SEO Keyword Research

KEYWORD RESEARCH
FOR BEGINNERS

“
The good life is one inspired by love
and guided by knowledge.
- Bertrand Russell

Hello!
I AM W.S. TOH
Being a self-taught SEO
practitioner, I give back to the
community by giving free tutorials.

WHAT About ARE this KEYWORDS?
template
Keywords are words and phrases in a piece of content that makes it “findable”
on search engines.
For example, an article titled “Super duper mega guide on how to play a
guitar” will give search engines a hint that it is a guide on playing the guitar. If
this article is well written and well promoted enough, it pop up in searches for
“how to play a guitar” and the related search terms.
This is why keywords are so important in SEO. You need to understand what
readers are looking for, and answer their search queries.

STEP 1 – FIND A TOPIC

DON’T START WITH SEO
• It’s weird, but the first step of keyword research has
nothing to do with keywords nor SEO.
• Begin by finding an interesting topic that is valuable to
your readers.
• If you don’t have an interesting topic, you won’t have
any good content; You cannot do SEO and keyword
research without solid content.

HOW TO FIND A TOPIC
• Depend on your inspirations. Think of topics that are
related to your selected niche.
• If not, just look around on the Internet. Plenty of news
websites, social media, and forums to get article ideas
from.
• Look at the current trends, and problems that people
are facing.

TOPIC IDEAS
• Tutorials – Answer the questions of other people.
• Reviews – Try out a product and write you thoughts.
• Tips – Life hacks.
• Response – Respond to certain people.
• Interviews – What do other people think of certain
products or issues?

STEP 2 – FINDING KEYWORDS

SEED KEYWORDS
• Once you have a topic idea, it is time to start thinking
like a user.
• What do users enter into the search engine to find your
article?
• For example “beginner guitar lesson”, “basic piano
chords” or “how to start a business”?
• You do not need to exhaust the list, but just come up
with 3-5 good seed keywords.

DIG MORE KEYWORDS
• With your seed keywords, use online tools to find more
related keywords.
• You can use keyword.io and/or ubersuggest.io to help
you.
• If not, you can also enter your search term into Google,
and use their suggested search terms.

LONG TAIL KEYWORDS
• My last tip is go for keywords with more than 3 words,
or what we call “long tail keywords”.
• This is because the short keywords are usually generic
and hard to score.
• For example, “piano lessons” can refer to “free lessons”,
“beginners”, “advanced” or even specific “classical”
lessons.
• Using keywords such as “basic chords piano lesson” is
much better and more specific.

STEP 3 – CHERRY PICKING

MORE DATA ON KEYWORDS
• We now have a long list of keywords, but which are the
best?
• Use the Google Keyword Planner to help you get more
data.
• No worries, it is a free tool.
• Simply enter your keywords into “get search volume
data and trends” and analyze the numbers.

HOW TO CHOOSE
• Based on the numbers in the free keywords research
tool, here are a few consideration factors.
• Search volume – No point targeting keywords that
nobody has any interest in.
• Value – This is the suggested bid for paid search. But
also a good indicator that there’s market.
• Competition – Nobody targets a keyword that has no
interest and value… This is also a good indication.

STEP 4 – SNOOP AROUND

COMPETITION ANALYSIS
• Which ever keywords you choose, it is a good idea to
do a search of that exact keyword on search engines.
• See who are the top 5 results.
• If they are all big boys with multi-million dollar marketing
budget and extremely well written content – you are
going to have a hard time winning.
• Go for keywords that has value and less competition.

PICK THE BEST
• The Keywords planner tool is based on the past data.
• It does not mean that keywords with low value are bad.
• It could mean that the trend has not yet picked up.
• If you want, you can predict and target trends.
• Whichever keyword you choose, remember to only pick
the best few – Do not attempt to choose a dozen of
them and spam.

THANK YOU!
Please visit http://red-dot-geek.com/ for more free tutorials.
Read the complete Keyword Research Guide on Red Dot
Geek.