What is Keyword Research in SEO & How to Master it Like a Pro

Keyword research and SEO are one of the first things you need to grasp when starting out in the online world, getting your website found by the search engines and getting it to page one are key steps in any new online business.

This post will go into what is keyword research in SEO and how to master it like a pro in a simple way for anyone to understand.

Let’s start with what is SEO and what it has to do with Keyword Research.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. This is around ensuring your website, your content and anything else on your website is optimised ready for search engines to find it. This is typically achieved through a plugin like ‘All-in-one SEO’ or Yoast. A plug-in like this will tell the search engines about your website so it can get ranked.

But when it comes to your content, then that is where keyword research is important. But what is a keyword?

What is a Keyword?

The first thing to get your head around is it can be more than one word – any word or phrase that you type into a search engine – Google, Bing, YouTube is a keyword.  When you type in that keyword, the search engines respond with a list of the most relevant content for that given keyword.

When you submit content to a search engine, it is checked for relevance to the keyword, the quality of the content and one of the major recent changes is that it is checked against being mobile friendly.  It also changes against traffic, the more traffic a post gets the higher it will be up in the rankings.

The main reason why you need to do keyword research is down to the fact that a common keyword will already be swamped with authority sites that mean you will find it very hard to rank high against these sites to begin with.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword Research with the right tool, will make your job so much easier.  Rather than typing up a great article against a highly competitive keyword and getting no results. You could put that same article against a lucrative low-hanging-fruit keyword and it gets you on page one of the search results.  This means people are more likely to click on your link.

Keyword research is all about understanding the number of searches there are for a given keyword and also how much competition you will have against that given keyword.

To show you an example, I have typed “what is keyword research” into my chosen keyword research tool, Jaaxy.

You can see that there are a number of columns, lets first go into what they all mean.

Avg – This is the average number of searches for that keyword in a given month on Google.

Traffic – How many clicks you can expect if you are ranking at the top of page one

QSR – these stands for Quality Score Results, the number of websites you will be up against (Your Competition)

KQI – Keyword Quality Indicator, Green is great, yellow ok and avoid the red ones.

SEO – A score based on traffic and competition, the higher the number the more likely you are to rank higher.

Domains – this will let you know if that keyword is available as a domain name.

Let’s go back to the results for that keyword, if I had chosen the top one ‘what is keyword research’ it has an amazing number of monthly searches and traffic, but I would be competing against 223 other websites for this keyword that is why the SEO score is lower.  This is not impossible to rank for, but definitely will make it a lot harder for a new website owner to compete for.

By choosing “What is Keyword Research in SEO” as my keyword, from the scores I might not get as much traffic, but I am actually more likely to get ranked higher for it as I only need to make sure my content is better than 43 competing websites.

So, I am more likely to rank on page one of Google with the longer keyword than the one with more monthly searches.

Ranking top spot on page one of Google is the holy grail for website owners.  Statistically not many will go to page 2 or 3 for searches.  Most will only check out the top one!

Long-tail keywords and low-hanging-fruit keywords

Using a keyword research tool allows you to highlight opportunities with long tail keywords.  People type into the search engines what they are searching for, not just short words.  They can be quite specific as it is really easy to type in a specific problem, i.e. “How do I fix a Broken Link on a Website?”

Typing this in shows that specific keyword does not get a lot of traffic, but the second one down shows that on average 64 people are looking for a way of fixing this problem but there are no sites targeting that keyword – this is what we call a low-hanging fruit.

At the moment, if you put that keyword term into Google, Google will show the next best answer for that keyword.

But if your niche was targeting that keyword and wrote an awesome post on it, you could get that top spot easily as there is no competition.  Google searches content for relevance as well!

That is why Keyword Research is so important to Website Owners, Affiliate Marketers and Bloggers – Anyone with an online business!

The ideal figures are typically an Average score of over 100 (searches) and a QSR of less than 50 if you are just starting out and building up your authority, once you have become an authority you can start targeting more keywords.

Once you have started ranking, you may find you can change these goal posts, as sometimes when you do the research of what others have posted against those keywords – you might be able to write a better post that would be better received by readers.

Key Advice for Keyword Research

At the end of the day, your content needs to be read by someone, so there are a couple of things you need to make sure you do when doing keyword research:

1. Use keywords or keyword phrases that make sense. The keyword you want might have a great score, but if it doesn’t make sense it will put someone off clicking your link
2. Do not keyword stuff – as in put it into every paragraph.  I suggest you use a keyword in the title, mention it in the first paragraph and then again in the conclusion.

How to Master Keyword Research

Keyword Research is a vital part of your online business and deserves respect and the right tool to help you not only get the right keywords but also make it easy to do on a scale.  Starting out, one of the mistakes I did was find a keyword and then write an article, then find another keyword and so on.  This is so inefficient and means you do not publish as many posts as you would like.

When starting out, if you can get keyword research done right and publish content on a regular basis you will find your rankings will definitely get a boost.

There are a few free keyword research tools out there, but they do not all stack up really.

Google do offer a free keyword tool as part of their AdWords (advertising) platform, but as this is aimed at PPC (Pay-Per-Click) unless you have a lot of money to play with this will not be enough to target SEO properly.

My recommended Keyword Research Tool is Jaaxy.

The best strategy for keyword research is to sit there and research keywords until you have around 50 low-hanging-fruit keywords to target.  There you have 50 article ideas to write about.  Get in the habit of doing some keyword research, doing some article research, then when you are ready to write articles – focus on putting everything else away (especially social media) and write.

It will definitely make you more efficient.  Anyway, back to keyword research.

One of the main reasons behind my Recommendation of Jaaxy is I genuinely use it and feel it is a worthwhile investment into my business.

Without Keyword Research there would really be no point – but a recent report shows 60% of keywords are not being fully utilised so it shows how important you get your research correct and also shows the opportunity out there for those who do it seriously.

Recommended Keyword Research Tool – Jaaxy is for Pros!

Any professional online business owner will tell you how important a keyword research tool is.  They all may use a different one, but I would like to share with you the reasons behind why I recommend Jaaxy to a beginner and why it will transform your keyword research and make you work like a pro too.

Professionals use Jaaxy as well as it being ideal for beginners due to simplicity of the platform.  Easy to Use, Quick Results & Awesome Tools.

Jaaxy + Wealthy Affiliate

Jaaxy is owned by the guys behind Wealthy Affiliate, it is incorporated into their WA platform for Premium Members.  This has the added advantage of being part of the make-up of a training platform that has all of the tools required for an online business in one place.  It also means that there are numerous training videos on how to master Keyword Research with Jaaxy.

Jaaxy is More than just a Keyword Research Tool

One of the key things I needed when starting out with my first website was a way of keeping an eye on my niche, also what were people searching for in my niche.  Jaaxy has a couple of great features that help you with this.

Alphabet Soup Technique – Type you chosen keyword into this and it will generate the A-Z of what people have been searching for.  This gives you many different ideas of what you could target for content.

Search Analysis – Check out what other websites are also targeting that keyword you are after, get some great detail about their website.

Affiliate Programs – Affiliate Marketing is an awesome of earning income online, but know what programs are out there (that are genuine) in your given niche will be listed under this tab.

SiteRank – Know where your website is ranking for a given keyword with this tool.

How Much Does Jaaxy Cost?

A professional tool will always cost something, but the guys behind Jaaxy want you to experience it yourself before making any decision about investing money.  The Starter membership allows you to do 30 keyword searches, no charge (no credit card required). Make up your own mind about whether Jaaxy is for you.

If you find Jaaxy is the keyword research tool for you, then there are a couple of membership offers.  If you are new to online business and want to benefit from an awesome keyword research tool and all the help and support and tools that Wealthy Affiliate offer, then I do suggest you read my Wealthy Affiliate review.

Jaaxy is built into WA and when you scale up your business the enterprise membership is half price too.

But if you are starting out and want to benefit from awesome training, tools to build up a website and an excellent keyword research tool – Wealthy Affiliate has it all.

Final Word on Keyword Research & SEO

The foundations of building an online business rely heavily and good keyword research that is SEO friendly.  Highly relevant content that is engaging and useful to the readers is really key, but if you do not do any keyword research it will be pot luck as to whether you rank for a post.

If you are still learning the ropes of an online business, you will find that there are many different options out there for a keyword research tool – so why should Jaaxy be any different to the others you may have found or are using, and the simple answer is the help and support that comes with it.  Joining Wealthy Affiliate doesn’t just get you a keyword tool, it gives you access to a community of internet entrepreneurs that you can bounce ideas off of and ask for help at any time.  Whether it be Keyword Research, SEO topics, WordPress, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Selling Your Own Products online.  There is so much on there to help you, including an awesome keyword research tool with some other abilities that make brainstorming ideas for your business so easy.

If you would like to try Jaaxy with some keywords, please try the plugin below – you will get 30 searches to make up your own mind:

If you would love to learn more about Wealthy Affiliate, here is my extensive review for you to learn more.
If you have any questions about keyword research or anything to do with an online business, please drop them in the comments below and I will definitely get back to you to help.