Types of Keywords

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Keyword research

Keyword research is the process of discovering the keywords used by potential customers to find your products. You can then pick the most relevant keywords within your reach that have a good search volume.

Benefits of keyword research

Keyword research helps to inform your content development. You can use the findings from your keyword research to decide on themes for your content. If you base your content on high ranking keywords, it is more likely to appear in search results. Keyword research allows you to:

• Get the right kind of visitors to your site.
• Identify keywords with high search volume to use as a guide to content topics.
• Identify content gaps on your website by comparing new keyword topics to your existing content topics.
• Provide unbiased statistical rationale for pursuing content themes.
• Identify new opportunities with emerging themes and trends based on what people are searching for.
• Use SEO difficulty metrics to identify quick wins and high impact opportunities.

Long-tail and short-tail keywords

Long-tail keyword are specific keyword terms containing many words. They are easier to rank and convert, but harder to research. They have lower individual keyword search volume, but higher collective keyword search volume. They require more in-depth content, and a greater amount of it, because there are so many brands competing for these searches. So, in order to be noticed and ranked by Google, you’ll need to produce a lot of in-depth content.

Short-tail keywords are broad keywords with just a few words in the keyword. They are harder to rank and convert, but easier to research. They have a higher individual keyword search volume, but lower collective keyword search volume. Short-tail keywords require very specific content topics because many of the keyword terms are questions – for example, “What are the top 10 places to visit in Europe?”

It’s worth noting that approximately 70% of all search traffic comes collectively from long-tail keywords. Searchers tend to be more detailed with their searches because they are looking for specific results in as little time as possible.