Keyword Research and Competition Analysis

What is keyword research (keyword research) and what is meant by a competition analysis?

Users search in search engines using keywords or keywords, and the machine will produce results relevant to the keyword.

With the help of tools from Google, we can research to get popular keywords or low competition.

The importance of keyword research

In the beginning of my career as a blogger, because I do not understand about keyword research I create an article with a topic that no search. I wonder, when the article is in the ranking of 1 Google search results but why not get traffic?

It was only after I learned about keyword research I realized that the keywords I was looking for were not looking for.

So, keyword research is important so we do not tired to create articles and finally no one reads.

So what is a competition analysis?

For a new blog or website whose SEO foundation is not yet strong, there are times when we need to target a keyword that is low in competition so we can still appear on the first page.

Research keywords with Google Keyword Planner

My favorite tool in doing keyword research is GKP or Google Keyword Planner. The reason, because the free and complete features. In addition, because Google's own is certainly more accurate.

To do keyword research is easy:

Enter keywords, you can enter more than one. To enter more than one keyword use a comma or line break
Set target country
select a language
Click 'get ideas'

Then you will be directed to the following page:

From here we can see that there are 320 people who search with keywords buy clothes in a month. On the other hand, if I replace with "selling clothes" turned out to result 1.900, this means that looking for more clothes than buying clothes.

By leveraging our knowledge of on-page SEO from previous chapters, then we can optimize our website pages by using keywords selling clothes rather than buying clothes.

This is the basic essence of keyword research.

Search for keywords with low competition

In doing keyword research, usually we as the new website owners are eyeing the low competition. This is because the new website usually does not have a strong "foundation" so it will lose if competing with large websites.

Please read this article to find non-competitive niche and keywords.

Long tail keyword

One more thing you need to know about keyword research is long tail keywords or long tailed keywords.

In addition to the keywords you are looking for, GKP also displays the number of searches from similar keywords. For example from the picture above, in addition to keywords new clothes also have others such as buying and selling clothes, buy clothes online, buying and selling clothes online, and others.

From here, if we optimize the website for keyword buy clothes, then there are only 320 seekers per month. But if we optimize to buy clothes online then the total search is 1300 + 320 = 1.620.

But of course the decision is back to you and whether or not your content is relevant to the existing long tail.

Finally, if your website is an online store (e-commerce) or monetized with affiliate products, long tail keywords usually provide a greater conversion rate than regular keywords. This is because people who use long tail usually intend to buy it higher.

For example, people looking for "blue dress" with "buy blue shirt". The first usually just want to find information, while the second look intent to buy.