The Importance of Keyword Research in 2024
Why Do Keyword Research in 2024
Keyword research forms the cornerstone of every successful SEO strategy, serving as the bridge between what your target audience searches for and the content you create. In 2024, understanding search intent and selecting the right keywords has become more critical than ever, as Google’s algorithms continue to evolve towards rewarding content that genuinely serves user needs. The foundation of any profitable SEO campaign begins with thorough keyword research that identifies opportunities whilst avoiding oversaturated markets.
The landscape of search engine optimisation has transformed dramatically over the past decade, yet keyword research remains the fundamental first step that determines whether your content will rank effectively. Modern keyword research extends beyond simple volume metrics to encompass search intent, user behaviour patterns, and competitive analysis. Successfully identifying the right keywords can mean the difference between ranking on page one or remaining buried in search results, making this process vital for businesses seeking organic visibility.
So what does a new business do when faced with this scenario?
Search intent represents the underlying motivation driving a user’s query, and understanding this intent has become paramount for keyword selection success. Google’s sophisticated algorithms now prioritise content that matches not just the keywords but the searcher’s actual needs and expectations. When conducting keyword research, businesses must consider whether users are seeking information, looking to make a purchase, or trying to navigate to a specific website.
The evolution of search behaviour has created four distinct intent categories: informational, navigational, transactional, and commercial investigation. Each category requires different keyword strategies and content approaches to achieve optimal ranking potential. For instance, informational queries typically use question-based keywords, whilst transactional searches often include terms like “buy,” “order,” or “discount.”
Understanding search intent allows businesses to create content that satisfies user needs whilst targeting keywords with genuine commercial value. This approach ensures that the traffic generated from keyword targeting converts effectively, rather than simply driving visitors who quickly bounce from the site.
Looking for Keyword Experts? Get in touch with our professional SEO Keyword Team here
How do you structure keyword research?
The First Step in Keyword Research; Customer Profile
Small businesses face unique challenges when competing against established competitors with significant domain authority and marketing budgets. The key to successful keyword research for smaller enterprises lies in identifying niche opportunities and long-tail keywords that larger competitors may overlook. This strategic approach allows small businesses to capture valuable traffic without competing directly against industry giants.
The most effective approach begins with comprehensive competitor analysis to understand the keyword landscape within your specific market. Tools like Ubersuggest, SEMrush, and Ahrefs provide invaluable insights into competitor keyword strategies, revealing gaps and opportunities that smaller businesses can exploit. This analysis should focus on identifying keywords where competitors show weak content or limited optimisation efforts.
Local keyword research presents particularly valuable opportunities for small businesses, as geographical modifiers often reduce competition whilst targeting highly relevant audiences. Combining service-related keywords with location-specific terms creates powerful targeting opportunities that drive qualified traffic from nearby prospects.
Second Step With Keyword Research; Keyword Search Volume
now you have your broad terms you want to find out if there is search volume for these terms. You do this with a ‘Keyword Search Volume Tool’.
A keyword volume tool works by entering in your search terms and it will return the estimated monthly search volume for each keyword. There are hundreds of these tools, some come as part of expensive and complicated SEO tools such as SEMrush, others are free. While the search volume results can vary between software we find that overall for a beginner Wordstream’s Free Online Keyword Tool is more than sufficient.
You enter your search term “tooth pain” and Wordstream will produce an estimated search volume plus offer some related search terms.
Whilst this may feel like you now have all the data you need from a Keyword Volume perspective there is still a lot of work to be done.
For example you have no idea from this data how difficult those keywords are to rank for. While there may be 6,600 monthly searches for tooth pain if you go ahead and create content targeting this keyword you may never see any search volume due to very well established competitors securely ranking for these terms.
Meaning any content you create with the intention of ranking for this search term could be a huge waste of your time and effort.
Which moves us onto the next stage in Keyword Research.
Third Step in Keyword Research, Competitor Keyword analysis.
From this step on the complexity of the keyword research work begins to increase and this is generally where you will need the assistance of a professional SEO agency like Intertec Data Solutions.
For this next step you can use a tool like ‘Ubersuggest‘ which will automatically provide the ‘estimated difficulty’ of ranking your website for a certain keyword. Or, you can manually check by using free SEO extensions combined with the information provided by your Keyword Volume Tool.
The most popular free SEO Competitor tool to assess the strength of competitors for a keyword is the MOZ bar. The way this tool works is it gives each website two ratings – Page Authority (PA) & Domain Authority (DA).
You then look at your websites Moz ranking and the Moz ranking of your competitors, if your site has a much lower PA & DA it may not be worthwhile targeting this keyword until you have increased your sites DA.
If you would like a free consultation to understand what you need to do to increase your website’s DA to better help your Keyword Ranking efforts – Contact Us Below
If competition for these search terms is too hard for a site that is not well established you will then need to move onto the next stage
Fourth Step in Keyword Research, Long Tail Keyword Alternatives
While it is extremely common that broad search terms are extremely competitive there are longer variation of those search terms that are not. A less competitive search query that is still relevant for your Business is the next best alternative.
Typically where a broad search term like “Tooth Pain” will be too competitive a long tail keyword related to tooth pain will have much less competition. For example “how long does tooth pain last” is still topically relevant to your business but there is little high DA competition for this longer variant.
Therefore your next step is to create content that specially targets this long tail variant, not the broad term “tooth pain”.
While the search volume is much lower you will actually have a chance to rank in the top 3 results for this long tail search whereas the broad term you wouldn’t. When you factor in that over 80% of the clicks through to a site from Google come from the top 3 results, ranking number 1 for a long tail rather than number 20 for a broad keyword actually results in more search volume to your site long term.
How do you find Long Tail Keywords?
Finding and assessing the viability of Long Tail Keywords is a skill that requires experience and generally expensive SEO tools. However if you are wanting to do it for free you can rely on Google’s “People Also Ask” feature.
This feature from google will give you a short list of ‘real’ search queries that are commonly related to the broad search term. The advantage of this feature is that it is giving you real long tail searches that have enough monthly traffic to
However you do not know precisely how much traffic you get from these queries so you will have to manually plug each query into Wordstream’s Keyword Volume tool AND then manually check the MOZ bar results to see if you have a chance of ranking.
Professional SEO Keyword tools like Ubersuggest or SEMrush will combine all of these techniques together saving you the man hours of finding the right Long Tail Keyword to use in your site content. However a single months subscription to these services can be extremely expensive.
Now after you have done these four steps you should have a list of keywords that you are wanting to target which you have a high probability of ranking for with a Good SEO Campaign
Steps For Keyword Research
So to review these are the four steps you need to follow when conducting your Keyword Research:
- Step 1: Customer Profiling
- Step 2: Keyword Search Volume
- Step 3: Competitor Keyword Analysis
- Step 4: Long Tail Keyword Alternatives
How to Include Keywords in Content
Now you have your target Long Tail Keywords how do you include them in your content to give yourself the best chance of ranking.
This question enters you into the world of ‘On-Page SEO’. We have over 20 years of specialising in this field of SEO and have wrote a complete guide on how to do On-Page SEO that will be worth your time. However, the cliff notes of the process goes as follows.
- Keyword in the Headings and Body of your page text
- Page Content Structured to Answer The Search Query
- Relevant External Links used on the page
- Relevant Internal Links sent to the page
- The structure of the page URL
- The page’s Meta Description
- Quality Page Content
- Relevant Images added to the Page + Relevant Alt Text
- The inclusion of relevant page ‘Schema’
Doing this all correctly can be quite the task for a beginner so if you would like assistance with this process make sure to contact us using the contact form below.
Professional Keyword Research Agency
The process of Keyword Research is labour intensive but is ultimately the foundation from which all of your SEO success or failure is built upon. While we think it is useful for any business to at least understand the Search environment they are competing in we understand the need to use a professional SEO agnency to complete this task for you.
At Intertec we have over 20 years SEO experience, providing not only Keyword research services but a comprehensive SEO service that gets your business ranking and earning on Search Engines. Enquire using the form below or call into our offices to learn how we can help you with the Keyword Research Process and set up a long-term profitable SEO Campaign for your business.
