Effective SEO Keyword Research to Boost Your Website Traffic

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but that's not always true when it comes to content creation. However, if you don't use the right words and phrases, even a thousand words are worth nothing.

Keyword research in SEO lets people discover your content. Since Ahrefs reports that over 94% of keywords get no Google queries, finding the ones that do is the only way to remain visible.

Here, we're going to discuss:

• The basics of keyword research
• How to boost SEO performance with the right keywords
• Integrating keywords into SEO strategies
• The link between great keywords, Jooice, and higher web traffic

Read on to learn all about SEO keyword research and how it interacts with Jooice's AI-powered content strategies!

The Basics of Keyword Research in SEO

Keyword research is a process in which businesses find search terms that people are querying on Google. It aims to:

• See what consumers are looking for
• Figure out how queries are worded
• Understand what high-volume queries generate interest

Once your business identifies the keywords that people type into search engines, it can add them to online content. This links your blog posts and other web pages to that query to show Google crawlers you're relevant to that search.

These bots, which index the web, will then move your keyword-rich articles higher up in search engine results pages (SERPs.) This boosts your visibility for higher web traffic.

Targeting specific queries means reaching an audience that's already looking for goods and services like yours.

You have the chance to make an impression on consumers at all stages of the marketing funnel. But most importantly, you get an opportunity to pack a punch with people who are already excited to learn more or make a purchase.

Why Is Effective Keyword Research Important?

Effective keyword research doesn't just help you identify target keywords to use in your high-quality content. It also gives you a better feel for your audience's wants and needs.

"Search demand" is the number of times a term is entered into Google during a certain timeframe. You don't just get a list of keywords but also see how many people are interested in each one.

For example, if your retail shop sells both shoes and shirts, you can see how many people are searching for terms related to each product. If the search volume for "men's sandals" is higher than that for "polo shirts," you know to focus on shoe-related posts.

After all, that's what most of your consumers are looking for! Laser-focusing on these terms:

• Boosts your visibility
• Increases how many people initially click on your website
• Shows people content about what they're most interested in
• Provides more value to users
• Generates leads
• Drives people to fill out contact forms
• Boosts sales among visitors who found what they wanted

Good keyword research also lets your business adapt to consumers at every step of the customer journey. The purchase cycle includes several steps:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Decision (making a purchase)
• Loyalty
• Brand advocacy (where they spread the word)

At the beginning of the buyer cycle, people will make broad queries. "Men's sandals" is an extremely broad keyword that might take people to your website if you sell these shoes. This generates awareness that your brand has what the searcher wants.

But as this same searcher moves through the customer journey, they'll want more specific information. Keywords should get more and more specific as they go down the funnel. Longer keywords, location-specific queries, and those that describe key features of the sandals are all possibilities.

This lets your content adapt over time to meet each buyer's shifting needs.

Consider Types of Keywords

There are four main types of keywords that Jooice is excited to incorporate into their smart, AI-generated content.

Informational keywords:

• Are for searchers who want information on a topic
• Use broad language
• Direct to main web pages and landing pages
• Drive people through the "awareness" stage of their journey

Examples for a hot beverage retailer might include "Earl Grey tea vs English Breakfast tea differences" or "types of coffee grounds."

Commercial keywords:

• Give searchers information about your brand
• Showcase your goods and services available for purchase
• Move people through the "consideration" stage of their journey as they learn more
• Aim to drive immediate conversions
• Commonly lead to filling out contact forms and subscribing to newsletters

A beverage retailer might use commercial keywords like "best cold brew coffee brands" or "quality imported tea near me."

Transactional keywords:

• Aim to get people to complete a purchase
• Take searchers through the "decision" and "loyalty" steps of their buyer journey
• Go in posts that work toward the goal of immediate sales
• Assume that the searcher already knows that they want to complete an action (like buying something)

Transactional keywords include things like "buy Jasmine green tea online" and "best coffee seller hours."

Navigational keywords:

• Cater to searchers who want to find a specific page on your website
• Drive first-time purchases from those in the "consideration" and "decision" steps of their journey
• Build loyalty among repeat purchasers who can easily find the products they want

Navigational keywords are more specific and encompass phrases like "quality Peruvian coffee beans from [your brand name.]"

These "normal" keyword types are ideal for those making searches on their laptops and mobile devices. They precede most sales. However, other types of specialized keywords can also help you reach the right audience.

Long-Tail Keywords

Many keywords are between three and five words long. However, some are longer.

Long-tail keywords are long and specific keyword phrases.

For example, a retail shop selling kitchen supplies may use short keywords like:

• Non-stick pans near me
• Inexpensive dishware
• Complete kitchen utensil set

The long-tail equivalents might look like:

• Non-stick pans in stores near me for under $30
• Bargain plate and bowl sets for sale
• Where to buy a kitchen set that contains both forks and spoons

Long-tail queries have lower search volumes than shorter, broader ones. However, their more specific intent reaches those closer to the point of purchase. Long-tail keywords drive decision-making. Those who search for them are more likely to make a purchase sooner rather than later.

Long-tail keywords can be challenging to incorporate into content organically. Luckily, AI-powered technology makes this easy.

Jooice's software generates high-quality text that organically incorporates keywords into the body so you can rest easy knowing that your content sounds great.

Localized Keywords

Many businesses cater to a local service area:

• Brick-and-mortar retail shops
• Doctor's offices
• Hospitals
• Nursing homes
• Dentists
• Plumbers
• Home improvement businesses
• Restaurants
• Bars
• Catering venues

If your business falls into one of these categories, you likely rely on physical traffic to stay afloat. But since Google reports that 83% of Americans Google a business before going there, you still can't let your digital marketing strategy fall by the wayside!

That's where local SEO comes into play, especially local keywords.

There are two common types of local SEO keywords. The first incorporates your location into the keyword. Examples might be "Pad Thai in Chicago" or "Indian restaurant in Brooklyn."

The second type of local keyword is a "near me" keyword. Examples might include "catering business near me" or "local bakery near me."

Long-tail local keywords like "Where can I find a custom wedding cake in Lansing" or "diner restaurants serving blueberry pancakes near me" are also options!

Perform Keyword Research Effectively

Whether you're performing your own keyword research or enlisting expert help, you'll need to think of places to start. This is much easier than it sounds since you can start with a simple brainstorming session.

Think about:

• Your marketing goals
• Who your target audience is (based on step-by-step research)
• What those in target demographics care about
• What they might search for in Google when looking for your products
• What your top performing goods and services are
• What keywords might best advertise these products
• Whether you need local keywords for an audience in a specific service area

You also may research:

• Which queries people already find your website too
• What people search before finding your competitor's websites
• What pages drive the most conversions (since you want to get an SEO ranking boost here)

Gathering empirical data makes incorporating keywords into content more effective.

Choose Appropriate Tools

There are several tools that you can choose for keyword research, including:

• SEMrush Keyword Magic
• Ahrefs
• Moz Keyword Explorer
• Keyword Generator
• Answer the Public

If you work with white-label SEO professionals, they will likely have access to these tools. You won't need to pay for them on your own.

But if you choose to do your own research, SEMrush is our top choice for keyword research tools. It's the best out there for a wide range of reasons, including its:

• Massive database
• Data-driven assessments
• Comprehensive tools
• User-friendly interface
• Range of keyword metrics

All of these tools work in tandem with Jooice's intelligent real-time AI tools. Once you find great keywords, you can tell our smart content generator to include them in the long-form content it creates.

This is part of its content personalization strategies that also lets you maintain a consistent brand voice. Plus, keywords are used consistently throughout the generated content. It sounds natural and organic so you don't need to worry about keyword placement.

High-Volume Keywords

High-volume keywords are those that a lot of people are searching for on Google.

Those that have a high search volume (SV) have more related queries. You want to prioritize them because people are looking for things related to them.

It boosts your visibility greatly since people are already interested!

To find these keywords, input the keyword ideas you had when brainstorming into SEMrush. It will tell you metrics for them as well as for similar related keywords.

Assess the list and find those with the highest SV. Make sure that you only choose those with an SV score higher than 100, but remember that it's best to go even higher than that if possible. If none of them have an SV of 100+, move on to other possibilities.

Finding Low Competition Keywords

Keyword research in SEO is multifaceted, and you need to have keywords with a low keyword difficulty (KD) as well as a high SV.

The KD metric tells you how hard it will be to rank with a specific keyword. Those with overly competitive rankings will prove extremely hard, if not impossible, to rank for. Targeting them is a waste of resources because of too-steep competition.

Luckily, there are tons of keywords that have both a high SV and a low KD!

Once you have a handful of keywords with a 100+ SV, look at the KD score for each of them. Pick out those that have scores of 20 or lower. Lower is better, but you don't want to sacrifice SV, either.

For example, let's say that you must choose between four keywords:

1. SV - 120, KD - 20
2. SV - 1000, KD - 100
3. SV - 10, KD - 4
4. SV - 200, KD - 15

(1) is an acceptable keyword. You can use it and get higher website traffic!

You're unlikely to rank for (2) despite its high SV, and no one is searching for (3) despite its being easy to rank for.

(4) provides the best of both worlds, making it the best option. It'll give your SEO performance a massive boost.

Incorporating Keywords Into Content

Structuring quality content around well-researched keywords is the next step for an SEO ranking boost.

High-quality content has many attributes:

• Interesting to the reader
• Aligns with target audience values
• Offers resolution to pain points
• Aligns with your brand voice
• Tailored to your unique style
• Easily skimmable
• Short sentences and bullet points
• Engaging language
• Clear brand differentiators

Prioritizing quality is critical for several reasons:

• Keeping people engaged
• Decreasing your bounce rate
• Increasing conversions
• Finding new customers
• Building trust with readers
• Establishing brand loyalty
• Retaining old customers

Luckily, Jooice's AI-powered tools make quality content creation simple.

The high-quality text our expert-made tool seamlessly and quickly generates matches your exact specifications. From keywords to brand voice, the technology has you covered.

Since it's made with SEO strategies in mind, you don't need to worry about text-based issues. Keyword stuffing and duplicate content are unacceptable, and Jooice has taken proactive measures to combat these problems.

Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Jooice's content is committed to avoiding keyword stuffing.

Keyword stuffing happens when a writer or AI tool sticks too many keywords into a blog post or other piece of written content. It's clunky and inorganic, making consumers less likely to stick around long enough to hear what you have to say.

It also is unappealing to Google crawlers who think that the content is simply a random amalgamation of keywords. Since indexing bots believe that it provides no real value to readers, they'll penalize you and stick your pages down into the lower echelon of Google rankings. The result will be the exact opposite of your intentions.

No single keyword should be used more than once every 200-300 words. Having multiple secondary keywords stops this because you can use each of them every 200-300 words as well as primary ones.

Long-form content like that our AI tools generate stops keyword stuffing. You have space to use all keywords organically. You also have room to explain their meaning.

Optimize Tags and Meta Descriptions

Keyword optimization should also extend to tags and descriptions on multimedia content. You also may incorporate these features into smart AI blog posts.

Tags:

• Make navigation easier for users
• Tell search engines about a page's content
• Let search engines index images/videos that they wouldn't otherwise be able to crawl
• Are easy for crawlers to index
• Lead to higher clickthrough rates
• Classify posts and images within Google

Meta descriptions:

• Increase UX by providing a summary of content that helps them decide what to read
• Gets more people to click on the page
• Show Google crawlers what keywords to index the post under (assuming you incorporate keywords appropriately into the description
• Make your site more skimmable

These technical SEO features boost your credibility and enhance your user experience. They also can boost your SEO performance for higher website traffic.

Keywords and Multimedia Content

Pictures, graphics, and video content are all critical for SEO. They're eye-catching and keep people interested in your site for longer timeframes.

If you generate high-quality images with Jooice's AI tools as well as text, you can optimize those for SEO as well.

While Google crawlers can't index images on their own, they can look at image descriptions and alt tags. As they crawl this text, they figure out what the image showcases.

Make sure to incorporate your primary keywords into image and video descriptions as well as blog posts and other written content. You'll enhance your SEO strategy on multiple levels and get your content to the top of SERPs.

Plus, the images are more likely to appear on Google Images when your page's rankings increase. Your holistic online presence gets a boost so you can find your target demographics through multiple different channels!

Keyword Research and SEO Performance

Digital marketing experts have the tools and resources needed for effective SEO keyword research. You won't need to pay for subscriptions to sites like SEMrush and Ahrefs. You'll only need to pay for white-label outsourced experts to do the work for you.

It will be far less expensive than investing in multiple tools. Your team also won't need to take time to learn these online research programs. Instead, they can focus on developing core products and refining business strategy.

Plus, it eliminates the need to train and onboard new in-house digital marketers. You can get higher website traffic while saving on salaries and benefits packages.

Professionally-developed AI tools can also make keyword research and content generation easy. Jooice's artificial intelligence packages offer targeted and practical marketing solutions.

In addition to automatically personalizing your content to match your specific brand voice, our tool:

• Generates high-quality text almost instantly
• Creates AI images to go alongside the text
• Offers support for multiple languages
• Lets you synchronize projects between devices
• Makes your content strategy available on any device
• Responds to reviews automatically
• Makes reputation management easily
• Creates business listing descriptions

It streamlines content creation to make it quick and easy!

How Can Professionals Help With SEO Keyword Research?

There are several ways that experts can help with keyword research, including:

• Data analysis
• Assessments of your website's many pages
• Visualizing your past sales and top products
• Competitor analysis
• Looking at accurate metrics with a trained eye

All of this matters, but you also need experts who will help you spin your keyword research into SEO-boosting content.

You might be wondering: how does Jooice's professional tool collaborate with keyword research strategies to improve SEO performance?

Once you or experts find great keywords, Jooice's AI will incorporate them into SEO-rich, AI-generated content. This content provides real value that matches your brand voice, but it also works to improve rankings.

Our long-form content creation capabilities also mean saturating longer blog posts and product descriptions with keywords. They won't just be included once and forgotten. Your entire digital strategy framework can be built around the research you and hired professionals do.

Our listings management tool also can work in tandem with keyword research to boost your rankings. You set up an account and business profile that contains the high-volume keywords you're most relevant for. Google crawlers see these keywords in the centralized listings and rank them for those queries.

If you invest in our reputation management package, you can also have these keywords appear in thoughtful AI-powered reviews. Your official website isn't the only thing on which you can get an SEO ranking boost!

Get an SEO Ranking Boost With Expert Help

Now that you know the ins and outs of keyword research in SEO, it's time to boost your digital marketing strategy with the help of Jooice. We're committed to helping you:

• Save time and resources
• Disrupt complexity in your workflows by integrating SEO keyword research into content
• Evolve alongside the needs of your business

When combined with Jooice's AI-powered content creation, expert-led keyword research can boost your rankings for the topics most relevant to your needs.

Contact our team to learn more about how our cutting-edge solutions can help you reach the consumers who matter most!

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