The Only Keyword Research Tutorial You’ll need for 2023 — With Proof!
It’s the #1 secret of SEO content creators, and they’d rather you didn’t know.
SEO Content creators and marketers alike have long been aware of the importance of having a solid keyword strategy.
But while they often talk about the importance of finding low-competition keywords with enough search volume to make a difference, many don’t take the time to truly understand how to use keyword research tools to find the best keywords for their website or blog.
And it’s the secret to ranking newer blogs on Google.
Why Low-Competition Keywords Work
Any SEO keyword research strategy aims to find the right balance between competition and search volume. If you get too competitive, you’ll be wasting time on keywords that will never rank highly in Google.
But you won’t benefit from the increased organic traffic if you don’t target enough searches.
Low-competition keywords are often more valuable than high-volume terms because they’re easier to rank for and have less competition from other websites.
You are likely to get higher rankings faster with fewer resources invested. This makes them ideal if you’re starting out and don’t have an established website or blog.
The Perfect Keyword Numbers
When considering keyword research, there are a few numbers that you should be looking at. The first is the search volume of each keyword.
This will show how often people search for your terms and how much potential traffic you can gain from them.
In my experience, about 240 to 1000 monthly searches are a sweet spot for newer bloggers who don’t have the authority to target high-volume phrases.
The second number to consider is the domain authority score of the websites currently ranking for that term. Domain authority is a measure of how reputable and trustworthy your website is to Google, primarily based on a website’s backlink profile.
This is where the SEO magic happens.
The Authority Score
SEMrush provides every website with an authority score. This score is based on the number of quality external links pointing to your website. The higher the authority score, the more likely you are to rank for competitive keywords.
I recommend targeting phrases with a keyword difficulty of less than 50 unless your website has been given an Authority Score higher than 50. I suggest sorting the KD (keyword difficulty score) by lowest to highest and starting with the least competitive keywords that are on topic for your niche and have a search volume of 240 +.
As your domain authority climbs, you can take on more competitive terms.
The Perfect SEO Content Combo
As I demonstrate in my keyword research video tutorial for 2023, I use Surfer SEO + Jasper AI to create the content once I have discovered the best keywords to build topics around.
Surfer SEO uses machine learning to analyze thousands of pieces of content on the first page of Google, revealing what types of content they have.
It provides an on-page SEO scoring system guiding you through the suggested word count, headings, paragraphs, images, and NLP keywords.
Jasper AI, which integrates with Surfer SEO, helps you write the content that Surfer SEO suggests in its outline.
You can easily create SEO content tailored to your keyword research using Surfer SEO and Jasper AI.
Glossary of Terms
Keyword Research: The process of researching and identifying the most relevant keywords to target in a digital marketing campaign.
Content Creation: Creating content for websites, blogs, social media, emails, etc., that are designed to engage users and encourage them to take an action.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimizing online content and websites for higher rankings in search engine results pages.
SEMrush: An online marketing tool that analyzes competitor websites, researches relevant keywords, and creates content.
Jasper AI: An AI-powered tool for creating SEO content. Try Jasper with 10,000 free credits using my affiliate link: https://bit.ly/3NFdPAn
Surfer SEO: Surfer SEO is a content optimization tool for SEO professionals. It helps to optimize content, analyze competitors and find the best keywords for your website.
Authority Score: SEMrush’s Authority Score metric measures the strength of a website’s domain authority based on various factors, including backlinks and content quality.
Keyword Difficulty: A score given to a keyword that indicates how difficult it may be for a website to rank for that keyword in search engine results pages.
CPC: Cost-per-click (CPC) is a metric that measures an online ad’s cost after someone clicks on it.
Backlink: A link from one website to another website. Backlinks are an important factor in SEO as they help search engine algorithms determine the quality and relevance of websites.
Topic Cluster: A group of content pieces related to a specific topic or theme. Topic clusters help keep content organized and promote better SEO performance.
Paragraph Headings: Headings used in webpages and blog posts to organize content into sections. Paragraph headings are important for SEO, as they help search engines understand the overall structure of a page.
NLP Keywords: Natural language processing (NLP) keywords are words or phrases that help search engine algorithms better understand the content of a page. NLP keywords provide additional context to webpages, which can help improve their ranking in results pages.
Organic Traffic: Organic traffic is website visits from search engine results pages without paid promotion or advertising.
SERP: Search engine results page. This is the page a user sees after they perform a search query on Google, Bing, or another search engine.
