When it comes to getting found online, keywords are king. Using the right keywords is important for SEO, Google Search Ads (or Adwords as many people know them) and social platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest. How you would like to describe your product or service isn’t always the most important thing - it’s often the words your customer would use to search for your offering that matters.
So what’s the best way to find the right keywords? Research!
Some of my clients provide a list of relevant words they think their potential customers might use, and that’s a brilliant starting point. But you’d be surprised how many terms you’ll miss if you don’t delve deeper. Here are a few of my favourite keyword research tools:
Google’s Keyword Planner
Keyword Planner is available for free (as long as you have a Google Ads account). It is a great way of getting ideas for keywords and finding out how popular they are. By looking at the historical data on search volumes, you can analyse which keywords have been gaining the most traction and can also spot seasonal trends.
The ‘People Also Ask’ box in the Google search listings
Not strictly a tool as such, but another tip is to type in a keyword and look in the ‘People Also Ask’ box that pops up near the top of the Google search listings. This will let you know other popular searches that are closely related to the term you’re searching for.
If I type in ‘Keyword’ for example, Google says that people also search for ‘What are keyword examples?’, ‘How do I find the best keywords?’ and ‘How do I use keywords?’. These might all be great additions to a Google Ads campaign or could even be used as a blog title!
SEMrush
SEMrush is one of my favourite tools. It’s great for finding phrases and keywords to complement those suggested by Google’s Keyword Planner. There is a limited free plan but if you’re serious about improving the SEO on your website, or run a lot of Google Ads, I would recommend trialling the paid-for plan for a month or two. It’s definitely an investment but it’s also great for competitor research and now offers a social media toolkit which I have yet to explore.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a really intuitive and easy-to-use option created by Neil Patel. You get access to different numbers of keywords depending on which plan you choose. There is a free plan, which gives you lots of ideas and also a handy ‘content ideas’ tabs where you can see how the keyword has been used in popular content on the web.
Soovle
I’ve only just discovered Soovle but it’s a really nifty tool! It lets you type in a keyword and then you can see what related terms people searched for across different platforms like YouTube, Amazon, Yahoo! and Wikipedia. It’s a great way of finding ideas that are a little bit different which your competitors might not know about.
I’m always on the lookout for more ways to find keywords - do let me know in the comments if you have any other suggestions.
And if you need assistance researching keywords for your business, please email me at rebecca@rebeccaperkins.co.uk and we can discuss how I can help you.