The Perfect Strategy to Keyword Research in 7 Simple Steps + Increasing Rankings and discovering New Rank Opportunities

Tim Kahlert 👑
The Perfect Strategy to Keyword Research in 7 Simple Steps 🚀🔥
Increasing rankings and discovering new rank opportunities is crucial to growing your business with Search Engine Optimization | SEO. Keyword and competitor research are two essential skills to do just that.
Most people struggle when it comes to keyword research. So here's a step-by-step strategy to discover more keywords. It just takes a bit of your precious time.
First of all, you don't need any third-party tools. All you need is Google Search Console.
#1 Go to your competitors' websites and write down all keywords that are relevant for your own business as well. (in case you don't know what to rank for)
#2 Cluster the keywords you've found and structure them. Create sub-topics until you've brainstormed a reasonable number of sub-keywords for each of the major topics you want to rank for. Try to do one main topic and three to five related sub-topics.
#3 Start creating content about all the keywords you've researched and brainstormed.
#4 After one to three months, you'll notice that Google picks up on the keywords you've used. It starts to rank you for the desired key phrases AND OTHER phrases. The last part is crucial as it tells you all the search terms your best audience searches for.
#5 Now, go to Google Search Console, click on one of the pages you've created recently and see what keywords pop up that you didn't focus on in the first place.
#6 Since Google Search Console (GSC) is now telling you what exact keywords are searched for and also gives you an impression of search volume. You're now able to either improve existing content, consolidate content or remove content.
#7 The last step is to research the keywords Google shows you and create better content than what you can see on the first page.
If you have access to Ahrefs or SEMrush, it can help you do competitor research more efficiently (i.e keyword difficulty). You can also use other free tools to get an idea of how strong some site's backlink profiles are etc.
As you can see, keyword research has nothing to do with guessing or being super smart. Follow this strategy; anyone can do it. You just need to put in some time and effort, and you'll eventually succeed.
Good luck! 😎

📰👈

🔗🏹

77 👍🏽14 💟94 filtered from 30 💬🗨

Ashworth
So when going to the competitors website or a particular page, you suggest using a tool like Ubersuggest to extract the main keywords etc. from that page?

Tim Kahlert ✍️👑 » Ashworth
Using 3rd party tools like screamingfrog, Unersuggest or Ahrefs/SEMrush is an advantage for sure, though it‘s not necessary if you don‘t have access to them. It‘s mostly sufficient to browse through competitors' navigation structure or sitemap and pick the keywords you think are relevant for you. Then start brainstorming related sub-topics.
💟👍🏽8
Ashworth
Thanks!

John Cody 🎓
Keyword research is really the most important aspect of the entire thing.
1- Research your competition
2- Research larger markets and see what they're also trying to capitalize on (remember, take away the geo modifiers and your likely going to get terms that are universal – specially in the same country).
3- Research blog topics relevant to the niche / services offered – find some low hanging fruit (you will likely need tools like Ahrefs/SEMrush/ect).
4- Use tools like Frase or Surfer to optimize the page content
Doing this in combination with solid on page can make your local business site super successful.
Google wants great content to show, so do it better then your competition and your rewards will usually come.
💟👍🏽4

Tim Kahlert ✍️👑 » John Cody
😎👆💯

Eddie
Under Google Ads Manager, we can specify URL for keywords, what do you think about us putting the competitor's URL there to find the keywords? Would it simplify the comp keyword research process?

Jasper » Eddie
I do that. It's a legit way to get ideas fast.
Roxan
This is great. 👍
Tim Kahlert ✍️👑 » Eddie
Hey Eddie! That‘s a nice way to find keywords, too. Though I would also try to run specific broader phrase match campaigns in the local area to get an idea of what people search for. That‘s actually one if the most precise ways to do keyword research.
Eddie » Tim Kahlert
Very true Tim, that's probably what i will do too. Phrase matches would be excellent to match voice searches.

Umar
Hey Tim,
Thanks for this! But for the local blogs. We will use the same strategy? Seems like the one you just told is for websites created around a specific niche.
I can see, the keywords that are related to our local SEO website has 0 or very low volume.
The one in which you told about checking related terms in maps of competitors, was really helpful. I ended up having no keywords using that way too.
What's your take on this?
💟👍🏽2

Tim Kahlert ✍️👑 » Umar
Hey Umar! Appreciate the comment. Thank you. Yeah you can apply this strategy to all sorts of keywords. For example, if you create a location page for an auto repair shop „diesel engine repair Los Angeles" then this page will most likely also start to rank (somewhere in the top 100) for „RV engine repair LA" or „truck diesel engine repair LA" etc. As you can see, the opportunities are almost endless. If you want to get reliable data you shouldn‘t look at SEMrush search volume only. GSC is a way more reliable source to get that type of info. Does that make sense?
💟1
Umar
Thanks Tim! Almost cleared.
Basically, I don't face problem in finding keywords for the service pages. I don't see the volume, just see where competitors are playing and add Location with the keyword. That's it, I have a new keyword for our local page.
The difficulty where I feel is when searching keywords for the blog. As you suggest, interlink your main business from those blog pages with the anchor text having location, do exactly that and we have seen results in second month 😍
But blog keywords 🙁
Tim Kahlert ✍️👑 » Umar
That‘s awesome.
As for blog content, it works exactly the way I‘ve described it above. Go to Google Search Console (GSC), select a blog post page of your choice, check out the keywords where the page doesn‘t rank well. That‘ll mostly be keywords that you didn‘t optimize the page for. For instance, your blog post is „California state inspection guide" and you rank for „California State Inspection". Now, the post also contains information about the price. If you now look at the keywords that page ranks for you‘ll most likely find search volume for „how much is a California state inspection" or „Cali state inspection cost". This keyword is most likely not ranking as well as the general term so you can use it to create another page just about the cost of a CA state inspection. I hope that helps.
💟1
Umar » Tim Kahlert
Thanks to you 🖤
This will help me find more keyword opportunities.
What about initial keyword research when the business is new and even don't have GSC attached? (I promise: this would be the last one 😁)
Tim Kahlert ✍️👑 » Umar
If you wanna use the same strategy, create content applying the steps in this post. SEMrush/Ubersuggest can help get started. I mean, most businesses know their primary terms when they start, so that will lead to more GSC data anyway. 🙂
🤔💟👍🏽4

Chris » Tim Kahlert
" Create sub-topics until you've brainstormed a reasonable number of sub-keywords for each of the major topics you want to rank for. "
are you talking about to include relevant keywords into the same page/article or in another one?

Tim Kahlert ✍️👑 » Chris
Hey! Main topic A = 1 page
sub topic A1 = 1 page
sub topic A2 = 1 page
Main topic B = 1 page
sub topic B1 = 1 page
sub topic B2 = 1 page etc.
You can basically brainstorm unlimited number of sub-topics.

📰👈