Infographic: How To Do Keyword Research For SEO

Good SEO begins with good keyword research. After all, if you don’t know the ways people are seeking your content, it’s pretty hard to ensure that your content “speaks” to them using the words they search for.

The folks at Promodo have an infographic outlining some key parts of the keyword research process. Understanding that each page has its own terms to target, brainstorming possible terms, researching with the Google Keyword Tool and more are covered. Check it out:

Want the infographic for yourself? You’ll find it here: Keyword Research Infographic.

Looking to improve your keyword research efforts? Be sure to subscribe to our Keywords & Content column here on Search Engine Land, where each week. Some past columns to read:

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http://www.facebook.com/stephane.bottine Stéphane Bottine

I’d be scared if my SEO agency followed this sort of methodology for keyword research. Following templated rules blindly or discarding competitive keywords without looking for patterns and assessing commercial potential or search intent isn’t the way to go.
Tyler Tafelsky

Id have to disagree with the comment below. Discarding keywords and refining your list is imperative to ensure your SEO is not a wasted effort. The playing field is becoming far to competitive to optimize for the sky. This infographic is the bee’s knees to doing effective keyword research for SEO that generates conversions, not just traffic.
natfinn

I gots to agree with Stephane. Really? Only a 5 step process? And landing page before industry and competitor analysis? And not a layered approach? Really?
http://KeliE.com/ Keli

I usually do the kwr first, then after all is said and done, determine what pages I need (if it’s a new site) for the site in question. I don’t use Google’s “keyword tool” ever. I know it’s a good tool for suggesting phrases but unless something has changed, this is a bidding tool. With G’s tool the phrases are shown to have a very high search volume, #’s you don’t see in other kwr tools (that are 3rd party and don’t use 100% Google data). We all do it differently would be my guess.

I let my clients participate in this process, complete transparency. They are sent the initial “first pass” of phrases for “cross off” (that would be #2 above, which I do first most the time – how will my clients know if they’re missing phrases they never thought of which lends to a brand new page?). This step also lets me know what clients are thinking and what they “want” which to me is a part of the process; even if they want that pet phrase that has a very low search volume :)

K
Tyler Tafelsky

Internal research should always be primary. You can’t optimize for keywords that are not focal to your inside page (“landing pages”) Landing pages before competitor analysis? Always. That’s how you discover who your true competitor are!
natfinn

then I hope we get competitor clients one day.
Lisa Agostoni

I disagree with tossing out low volume keywords. I’d rather pursue a lower volume keyword that’s further down the conversion funnel than pursue a high volume keyword that’s both unobtainable and irrelevant. If I’m trying to rank gain traffic for a vinyl windows landing page, I certainly don’t want to compete with Microsoft for ‘windows’
Zoidberg

Your infographic is bad, and you should feel bad!
http://www.facebook.com/SubmissionWork Lalit Burma

Using yahoo for knowing links ?

Don’t you think yahoo have stopped that … Old Infographic ?
http://www.facebook.com/SubmissionWork Lalit Burma

Hey K … so which tool you use for keyword research …

Market Samurai was popular once but now not getting the satisfactory results from it.
http://www.facebook.com/SubmissionWork Lalit Burma

Agreed … and vote up :D
http://KeliE.com/ Keli

To get search volume numbers I use both Word Tracker and Keyword Discovery.

What do you use??

K
http://www.domesticatingit.com/ JonDiPietro

I strongly agree and offer another reason why you don’t just toss out low volume keywords. Several of my clients are B2B companies whose lifetime customer value is in the tens of thousands of dollars. Acquiring one or two customers out of a couple of hundred searches per month is pretty lucrative and there is often little competition for those low volume keywords.
http://twitter.com/NwslttrMktng WPI Communications

I agree with Lisa. Very often low volume and long tail keywords are going to get you just the type of customer or client who fits. Competing with the big boys for the high volume search terms can be a real loser’s game.