Welcome to the draft of Chapter Three of the new and improved Beginner's Guide to SEO! So far you've been generous and energizing with your feedback for our outline[1], Chapter One[2], and Chapter Two[3]. We're asking for a little more of your time as we debut the our third chapter on keyword research. Please let us know what you think in the comments[4]!
Chapter 3: Keyword Research
Understand what your audience wants to find.
Now that you’ve learned how to show up in search results, let’s determine which strategic keywords to target in your website’s content, and how to craft that content to satisfy both users and search engines.
The power of keyword research lies in better understanding your target market and how they are searching for your content, services, or products.
Keyword research provides you with specific search data that can help you answer questions like:
- What are people searching for?
- How many people are searching for it?
- In what format do they want that information?
In this chapter, you'll get tools and strategies for uncovering that information, as well as learn tactics that'll help you avoid keyword research foibles and build strong content. Once you uncover how your target audience is searching for your content, you begin to uncover a whole new world of strategic SEO!
What terms are people searching for?
You may know what you do, but how do people search for the product, service, or information you provide? Answering this question is a crucial first step in the keyword research process.
Discovering keywords
You likely have a few keywords in mind that you would like to rank for. These will