As a CEO, founder, or neophyte company controller who wants to deal with the digital competitive landscape, you know all too well that business differentiation is imperative. One powerful way to cut out unique portions for your business is by using advanced keyword research. I’m Deepak Sharma, an SEO professional with years in the field, and through my blog, I will be sharing with you the best and most effective advanced keyword analysis strategies that have worked in my career. Following each strategy, there is a step-by-step procedure and my very own experience, some of which were irritatedly tested. Let’s go.
1. Competitor Analysis to Discover Keywords
Competitor analysis may reveal keyword opportunities that you may not have considered. Finding out about other people in your business can help you develop keywords people type in to find them, enabling you to increase your website’s search engine reach as well.
Step 1: Determine Your Major Competitors
First off, jot down a list of your major competitors, i.e., businesses that rank highly for the keywords you’re targeting in your industry. Tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, or SpyFu can help you identify these competitors. Add a website URL, and with these tools, you will have a list of the major competitors.
Step 2: Competitor Keyword Analysis
Plug your competitors’ URLs into these tools to see what keywords they rank for. Focus on keywords that have a lot of search volumes but have moderate to low competition. These represent opportunities for you to beat the competition at their own game.
Step 3: Download Heuristic Keywords.
Make a list of the most meaningful keywords against their relevance to your website. Also, determine the types of content that go well with such keywords, like blogs, videos, or infographics.
Personal Experience:
I leveraged Ahrefs to analyze top competitors in the course of working on a project for a roofing company in Sydney. We were able to target high-volume keywords like “roof replacement Sydney” and “roof maintenance Sydney” and created focused content that quickly rose in the SERPs. We just kept an eye on our keyword strategy and improved it even more to be on top of the competition, and it drove huge organic traffic.
2. Leveraging Google’s SERP Features
Such features on Google’s SERPs, from PAA boxes and Featured Snippets to Knowledge Panels, have a lot to tell us about user intent and how you might use these opportunities to find more long-tail keywords and content opportunities for the things users are searching for.
Step 1: Identify SERP Features Relevant to Your Industry
A keyword research tool can be used to find out the SERP features when targeting keywords. Generally, if you see that most of your keywords trigger featured snippets or PAA boxes, work on optimizing your content to capture these features. Step 2: Analyze and Extract Keywords from SERP
In addition, look for questions in PAA boxes and phrases in Featured Snippets, as those can offer insight into long-tail keyword opportunities. If you have something like “digital marketing strategies,” then there → are questions like “What are the best digital marketing strategies?” → these are long-tail keywords you want to optimize for.
Step 3: Optimize Content for SERP Features
Write content that directly answers PAA questions, or even better, is structured to become a featured snippet. With obvious headings and bullet points, your content will be easy for Google to feature.
Personal Experience:
Example: When targeting the keyword ‘financial advisors’, I looked for Google SERP features related to long-tail keywords, as well as key probable client queries, and developed content to answer them, and hence captured featured snippets that would drive me great organic traffic. One such article was the publication titled “Top Financial Planning Tips for Young Professionals.”.
3. Niche forums and Q&A websites
Niche forums and Q&A sites like Reddit, Quora, or industry-specific forums are jammed with keyword opportunities. Here, you get the real-world answer to the most common questions people have in your industry.
Step 1: Identify popular forums and Q&A sites
Find forums and Q&A sites related to your industry. For example, r/technology or Stack Overflow is great for the tech industry.
Step 2: Keyword Search and Common Questions
Check the search rodent built into these platforms to surface common questions and discussions. In many cases, this will reveal pain points and keyword opportunities. For example, if you were to search “SEO strategies” in Quora, you may find “What are the best SEO strategies for startups?” Step 3: Extract and Analyze Keywords
Make a list of recurring themes and keywords from these discussions. Let them serve as a basis for starting a content strategy; this will focus your efforts on the real pains and questions for your audience.
Personal Experience:
For example, I went through forums, including Reddit and Stack Overflow, for a tech startup. I discovered all kinds of topics being discussed and, with these topics, some keywords like “best project management tools for startups” and “how to scale a tech startup.” Such an approach could not only come up with ideas to inspire content but also ensure the kind of audience it would attract was highly targeted, greatly enhancing the level of engagement and traffic.
4. Launching semantic SEO and relevance clusters
Semantic SEO is creating content focused not only on one keyword but on a group of related topics and their associated concepts. That way, you don’t just rank with one keyword but with many other related keywords, and you confer more topical relevance to your reader.
Step 1: Identify Primary Core Topics
Key in and list out all broad topics highly relevant to your business. For example, in the case of digital marketing, one of the broad topics can be content marketing.
Step 2: Semantic Analysis Tools
Use tools such as Clearscope—or even MarketMuse—to help you develop semantically related subtopics and keywords. These tools examine topic-ranked content to create recommendations for related terms to include in the written text.
Step 3: Develop Topic Clusters
Create your pillar content for your main topic and then cluster the content around related subtopics. Interlink them for a fuller content network. For example, with a core topic about “content marketing strategies,” you would lead users to read some clustered pages on “developing engaging blog posts” and “SEO best practices in content marketing.”
Personal Experience:
An example of one of my flagship projects is the creation of semantic SEO content clusters around sustainable fashion. I developed pillar content on key trends in sustainable fashion and created cluster content on subjects such as eco-friendly fabrics. This all-connected structure of content elevated our organic rank and made us a reference in the go-to of the sustainable fashion industry.
5. Leverage Social Media Listening
Social media moves much further than a place for interaction—it’s a goldmine of keyword opportunities. Social media listening and monitoring is done to find valuable keywords or content ideas by monitoring discussions, trends, and tags.
Step 1: Choose Your Social Media Channels
Firstly, determine where your audience is most active: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram. Each of these social media platforms has a great touchpoint, so go ahead.
Step 2: Listen and track trends
Use listening and monitoring tools like Brand24, Hootsuite, or Sprout Social to keep a tab on conversations and trending topics in your industry.
Keep an eye on hashed topics, keywords, and references for your business.
Step 3: Keyword Research and Utilization
Search for common phrases and hashtags to unearth new keywords and new content ideas that resonate well with your audience. For example, an emerging trend on Twitter with the term’remote work tools’: you can create content centered around the trend.
I had previously been employed in a travel business where I had used social listening to follow trending topics on Instagram and Twitter. I used it for keyword research, such as looking for keywords like “eco-friendly travel destinations” and “adventure travel for millennials,” to incorporate them in our content strategy. Consequently, it provided great engagement and traffic manifold by allowing us to generate timely relevant content.
Advanced keyword research is a must for CEOs, founders, and new business owners who wish to have more success in the digital world. By using competitor analysis, Google SERP features, niche forums, and social media listening, you can find semantically meaningful keywords that drive profitable traffic and conversions.
Remember, keyword research is an ongoing task. Keep refining your strategy depending on the emerging trends and data that indicate performance. If in any doubt or for further clarification, you can freely ask. I’m very happy to help you at any point in time. Let’s work together to find all the doors of possibility and unlock the full potential of any SEO strategy.
FAQs
- How often should I update my keyword research?
It’s our opinion you should look at keyword research every quarter at a minimum to stay current with trends and shifts in search behavior.
2. Can these strategies be applied to local SEO?
Yes! These strategies apply at a global and local level. Just make sure that the selection of keywords is specific to your location.
3. What are the basic tools for advanced keyword research?
Some of the major tools that fall into this category are SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Clearscope, MarketMuse, Brand24, and Hootsuite.
4. How do I track performance in SEO?
Track organic traffic and keyword ranking. Monitoring conversion ratios may be done using Google Analytics and Search Console from Google.
5. Do I need to get an SEO professional to generate a list of keywords?
You can properly research keywords by yourself, but from an SEO professional with years of experience in the business world, you may be assured of receiving insights and strategies.