How to Choose the Best Keywords for SEO   

Not all keywords are created equal.

Finding the right keywords to focus your search engine optimization (SEO) on is critical these days. The right keyword can unlock a flood of targeted traffic your way. The wrong keyword, though, might get you to the top spot in Google – but it’s a bit like a tree falling in the woods when no one’s around.

Nobody wants to be the king of a lonely mountain when it comes to Google.

Thankfully, though, it’s a whole lot easier to learn how to choose the best keywords for SEO than you might realize. Armed with the inside information below you’ll be up and running with dialed in keywords a lot faster than you thought!

Dialed in Keyword Research is Critical

Proper keyword research not only gives you goals to target with your SEO – it also gives you invaluable insights into your market, your competitors, and how to unlock the true potential of your financial future.

Every minute of every single day hundreds of thousands of people are punching specific keywords into sites like Google with the express intention of finding very specific details, information, or answers.

If you are able to tap into those keywords, and get your answers to rank highest on those search result pages, you’re going to be able to push a flood of traffic your way – all of them eager for a solution or remedy.

That’s a game changer, especially if you have something to sell!

Of course, it’s possible to guess at what your potential customers might be punching into Google and still have some success.

But if you want to dig of the most profitable keywords (the keywords that are being searched most often by actual buyers) you’re going to have to poke around a little bit “under the hood” to find nonobvious keywords that you can aggressively target with search engine optimization.

That’s what we are here to help you with below!

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If you're looking to work with a Toronto SEO Business that can help you with everything SEO, including your keyword research, please reach out to us!

How to Choose the Best Keywords for SEO

Search Intent Informs Everything

Paying attention to search intent will help inform your keyword research in a major way.

When you know why people are searching for specific keywords you’re able to sift valuable options from “false idols” – keywords that look like they could push a lot of traffic your way, keywords that look valuable on the surface, but keywords that likely aren’t going to result in paying customers.

Navigational intent, for example, usually revolves around searchers looking for something very specific – a business, a website, a service, etc.

Informational intent, on the other hand, revolves around searchers that are looking to learn more, to research, and to discover answers to questions that they have.

Commercial intent is where you’re going to find your real “bread and butter” keywords if you’re running a business.

These are the kinds of keywords that signal intent to purchase, either right now this minute or in the near future.

These keywords are worth a lot of money when you find them!

What you want to look for here are keywords that are attached to some sort of called action. Anything that has buying language in it likely indicates commercial intent and you’ll want to focus your attention like a laser there.

Research Different Keyword Types

Secondly, you need to think about the different types of keywords that you can target as well.

“Head Keywords” are generally one or two words in length, produce a mountain of results, and are amongst the most difficult keywords to rank – not just because there’s a ton of competition out there, but because they are so general in nature.

Searching for “football player”, for example, is going to return a whole lot of general results compared to searching for “Tom Brady”.

“Body Keywords” are usually a little longer, more descriptive, and signify intent a little better. Instead of searching for “birthday cards” maybe someone searches for “dad’s birthday card”.

Those kinds of keywords let you laser target much more effectively.

Finally, you have the “Long Tail Keywords” – keywords that encompass at least four (and often times even more) keywords.

These kinds of keywords can illustrate intent better than almost any other kinds of keywords but they can also have a lot of opportunity for folks to rank highly. If you’re doing your research and come across high-volume, low competition longtail keywords you’re sitting on a gold mine.

Lean on Keyword Analysis Tools

Keyword analysis tools (like options from Google, Moz, etc.) should always be taken advantage of to automate as much of the keyword research process as possible.

These tools are going to let you know what kind of search engine traffic certain keyword strings are getting, whether or not those keywords are particularly competitive, and a whole host of other details that can help inform your search engine optimization decisions.

Competition for keywords can be a little bit of a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, you don’t necessarily want to be squaring off against major multinational corporations with bottomless marketing budgets for keywords like “prime rib”.

On the other hand, though, it might look like you have a lot of competition for “prime rib specials locally” but the competition is so light – and so easy to defeat – that you can swing in there, steel that keyword, and push a bunch of traffic to your restaurant without a lot of extra effort.

Go deep with those analysis tools to figure out where you should focus your attention.

X-Ray Your Competition

Another great tip to remember when doing keyword research is the value in researching your competition, what they are focused on ranking, and the kinds of results that they enjoy.

There are a ton of tools out there that give you the opportunity to sort of “x-ray” your competitors, finding the keywords that they rank highest for, finding out how much traffic they are generating, and zeroing in on what they’re doing right – as well as what they are doing wrong – to inform your decision-making, too.

You might discover that the valuable top ranking positions your competitors have almost held by accident. At the same time, you might discover that there are certain keywords your competitors have locked down completely – but that usually means you can find a different keyword to exploit yourself that they aren’t focused on.

At the end of the day, conducting competitor keyword research is just as important as squaring away your own.

Closing Thoughts

Of course, if you want to streamline things significantly it might not be a bad idea to hire search engine optimization experts like Up digital to do your keyword research for you. Take a look at our SEO Services.

These experts have the tools, the knowledge, and the experience to quickly find you keywords that have the most potential – not just to produce top-tier rankings in a hurry, but also to do so without having to spend a small fortune along the way.

Best of all, you’ll be able to focus on other higher leverage areas of your business while professionals knock out your search engine optimization strategies for you!

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Before you leave, you should know that keyword research isn't the only important thing for SEO. See how important is page speed for SEO. It's also important to mention that SEO exists in more ways than one. Check out our newly published article on how to do SEO on Soundcloud.

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