What is keyword research when it’s at home? Well, it comes down to discovering, if what you call your products or services on your website (or in your store) is what a potential customer is searching for.

Might not seem like a big issue right?

It’s huge.

If you have a key page on your site that you want to rank on Google with and it’s focusing on the wrong words, then you could be missing out on a host of leads and sales.

When we design a website, we do a lot of work before the visuals on identifying what we need to call our pages. What is keyword research? Well, it’s essentially that.

If you haven’t already seen our Day 4 on how to to layout an online site, you may want to scan that first.

What is keyword research biggest benefit to me?

So let me give you an example of the difference it can make.

In 2016 we saw a real big shift to a type of product in our business that we called zero nic. This product is a juice with zero nicotine that you put in a vaporiser. Because we in the industry called it zero nic, or 0mg, and we listed it on the website like that.

And we ranked well for it.

But here was the problem:

Not a lot of global search volume. But hey, we ranked on page 1 of Google…..

Our other target was equally as flaccid. But we didn’t know any better. Here’s that one:

Across two terms we had spent a ton of time writing content for, the total number of search traffic would never have been more than 700.

Now, out of context, you may look at that and go, that’s cool. There are two terms fairly easy to rank for that can bring in 700 hits a month globally.

When you do some keyword research and 2 years later you see this, you start wondering what an idiot you are:

So if you’re asking what is keyword research – it’s this. It’s spending a little time to see that you are naming your products or services in the best way possible. And when I say ‘best’, I mean most effective. It’s a key part of a good SEO strategy.

By the way, the tool I am using there is called Ahrefs and it’s a great bit of kit. I’m no affiliate, but hey maybe they will one day see these recommendations and drop me a gift voucher.

What’s the difference?

In the bottom picture, while the term is a little tougher to rank for now (it wasn’t when we did this a few years back.) a good spot on that term means 10x the amount of traffic. That meant the difference to our project of about £20,000 in additional revenue per year.

It’s that important.

Day 5 Learning to use Keyword Research

As part of our learn WordPress feature, we are going to jump into the video below. It’s day 5 and we show you how to find the right words to use.

By the end of this, you will know ‘what is keyword research’ and importantly, why it matters to your business.

Don’t neglect it.

Video Time