer to this question is this: yes, keyword research is extremely important in order to find the most ideal keywords and rank in the top results.
The First Step of SEO
Keyword research is central to everything businesses do online and is the initial step in improving SEO. While SEO itself is the process of attracting more visitors from search engines, keywords are the driving force for this attraction. Keyword research will set the framework for the rest of your content creation approach.
A general strategy for SEO follows the following steps:
- Perform keyword research
- Create content around your keywords
- Optimize content around a primary keyword
By conducting research, you’ll know what long-tail and short-tail keywords your content can rank the highest for–and in turn, what words each page on your site should be optimized around. A fully-optimized content strategy will drive more traffic to your site and entice more qualified leads.
Now, don’t get me wrong, keyword research is much easier said than done. Watch this video and read the blog to hear from Bluleadz's Shelby Catalano on the top keyword research tools to help you choose the best keywords possible.
Organic Traffic is Best
We typically think of organic food and materials as being the “best,” and organic traffic is really no different. When organic traffic is coming to your site, people are not only discovering your content, but also choosing to engage with it. As an added bonus, you aren’t spending any extra money as you would with paid advertising.
Driving organic traffic is vital to staying ahead of your competition. When all facets of your content are properly optimized (including blog posts, resources, landing pages and site pages), you can establish a more permanent high ranking with search engines.
As much as you want to have your content found, search engines want to be able to provide your content to their users. For this reason, it’s important to get (and stay) on Google’s good side when it comes to implementing keywords.
The Consequences of Bad Keyword Research
- People Can’t Find You. In order to be found online, users have to be able to access your content. When keyword research is poorly executed, your website may be impossible to find while browsing. In this case, you are Waldo.
- Unqualified leads. When a misguided set of keywords are used (such as keywords that do not relate to your particular business model), you may drive the wrong traffic to your site. While an increase in website traffic is a good thing, improving ROI only happens when this traffic is qualified. With unqualified traffic, you’re simply increasing your bounce rate.
- Empty content. From a business perspective, the purpose of writing content, whether it be for educational or entertaining means, is for it to be shared. If your content is targeting the wrong keywords or overly generic keywords, it’s most likely sitting on page 156 of the search results and not being read.
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