Discover Meaningful Search Terms by Understanding User Intent

Keyword research is an essential part of any online marketing campaign. After all, it’s one thing to have a website or blog with content that ranks well for certain keywords if the audience looking for those terms doesn’t find your site – which is what happens when you don’t know how to do keyword research efficiently. The PK SEO will discuss 12 steps that can help you conduct successful keyword research and discover meaningful search terms in order to increase traffic to your site.

The first thing to do when starting your research is to determine the user intent behind a search. Do they want general information on this topic, or are they looking for an answer to a specific question? You can narrow down their search by using Google keyword planner and selecting “exact match” under options in order to see only phrases that specifically contain those terms.

If you already know what type of content you plan on writing about it’s important not to use obvious keywords like ‘dog’ which will result in little traffic as people searching for these words have no need for additional information. Instead, discover mental shortcuts called LSI keywords – synonymous words that occur frequently together, such as ‘animal caretaker’. These types of related long-tail searches are often used by people who are already familiar with the subject, but may not know specific terminology. You can find these keywords by looking at related questions on Quora or Yahoo! Answers, using tools like Answer The Public , and reading through search results for common queries in Google Keyword Planner.

The next step is to take a look at which phrases your competitors are ranking for that you aren’t yet targeting. As well as giving you ideas of what type of content to create, this will help boost your position higher than them without having to spend money on advertising since it takes advantage of their backlinks – so try incorporating some words from those searches into blog posts or articles where appropriate.