The Internet has come a long way since its inception. It has become an integral part of our lifestyles thanks to its resourcefulness and user-friendliness. 

As per a statement of the second quarter of 2018, more than half of the population are using the internet, i.e., around 3.22 billion people of the world. 4 out 5 people search online to find local enterprises and 80% of Google searches include “near me” phrase. 

Moreover, since 2016, organizations are investing at least $65 billion annually in search engine optimization to bring more business and expand customer reach through search engines. 

These numbers clearly show the potential of SEO and aggressiveness of brands to grab the first-page ranking and bring visitors to their website. 

If you too, being a blogger or a business owner, want to leverage the platform and initiate SEM practices; your basic ingredient will be keywords. Thanks to the resources like KWFinder and similar tools, your research will become easy and quick. 

Why should I worry about keyword research in the first place?

Google and search engines give relevant results to their users who type search queries which are made of a set of keywords. 

As a blogger and business owner, you might have a legitimate curiosity about why should you invest your time and energy into researching keywords. 

In the digital landscape, there are many streams like content marketing, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, etc. through which you can make business and generate by reaching to your audience. 

Almost all the major platforms out there can be efficiently leveraged if you know what people are looking for.

In other words, you should know what your potential customers are searching on the web so that you could showcase your products and solutions according and eventually generate sales. 

Now to know that you need to do rigorous keyword research! 

The Importance Of Keyword Research – 8 Benefits

Well, the top 5 results of the search get 75% of total clicks. So, in order to rank higher bloggers and businesses has to know the importance of keyword research. 

#1. You will know what users are searching for 

Bloggers and business owner should develop a thought process of solving users problems through their websites.

Webmasters need to ask a question that what enhancements they can make into users’ existing knowledge related to a particular field of study. 

Therefore, to know what your users want, you will need a deeper understanding of what users are looking over the web; which you can mostly get to know through keyword research. 

There are few of the great options on the web that can give a detailed list of how many times a particular keyword is searched from a specific geographical area.

It will develop a deeper understanding in you with the information of what users are expecting so you can decide how to deliver them smartly.

#2. It will help you generate qualified leads 

As per a resource, more than 60% of webmasters find it hard to generate leads and bring traffic online which are the primary objectives of any website owner. 

A lead could be an email subscriber, a phone call or eBook downloads; all the conversions that are happening on your website is incomplete without proper keyword research. 

A list of keywords for your brand will help you ensure that relevant users land on the website, productively engage and eventually converted as a lead. 

For example, you have a blog on tips for business and entrepreneurship. 

If you search ‘entrepreneur’ in Google, you may get a search engine result page like below. As you can observe, Google shows generalized result related to the keyword ‘entrepreneur’. 

That means people who search ‘entrepreneur’ expects generalized information about the term like the meaning, books, courses, and so on.

So, it is not worthy to try to rank for generalized terms for your blog. Instead, you must dig deep and find relevant keywords for the blog. 

#3. It lays the foundation for other campaigns

Pay-per-click, content marketing, and inbound marketing are a bunch of favorite branches of online marketing. Well, every medium requires current trends like what people are looking for while browsing online. 

Proper keyword research will help you take a better decision on how you can utilize your keywords for other campaigns as well.

As you will know how many people are searching for a particular keyword, you would be able to craft your content or paid advertising for better ROI generation. 

Hence, a single list of keywords can revolutionize your whole marketing activities. 

#4. It is the backbone of local SEO 

According to Hubspot, 97% of people go online to find a local business. Moreover, 93% of people have also stated that they feel frustrated if they don’t find correct information on the web.

The above two stats clearly define the potential and responsibility for local businesses to serve the users properly.

However, to get maximum online visibility through SEO and content marketing, you need a comprehensive list of keywords for the better observation of your local audience’s search engine activities. 

Do keep a note that consumers feel delighted by finding a good local business and would be a returning customer too.

So, to achieve such priceless leads, you will have to do local SEO after finding relevant keywords. 

#5. Good keyword research will give you constant visitors

Keyword research enables users to become your website visitors. However, it might happen that if you miss some relevant keywords, you will end up getting irrelevant traffic. 

Irrelevant visitors wouldn’t be engaged with your content and eventually close the tab within a few seconds. 

Such user behavior will increase the bounce rate of your website and create negative SEO impression.

Search engines will comprehend this behavior and consider your website unworthy to be ranked for that particular keyword. Hence, your traffic will eventually decrease in the long run. 

So, it is advisable to take this task seriously and target only relevant keywords for your website. A slight recklessness in making the keyword list might jeopardize your whole effort. 

#6. Create thought leadership

Brands who consistently provide quality information, which could be an article on the blog, videos on YouTube or pictures on Instagram, is considered as an authority and recognized entity for that particular industry. 

Businesses and owners should aspire such online credibility where people think of them for a specific type of solutions whenever they are stuck somewhere. 

The relevant keyword research along with proper keyword mapping will open the doors of opportunities for your brand to be a thought leader of the industry. 

Because you would be continuously targeting similar type of keywords, so users will often find your website for a particular niche.

Eventually, your website will emerge as a constant source of the solution. This behavior trigger authorship and build trust among your audience as an authorized source for the industry. 

#7. Elevates your business and bank balance 

Let’s face it – distributing pamphlets is somewhat old-school advertising and going for television or radio ads might be an expensive option for SME and local enterprises. That’s when more affordable and newer channels like SEO, SMO kick in. 

Through keyword research, you can smartly create content that would encourage your users to perform specific actions.

You can encourage them visiting your local store, watch your video, buy products and so on. 

For example, you’ve observed a particular range of products is creating buzz online. So, you can make an independent web page for those products, rank them for keywords and also include a discount for the users. 

Any business objective is achievable if you truly understand the keywords that users are searching along with their mindset. 

#8. You can decide anchor text 

Anchor texts are the referring phrases that redirect users to other web pages, either 3rd party website or other web pages of the same website. 

Google has covered the topic of the effect of anchor text in search engine rankings in the past. Well, a hyperlink given on the relevant keyword phrase allows the Google bots to understand what would redirected page offer. 

It is advisable to have a bunch of anchor text variants for your link building activities, and proper keyword research will help you determine the same. 

However, it is advisable to not overdo a particular keyword as anchor text for your links. Instead, try to use relevant LSI keywords that would help search engines better understand the business. 

Conclusion

Even though you do aggressive keyword research, it is never completely done. The more time and energy you invest in your research, a more refined list of keywords you will get. 

However, it would be better if you think long and hard before finalizing the set of keywords because these keywords are going to shape your brand’s online identity. 

Do let us know in the comments what do you think about the techniques shared above.

Nirmala is passionate about WordPress CMS and hence she is writing the comprehensive articles on her active blog wpglossy.com. She shows a keen interest in driving the search engine traffic through her in-depth keyword research knowledge with the help of the premium tools.