How to Do Keyword Research for SEO: A Beginner's Guide

虽然谷歌保持我们与所有的脚趾algorithm updatesthey keep rollin' out, one thing has stayed pretty consistent for inbound marketers looking to optimize their websites for search: keyword research.

好吧，需要do关键字研究保持不变。您实际上没有做什么。

什么是关键字研究？

关键字研究是找到和分析人们进入搜索引擎的搜索词的过程，其目的是将数据用于特定目的，通常用于搜索引擎优化（SEO）或一般营销。关键字研究可以揭示针对目标的疑问，这些查询的普及，排名难度等等。

More and more, we hear how muchSEO发展了在过去的十年中，以及关键字本身的不重要词已经成为我们每天进行搜索的能力。

在某种程度上，这是真的。在SEO专业人士眼中，使用与人的搜索完全匹配的关键字不再是最重要的排名因素。相反，这是意图behind that keyword, and whether or not a piece of content solves for that intent (we'll talk more about intent in just a minute).

但这并不意味着关键字研究是一个过时的过程。让我解释：

Keyword research tells you what topics people care about and, assuming you use the rightSEO tool，，，，how popular those topics actually are among your audience. The operative term here istopics- 通过研究每月进行大量搜索的关键字，您可以识别并将内容分类为要创建内容的主题。然后，您可以使用这些主题来决定您要寻找的关键字和目标。

Byresearching keywordsfor their popularity, search volume, and general intent, you can tackle the questions that the most people in your audience want answers to.

How to Research Keywords for Your SEO Strategy

我将介绍一个关键字研究过程，您可以遵循，以帮助您提出应定位的术语列表。这样，您将能够建立和执行强大的关键字策略，以帮助您找到实际关心的搜索词。

Step 1: Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.

为了开始这个过程，请考虑您要在通用存储桶方面排名的主题。您将想出大约5-10个主题存储桶对您的业务很重要，然后您将使用这些主题存储桶来帮助稍后在此过程中提出一些特定的关键字。

如果您是普通的博客作者，那么这些可能是您最频繁的主题。也许它们是销售对话最多的主题。把自己放在你的鞋子上买方角色-- what types of topics would your target audience search that you'd want your business to get found for? If you were a company like HubSpot, for example -- sellingmarketing software（碰巧有一些很棒的SEO工具...但是我离题），您可能有一般的主题存储桶，例如：

• "inbound marketing" (21K)
• "blogging" (19K)
• “电子邮件营销”（30k）
• "lead generation" (17K)
• “ SEO”（214K）
• "social media marketing" (71K)
• "marketing analytics" (6.2K)
• "marketing automation" (8.5K)

在每个关键字的右侧看到括号中的那些数字？那是他们的每月搜索量。这些数据使您可以衡量这些主题对受众的重要性，以及您可能需要创建内容的内容来成功使用该关键字的内容。要了解有关这些子主题的更多信息，我们进入步骤2 ...

Step 2: Fill in those topic buckets with keywords.

Now that you have a few topic buckets you want to focus on, it's time to identify some keywords that fall into those buckets. These are keyword phrases you think are important to rank for in the SERPs (search engine results pages) because your target customer is probably conducting searches for those specific terms.

例如，如果我为入站营销软件公司的“营销自动化”（Marketing Automation）拿了最后一个主题存储桶，我会集思广益一些关键字短语，我雷&raybet电子竞技#31454;技苹果下载官方版认为人们会与该主题相关。这些可能包括：

• 营销自动化工具
• how to use marketing automation software
• 营销自动化是什么?
• how to tell if I need marketing automation software
• lead nurturing
• 电子邮件营销自动化
• top automation tools

And so on and so on. The point of this step isn't to come up with your final list of keyword phrases. You just want to end up with a brain dump of phrases you think potential customers might use to search for content related to that particular topic bucket. We'll narrow the lists down later in the process so you don't have something too unwieldy.

虽然越来越多关键字正在加密by Google every day, another smart way to come up with keyword ideas is to figure out which keywords your website is已经被发现。为此，您将需要网站分析软件，例如Google Analytics（分析）或HubSp雷竞技苹果下载官方版ot的消息来源报告，可在Traffic Analytics tool。Drill down into your website's traffic sources, and sift through your organic search traffic bucket to identify the keywords people are using to arrive at your site.

重复此练习，以获取尽可能多的主题存储桶。请记住，如果您遇到相关的搜索词很难，您可以随时向面向客户的同事（从事销售或服务的同事），询问他们的前景和客户的术语类型使用或常见问题。这些通常是关键字研究的重要起点。

步骤3：了解意图如何影响关键字研究并相应地分析。

Like I said in the previous section,用户意图现在是您在Google等搜索引擎上排名良好的能力的最关键因素之一。今天，您的网页解决搜索者的问题更重要故意的to solve than simply carries the keyword the searcher used. So, how does this affect the keyword research you do?

It's easy to take keywords for face value, and unfortunately, keywords can have many different meanings beneath the surface. Because the intent behind a search is so important to your ranking potential, you need to be extra-careful how you interpret the keywords you target.

例如，假设您正在研究要创建的文章的关键字“如何启动博客”。“博客”可能意味着博客post或博客网站本身，以及搜索者在该关键字背后的意图将影响您的文章方向。搜索者是否想学习如何启动单个博客文章？还是他们想知道如何真正启动网站域来博客？如果您的内容策略仅针对对后者感兴趣的人，则需要在承诺之前确保关键字的意图。

要验证用户在关键字中的意图是什么，最好亲自将此关键字输入搜索引擎，然后查看出现哪些类型的结果。确保Google的内容类型与您要为关键字创建的内容密切相关。

Step 4: Research related search terms.

This is a creative step you may have already thought of when doing keyword research. If not, it's a great way to fill out those lists.

如果您努力考虑人们可能正在搜索特定主题的更多关键字，请查看当您将关键字插入Google时出现的相关搜索词。当您输入短语并滚动到Google结果的底部时，您会注意到与原始输入相关的搜索的一些建议。这些关键字可以引发您可能想考虑的其他关键字的想法。

Want a bonus? Type in some of those related search terms and look at他们的related search terms.

Step 5: Use keyword research tools to your advantage.

Keyword research and SEO tools such asahrefs，，，，Semrush， 和Ubersuggestcan help you come up with more keyword ideas based on exact match keywords and phrase match keywords based on the ideas you've generated up to this point. This exercise might give you alternatives that you might not have considered.

如何为您的网站找到并选择关键字

Once you have an idea of the keywords that you want to rank for, now it's time to refine your list based on the best ones for your strategy. Here's how:

Step 1. Understand the three main factors for choosing good keywords.

在选择关键字并期望您的内容为其排名之前，您必须为三件事策划关键字：

1.相关性

Google ranks content for relevance. This is where the concept of search intent comes in. Your content will only rank for a keyword if it meets the searchers' needs. In addition, your content must be the best resource out there for the query. After all, why would Google rank your content higher if it provides less value than other content that exists on the web?

2.权威

Google will provide more weight to sources it deems authoritative. That means you must do all you can to become an authoritative source by enriching your site with helpful, information content and promoting that content to earn social signals and backlinks. If you're not seen as authoritative in the space, or if a keyword's SERPs are loaded with heavy sources you can't compete with (like Forbes or The Mayo Clinic), you have a lower chance of ranking unless your content is exceptional.

3. Volume

You may end up ranking on the first page for a specific keyword, but if no one ever searches for it, it will not result in traffic to your site. Kind of like setting up shop in a ghost town.

卷由MSV（每月搜索量）测量，这意味着在所有受众中每月搜索关键字的次数。

步骤2：检查每个存储桶中的头部术语和长尾关键字的混合。

If you don't know the difference between head terms and long-tail keywords, let me explain. Head terms are keywords phrases that are generally shorter and more generic -- they're typically just one to three words in length, depending on who you talk to.Long-tail keywords另一方面，通常包含三个或更多单词的较长的关键字短语。

It's important to check that you have a mix of head terms and long-tail terms because it'll give you a keyword strategy that's well balanced with long-term goals and short-term wins. That's because head terms are generally searched more frequently, making them often (not always, but often) much more competitive and harder to rank for than long-tail terms. Think about it: Without even looking up search volume or difficulty, which of the following terms do you think would be更难排名？

1. 如何写一个伟大吗blog post
2. 写博客

如果您回答＃2，那么您绝对是对的。但是不要灰心。坦率地说，虽然头部术语通常具有最大的搜索量（意味着更大的潜力向您发送流量），但通常更需要“如何写出色的博客文章”一词所获得的流量。

为什么？

因为一个正在寻找东西的人那specific is probably a much more qualified searcher for your product or service (presuming you're in the blogging space) than someone looking for something really generic. And because long-tail keywords tend to be more specific, it's usually easier to tell what people who search for those keywords are真的looking for. Someone searching for the head term "blogging," on the other hand, could be searching it for a whole host of reasons unrelated to your business.

因此，请检查您的关键字列表，以确保您将头部术语和长尾关键字结合在一起。您肯定需要一些快速的胜利，长尾关键字将为您负担，但是从长远来看，您还应该尝试以更加困难的头号削减。

步骤3：查看这些关键字的竞争对手如何排名。

Just because your competitor is doing something doesn’t mean you need to. The same goes for keywords. Just because a keyword is important to your competitor, doesn’t mean it's important to you. However, understanding what keywords your competitors are trying to rank foris一种帮助您提供关键字列表的好方法。

如果您的竞争对手也在列表中的某些关键字中排名，那么努力改善这些关键字肯定是有意义的。但是，不要忽略竞争对手似乎不在乎那些。这可能是一个很好的机会你to own market share on important terms, too.

Understanding the balance of terms that might be a little more difficult due to competition, versus those terms that are a little more realistic, will help you maintain a similar balance that the mix of long-tail and head terms allows. Remember, the goal is to end up with a list of keywords that provide some quick wins but also helps you make progress toward bigger, more challenging SEO goals.

您问，您如何弄清楚竞争对手的排名是什么？除了手动在隐身浏览器中搜索关键字并查看竞争对手所在的位置外，AHREFS允许您运行许多免费报告，以向您显示您输入的域名的顶级关键字。这是一种让您了解竞争对手排名的术语类型的快速方法。

Step 4: Use Google's Keyword Planner to cut down your keyword list.

Now that you've got the right mix of keywords, it's time to narrow down your lists with some more quantitative data. You have a lot of tools at your disposal to do this, but let me share my favorite methodology.

I like to use a mix of theGoogle's Keyword Planner(you'll need to set up an Ads account for this, but you can turn your example ad off before you pay any money), andGoogle趋势。

在关键字计划器中，您可以获得您正在考虑的关键字的搜索量和流量估算。然后，获取您从关键字计划者那里学习的信息并使用Google趋势to fill in some blanks.

Use the Keyword Planner to flag any terms on your list that have way too little (or way too much) search volume, and don't help you maintain a healthy mix like we talked about above. But before you delete anything, check out their trend history and projections in Google Trends. You can see whether, say, some low-volume terms might actually be something you should invest in now -- and reap the benefits for later.

或者，也许您只是在查看一份太笨拙的术语列表，并且您必须以某种方式缩小它的范围... Google趋势可以帮助您确定哪些术语在上升，因此值得您更多的重点。

Best Keywords for SEO

明白,没有“最好”的关键词,those that are highly searched by your audience. With this in mind, it's up to you to craft a strategy that will help you rank pages and drive traffic.

The best keywords for your SEO strategy will take into account relevance, authority, and volume. You want to find highly searched keywords that you can reasonably compete for based on:

1. The level of competition you're up against.
2. 您产生超过当前排名的内容的能力。

And ... You're done!

恭喜！现在，您已经有了关键字列表，可以帮助您专注于适合自己的业务的主题，并为您提供短期和长期收益。

请确保每隔几个月重新评估这些关键字 - 一个季度是一个很好的基准，但是有些企业更喜欢这样做。随着您在SERP中获得更大的权威，您会发现，您可以在努力保持当前存在的过程中添加越来越多的关键字以应对，然后在新领域中生长。