Finding Keywords: In 6 Steps to the Appropriate Search Terms

1. What are keywords and why do we need them?
2. What makes a "correct" keyword? What factors are used for this?
3. Find the right keywords in 6 steps
4. Conclusion

Organic search remains essential for everyone who is online. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) therefore plays a central role when it comes to the organic visibility of a page and traffic.

The basis of good optimization for the search engine is always a well-thought-out concept, a SEO strategy. One of the most important parts of such a concept is the keyword and content strategy, which includes identifying the right SEO keywords. What exactly keywords are and how to identify the right search words for Google and Co., you will learn in this article.

What are keywords and why do we need them?

"Keywords" translated into English mean "keywords". But there are many synonyms for this term, such as search terms, search words, keywords, or buzzwords. However, "keyword" is the most common in the SEO world. Anyone searching for something on the Internet usually enters words or phrases into search engines - and these are exactly these keywords. A keyword does not necessarily consist of just one word. "Shoes" is just as much a keyword as "How do I boil an egg". So we use not only individual words or two-three-word combinations, but also entire sentences, if necessary.

Basically, the keywords help search engines understand the content of a website. Because only when the search engine associates a website or individual landing pages with a specific keyword, can this page appear in the search results and thus reach the searchers. The goal of the search engine is always to deliver the most suitable result or the best answer to their search to the searchers.

Of course, such content optimization is not the only success factor of a website, but without it, it becomes very difficult to rank well.

What makes a "correct" keyword? What factors are used for this?

Whether a keyword is correct is determined by an interplay of various factors, here broken down into a few key points and explained in more detail in the following sections:

• It reflects the search intention of the users.
• It provides an accurate description of the offering of the landing page.
• The site has realistic chances of good rankings with regard to differentiation from the competition.

Find the right keywords in 6 steps

These following 6 steps will help you find these "right" keywords. Whether you want to place articles, services, or products in the search is irrelevant. The important thing is that you go through these steps for all topics or pages to be optimized:

1. Brainstorming
2. Search engine test
3. Fine-tuning and unique selling points
4. Tool-based keyword research
5. Find competitor keywords
6. Evaluate keywords

These steps can serve as a guide and you should repeat them. If, for example, you have identified new keywords in the last step, you should also test them in the search engine.

Step 1: Brainstorming

The first step is brainstorming. Don't underestimate this step, it is crucial for further success.

To do this, think about the answers to the following questions and note down the main topics and thoughts on them. They will be very relevant later on in keyword research. It's best to create a list of terms that sum up the following:

• What is the page to be optimized about?
• What makes up the content of your page? You should be clear about the topic you want to cover.
• What are unique selling points or added values ​​of your page, your product, or your service that set you apart from the competition?
• Which words or sentences would you use yourself to find your content?
• What search terms would a person likely use if they've never heard of your product or service, but are specifically looking for what you offer? How would this person describe that?
• What questions does your audience have and what problems do they want to solve?

It is necessary to take the perspective of the searchers and try to think just like they do. Also consider here: Is the offer on your page aimed at professionals who are familiar with the product (B2B) or is the product intended for the general public (B2C)? Is it a well-known product or is it rather niche?

Many find it difficult to step out of their own world of thought and take the perspective of the users. Therefore, it is a common mistake in keyword search to equate company-internal terms with keywords. If you use such buzzwords in the end, you are leaving a lot of potential. Because there are often terms that are much more familiar to users - and these need to be found. If you also find it difficult to take this perspective, you can also use aids, e.g. the search engine, a tool, or the competition - but more on that later.

At the end of the brainstorming, you have collected a long list of terms for your URL. If you are only looking for keywords for a single URL, a simple list is sufficient. If you are looking for several URLs at the same time, you should now add a column for the relevant URL next to the keyword.

Step 2: Search engine test

You should now enter each term that landed on your list during the brainstorming into the search engine of your choice. There are two reasons for this: 

1. You may find related terms that you did not come up with yourself in the search results of your competitors.

As an example: For the keyword "pajamas", also results with the keywords "pyjamas" and "sleepwear" are displayed:

Source: Google

2. You can check whether the search intention of the keyword actually matches the content of your page.

Use the incognito mode of your search engine for this. Take a look at which results are listed on the first page: Are these similar contents to yours or do completely different things come up in terms of content?

A small example: The short keyword "necktie" shows you websites that sell neckties. The keyword is thus of a "transactional" nature:

 Source: Google

"Tie a necktie", on the other hand, reflects a completely different intention: You get informational content, including in the form of instructions:

Source: Google

If the results are similar to your content, you can keep these search words on your list. If the results look completely different, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you have the content elsewhere on your website? Then you should note down the terms for the other URL.
• Are you not providing the content yourself yet, but are these relevant for your users? Then you might have opened up a new field of topics. Make a note of them on a list of new content ideas.
• Do the results have nothing in common with your page? Then strike out the term from your list.

While this may be quite time-consuming in some parts, it is also essential. Even if terms are similar, you should still carry out this step for each individual phrase on your list. You now have to repeat this step after each of the following steps.

Step 3: Fine-tuning and Unique Selling Points

To stand out from the competition and increase your chances of good rankings in the SERPs, it can be worthwhile to define your unique selling points and find relevant keywords for them.

You focus on longer, more specific keywords, the so-called Long-Tail-Keywords. This means that although the individual keywords do not have much search volume, they do make up a lot of search volume in total. The so-called Short-head Keywords on the other hand have a lot of search volume, but are fewer keywords in total.

What does that mean in concrete terms? Let's say you're optimizing for an online shop that sells sustainable clothing. Then you should add words like "sustainable" or "fair trade" to your terms everywhere, so you also have the chance to rank for "sustainable dresses", for example. The competition environment for these keywords is ultimately smaller than that for "dresses", and therefore the chances of good rankings are better.

Another possibility is to go more in depth. If the focus of the online shop to be optimized, for example, is on dresses, then you should think about what other dress topics you can cover (possibly also on other URLs of the shop). This way, you could combine your keywords with various colors, cuts, or occasions and thus present your wide range.

You don't have to do this manually, there are several tools that can help you. For one, you can use the concatenate function in Excel to combine certain terms. On the other hand, you can also use tools like mergewords.com. 

Source: mergewords.com

Step 4: Tool-based Keyword Research

Now you can use certain tools to identify more synonyms for your keywords. These tools can also give you hints about questions that are asked around these terms or show you new fields of topics that you might still be missing.

In addition, you can collect data on the keywords using the tools. One important thing is the search volume, i.e. how many users actually search for these terms. Because in the end, although it's good to have many terms that describe the content of the website, if nobody searches for these keywords, you won't generate any traffic from them.

You now need another column in your list, in which you note the so-called search volume.

There are a large number of different tools that can help you find suitable keywords - and all offer slightly different data sets and possibilities. However, most of them derive their data from the common search engines, which is why the results often resemble each other. There are both free and paid tools. 

Free tools for finding SEO keywords

There are many free tools that you can use well to find keywords. Here are some of the best-known ones:

Google Keyword Planner

This free tool from Google Ads, which was actually developed for creating ads, can help you generate new keyword ideas and determine the monthly search volume of the keywords. 

You enter your keyword in the search window, determine the country and language, and then receive the entered keywords as well as new keyword ideas with the average search volume ("Average searches per month").

You can either manually copy out the appropriate keywords or download them.

Source: Google Ads

Almost identically also work the free Keyword Tool from Sistrix and Keywords Everywhere. 

Google Autosuggest

Not directly a tool, but still a good way to find new keywords: You enter a term in the Google search bar and it directly shows you further suggestions. You can also include these terms in your list - if they are suitable.

Source: Google

AnswerThePublic

This tool helps you find various questions from users. It shows you both questions with and without search volume. So you can use the questions for your keyword list, but you can also use them later to create new content so you know which questions you should answer. The visual representation of the data is particularly worth highlighting:

Source: AnswerThePublic

But you can also get the information in data form and then download it:

Source: AnswerThePublic

Free tools often have limited functions, such as limited search queries per day. But they can still be helpful, especially if you are just starting with keyword research. Check out various options of each tool and decide which one is best for your needs. If none is included and you need more options, there are also paid tools that you can use.

Paid tools for finding keywords

Paid tools also include all-in-one SEO tools, which include many other functionalities, including keyword research. These are worth it for you especially if you also want to use other functions.

These tools include e.g. Semrush , Sistrix, Ahrefs and Moz Pro.

So Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO tool that helps with many other use cases in addition to keyword search. As part of the keyword research, you can both get ideas for related terms, synonyms, or questions, as well as view data on these terms. For example, Ahrefs not only shows you the search volume but also calculates a traffic potential, the top search result, and the difficulty level of the keyword.

Source: Ahrefs

There are also tools that are mainly meant for keyword research. These include Keywordtool.io and KWFinder. 

With paid tools, it's important to weigh out the features that are important to you, how intensively you'll use the tool, and the associated costs. Decide after checking which one suits your needs and the budget available best. Compared to a free tool, a paid tool is especially a good choice if you even plan to do professional SEO keyword searches in the future.

By the way, you can also find a good overview of tools at the SEO Tools Comparison.

Step 5: Find competitor keywords

Following the fact that you have now focused very strongly on the page to be optimized, you can additional to that find out the keywords of your competition. They can help you develop your own keyword strategy, improve it, keep up with competition, or avoid it.

To find out which keywords rank for specific URLs, simply enter the individual competitor URLs into the keyword tools.

You can, for example, in Ahrefs in the tab "Keywords Explorer" enter the corresponding keyword and from the list of rankings, for example, copy the first URL. You then enter this URL in the "Site Explorer" and in the left side menu "Organic Search" click on "Organic keywords". You will get an overview of keywords with many possible data. The search volume and position are of most interest at first. With a click on "Position" you bring the data in descending order and immediately see the keywords that rank best. You can also export this data.

Source: Ahrefs

It is still important to have the audience and their needs for the page to be optimized in mind, in order to identify and optimize the right keywords. Not every keyword of the competition is relevant for you. Use the found keywords of the competition as inspiration and combine them for a comprehensive keyword research with your own ideas and research results.

Step 6: Evaluate Keywords

During the preceding five steps, you have already repeatedly evaluated data and also removed some keywords. Either you already have a manageable and good keyword list per URL, or there are too many keywords and you are now wondering how you can prioritize these.

First of all, for this, go through the three criteria of the "right" keywords again and question each keyword on your list with regard to:

1. Relevance: Is the keyword essential for your target group and the business?
2. Search Intention: Do the search results match the (future) content of the URL? 
3. Competition: How big is the competition and how well has it optimized for the keyword? The stronger the competition for a particular keyword, the more difficult it will be to rank for exactly that keyword as well. Therefore, only keep keywords for which your page would represent a better result than the current competition.
4. Search Volume: How often is the keyword searched on average per month? The higher the search volume, the more traffic it can theoretically generate. However, this only applies if you can also make it to the traffic-relevant positions. That's why the competition point is so important. In the end, it's about finding the right balance between search volume and niche, where the keywords are in demand, but the competition is "beatable". 

Conclusion

It is important to note that keyword research is a continuous process where search results, the competition, and your own performance should be regularly monitored and the keywords adjusted accordingly.

It is important to understand your own target group and their needs in order to optimize for the right keywords. Use keywords that are relevant to your target group and align yourself with the questions that users are asking. 

Good keyword research can make the difference between successful and unsuccessful search engine optimization. By identifying the right keywords and optimizing the desired page accordingly, you can increase the visibility of your page and generate more traffic.

If you stick to the steps described above in your next Keyword Research, you should achieve just that!