We’re sure you’d love your business to get as much awareness and traffic (both online and in person) from as many of your dream customers as possible. 

If you’ve ever considered ways of increasing traffic, appearing higher in search engine results, or even social media search results, we highly recommend adding keyword research as a fundamental aspect of your digital marketing strategy. 

What is keyword research?

Keywords are the words or phrases that search engines use to gather relevant information on a particular topic. They are the words and phrases users enter into these search engines when making a query. 

So, if a potential customer is searching “best nail salons near me”, it’s clear that this user is interested in nail salons and is expecting a list of options for them to choose from. 

Keyword research is where you analyse and prioritise the keywords your target audience uses in their online interactions. It will give you insight into their search queries and help you understand their preferred language so that your content will be more relatable and enticing to them. 

By using tools like Semrush, KeywordTool.io, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner, you’ll not only discover what topics interest your audience but also how popular they are by looking at the volume of searches per month. 

Then, you can use this to your advantage by ensuring your social media and website content utilises these keywords so that your business and its content will appear higher in the search results. 

Why is keyword research important in digital marketing?

Here are three great benefits of keyword research and how it will help your business: 

SEO 

When it comes to your business’ website, keyword research is vital in improving your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) score, which will enhance your overall search ranking. 

By including relevant content on your website with relevant keywords, you can improve your SEO score. 

Of course, there is more that goes into SEO, but by doing this, search engines will value the content on your website as a good source of information for relevant queries and will rank you highly. 

Content Marketing 

As we mentioned, keyword research isn’t only necessary for search results. In fact, social media search mechanisms have become increasingly reliant on keywords to feed users with relevant content. 

Moreover, by using keywords that your target audience is actively using online in their searches and conversations, you can engage with them by providing helpful content at the right time in their buyer journey (awareness, interest, desire or action). 

These keywords can serve as content pillars for your social media posts, blogs or emails. 

Paid Advertising 

In addition to SEO, paid advertising plays a major role in digital marketing, and keyword research will also come in handy here. 

As you begin to set up and launch campaigns, you must know and understand who you want your ads to attract. So, you’ll have to define your audience as part of creating your campaigns. 

Keywords that target specific interests or affinities will allow you to reach your potential customers better. 

Google’s search campaigns also require you to input keywords that will trigger your search ads. The more relevant your keywords are, the more likely it will be to increase the impressions and clicks on your ads. 

As you build on your digital marketing strategy for the remainder of the year, we hope you’ll keep in mind how important it is to speak the language of your audience. 

Use keyword research to help you find the words and phrases that align with their pain points and/or the solutions your business provides.