Keywords can be used in so many ways, but let me simplify it. I Think of them as having three main purposes into which all the others can be categorized.
- Market Research
- Topic Selection
- Driving traffic
Even at that, the lines between one function and the other get kind of fuzzy.
Using Keywords for market research
When it comes to market research, keywords are your best friend. By taking the time to define your niche and audience, you can quickly and easily evaluate demand for your product or service. This process can help you determine whether or not there is a market for what you’re selling, and if so, how large that market may be.
As mentioned elsewhere on this site, selecting a niche market segment is one of the main keys to online marketing success. It is by researching keywords that you best do so.
Using various tools and methods you can get a decent idea of how specific to get while still having a large enough audience to support your product offers.
More than that, using keywords as a market research tool can also give you insight into what problems your readers will be trying to solve. So it can also act as product research. But seeing what products are already being supported, and where there may be opportunities to fill in underserved gaps i the market.
Also during this research you may discover where your audience spends their time online and what special vocabulary or behaviors they have which will allow you to relate to them more.
Using Keywords for Topic Selection
Once you have an idea of the demand, you can start to narrow down your keywords to focus on more specific terms and how they will fit into your site’s overall structure.
Regardless of the niche you serve, it is a good idea to segment your content further into a (very) few categories – for a couple reasons.
First, those categories become the navigation and structure of your site. It makes it easier for users to find similar content. And it helps your SEO for a topic (but that’s the next section).
Secondly, it forces you to keep a narrow focus on the content you create which is good. You can’t be all things to all people, and what seems like a small topic at first has a way of getting more sub-topics to write about as you go. Trust me.
As you you write, more and more ideas will present themselves. It will be challenging to limit topics than to think of more.
Here’s a perfect example: Originally I thought this article would be about how to use keywords – as in how to incorporate them into post text, hashtags, titles and such. But as I outlined the article and wrote it, I realized that content would be better suited to a “part 2”.
Using Keywords for Driving Traffic
That’s kind of the holy grail of all this keyword work. You want to get people to your site so they can see what you’ve written. You want them to see that you know what they’re looking for and that you have the solution for them.
Now, you can do that through SEO (search engine optimization) so that your content shows up high in the rankings when people search for something using keywords.
Or you can pay for ads that will be presented to people based on various things like demographics, browsing history, search history and (drumroll) keywords.
Or if you want free or low-cost traffic from social media platforms you can get it, but you have to be where your target audience is and when thay are looking for content like yours. Again, keywords are what is going to do that for you.
Key Take-aways About Keywords
When you’re faced with a blank page and have to decide what to write about, having a topic based on well researched keywords is – well – key.
How you organize and present those articles is also best done by having good keyword research at your fingertips.
And if you want anyone see the results of your hard work, you’ll need to get them to your site, again using keywords.
Regardless of what application you have in mind for your keywords at any given time, having a system in place for them is vital. That’s the topic another article.
If you’d like to read on about more specific ways of using keywords, please read the article: How to Use Keywords – Part 2.