SEO is one of the best ways to advertise your business online. Research shows that organic SEO is over five times better than paid search ads. However, to maximize SEO, you need to first conduct keyword research. Here is how you can conduct keyword research for SEO.

Formulate Your Goals

Without proper goals, conducting keyword research is a waste of time. You need to know what you want to achieve for your business and brand. This is important because knowing what you want to achieve gives you some direction when it comes to keyword research. You might find a lot of keywords to rank for. However, that doesn’t automatically translate to traffic. Instead, you need keywords that will attract visitors to your site. If you are not sure how to go about this, you can find an SEO agency to help you out.

Build Your Keyword ‘Wish List’

This is more of internal research than anything else. You can sit with your team and list the keywords that you think best describe your products. You must also consider what customers might be searching for during several phases of their buyer’s journey. Sometimes people can search for particular terms in an attempt to educate themselves about the types of goods or services that you will be selling. They can then proceed to search and try to compare various sellers. Lastly, you need to know what people, those who are ready to buy, will most likely search for.

Assess the Competitive Landscape

If you want to find keywords that you are supposed to be ranking for, you can check out your competitors, especially the ones who have been in the game longer than you. One of the best sources to find keywords you should be ranking for but aren’t yet is your competitors. Sometimes they would have stumbled upon those keywords randomly, but you will still benefit a lot from them. There are several tools that can show you the top-ranking keywords for a particular domain. However, some of these tools are paid, but it will be a worthwhile investment.

Keyword research should be an organized and strategic process. If you don’t know how to conduct keyword research, your best bet is to hire an SEO agency. The advantage of working with an SEO agency is that they have a lot of experience searching for keywords, and they will not waste any time.