Have you ever come across the term keyword research software? There are many articles online that talk about keyword research, SEO, and the various software regarding them. However, what is a keyword research software?
If it’s the first time you’ve heard of it, or if you want to know more about it, then keep reading. We’ll discuss everything you need to know about keyword research, SEO, and keyword research software.
What Are Keywords?
To understand what is a keyword research software, let’s first have an overview of keywords in general.
Nowadays, you can get a lot of information from the internet. You can look for places to eat, places to travel, or certain individuals. You may need some information regarding a topic from a lesson at school, or maybe there is something that piqued your interest, and you want to look it up on the internet.
Regardless of the information you want on the internet, you’ll have to type a word or a string of words that are related to that information. This is what we call “keywords.” Search results will show all of the articles or sites containing keywords related to what you’ve searched.
If you are a website owner, you need to use relevant keywords so that your target visitors will have greater chances of finding your content or website among the many search results.
Types of Keywords
There are two types of keywords. The first type is broad and far-reaching, likewise known as head keywords.
The other type is a specific combination of many words or terms. These keywords are what you call long-tail keywords.
Perhaps you are thinking of using singular keywords since they have a high search volume. However, using singular keywords also means that the competition for those keywords can be very tough.
What Is Keyword Research?
Now that you have an overview of what keywords are, it’s time to tackle keyword research and why it is important.
This process is usually done to help in general marketing or for SEO purposes. It is what you call the process of looking for and analyzing a word or string of words that people input on a search engine when they’re looking for a piece of certain information. The data garnered from keyword research can then be used to help in SEO and marketing strategies.
Doing keyword research helps you gain insight into what terms and queries are mostly searched by people in search engines. With keyword research, you can have a general idea of the queries of your target traffic, how popular these queries are, and many more.
For the past ten years, SEO has been through a number of changes. One of the major changes involves keywords becoming less important for ranking purposes. In the eyes of an SEO professional, using keywords that are exactly what the target audience has searched for in a search engine isn’t the most crucial factor that affects ranking.
Rather, it is the motive behind the keywords that matters more. In other words, it is the intent and how the site, article, or content aims to serve that intent. However, although keywords are no longer the most essential factor that affects ranking, this does not mean that the process is outdated.
Assuming that you are using the right SEO tool, keyword research can tell you what topics your audience is interested in and how popular these topics are to them. The main point here is the topics.
Through analyzing keywords being used in many searches every month, you can specify your content and sort it into topics you prefer your content to be based on. After that, you can utilize the topics you want to derive keywords to target.
By researching the popularity, general intent, and search volume of keywords, you can dive into the questions that most people in your audience want answers to.
Now that you know the importance of keyword research, the next thing is to learn what is a keyword research software.
What Is a Keyword Research Software?
As the name suggests, a keyword research software is a tool you use to research keywords. The key to a good and successful SEO strategy is by focusing on long-tail keywords. You don’t want to focus on singular keywords such as “cat” or “clothes”: they’re very vague.
To help you understand further, just know that there are many breeds of cats and many brands of clothes. Focusing on long-tail keywords narrows the search down and ensures that your content will be found by your desired audience.
Although long-tail keywords get lesser traffic compared to common or generic terms, they are also associated with more quality traffic and people who are interested in your content.
Luckily, selecting the appropriate long-tail keywords for your site is a fairly easy process with the help of a keyword research software. During keyword research, there are two important things that you should keep in mind: keyword relevance and location.
When choosing the right keywords for SEO, keyword relevance is the most vital. This is because it is generally better to be more specific.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say the content of your site is about Addidas tennis shoes. You will have much higher chances of attracting a quality audience if your target keyword is, in this case, “Addidas tennis shoes” rather than just “shoes.”
This is because there are several types of shoes and hundreds of shoe brands. By being more specific and having your keywords relevant to the content of your site, you can be sure that the traffic going into your site will be from people who are most likely interested and are looking for information regarding Adidas tennis shoes.
Sure, having singular keywords and more general keywords has its merit, such as the ability to target a larger audience.
There may also be a possibility that previously uninterested viewers will be interested once they access it. However, this may not always be the case, and the bulk of the traffic you are attracting with generic keywords is possibly not interested in the content of your site anyway.
Thus, as a general rule of thumb, go for specific, relevant, and long-tail keywords; don’t settle for the common and generic ones.
Location-based keywords are the next important factor to consider in your SEO. This is especially vital to those who offer services in certain areas.
Let me give you a clear example of this. Let’s say you are looking for shops that offer computer repair services in Toronto (let’s assume that you’re currently in Toronto). If you search for “computer repair services” on a search engine, the search results will show you many computer repair services.
However, many of these services are probably very far from your location. However, by adding your location to the search, in this case, “computer repair services Toronto” or “computer repair services in Toronto,” you can narrow down your search.
Again, if you want to attract quality traffic to your website, being specific not only to the relevance but also the location will greatly help you. This means that if you are offering computer services in Toronto, then it would greatly help you if you add your location to your target keywords.
If you offer services in one location only, then you can add that location to your keywords. If, however, you are a much bigger company and have branches in several locations, then you can optimize your keywords to include those locations or have a separate site for each specific location.
That way, you won’t have to deal with traffic that is not relevant and of no use to you.
Now that you know the two most important things to consider and also have an answer to the question of what is a keyword research software, you might ask how do you choose the right keywords?
Of course, just randomly choosing keywords won’t yield any results. Luckily, using keyword research tools can help you in this regard. With that said, here are some keyword research tools that you can use to help you in your endeavor:
1. Google Keyword Planner
If you are new to keyword research, then starting with a free keyword research software might be a good idea. Google Keyword Planner is a tool integrated into AdWords. To use it, you have to sign up and make an AdWords account first.
Using the tool is fairly simple. You only need to input a keyword, your website address, or multiple keywords, then once the process is over, Google will show you a list of related keywords with some simple statistics to measure the competition around each keyword.
It also shows you how many searches that keyword has on both local and global levels. Apart from that, Keyword Planner will also show you some interesting statistics and information regarding how a list of keywords will perform.
2. Google Trends
This is another free keyword research tool from Google. Google Trends allows you to enter multiple keywords, and then you can filter them by search history, location, and category. After putting the information required, it will give you results that show information regarding that keyword, such as its interest and where most of the traffic is coming from.
Google Trends stands out from most free keyword research software since it doesn’t just give you the standard keyword volume numbers like most of the keyword research software. You also gain access to interactive, colorful graphs that you can experiment with.
To put it simply, Google Trends gives you a more dynamic insight into a keyword, such as its relative popularity and more.
Furthermore, data from Google Trends does not include repeated queries. This means that there are no redundancies in the data, which makes it much cleaner.
3. Keyword Tool.io
To be honest, Keyword Tool.io is one of the most rudimentary keyword research software available online. However, if you just want a long list of long-tailed keywords that are similar, or at least vaguely relevant to a keyword that you already have in mind, then this keyword research tool gets the job done.
The process of Keyword Tool.io involves using Google Autocomplete to generate a list of related and relevant suggestions of long-tailed keywords. This list is generated by Google Autocomplete based on several factors, such as the history of how many people are searching for a particular keyword.
This suggestion tool can help you gain insights into what your audience is searching for around your content or topics.
All of the keyword research tools above are free. Of course, there are certain limitations to what they can do, and acquiring a paid keyword research software would give you more functionality. To name a few, you can opt for these paid keyword research tools.
- Term Explorer
- GrowthBar
- HubSpot
- Serpstat
- Ahrefs
- Moz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool
- SEMrush
- Accuranker
There are many more available online, but these eight are just among the best.
Ready to Kickstart Your Keyword Research Efforts?
Hopefully, you now know the answer to the question of what is a keyword research software and keyword research in general. Keywords are important as they are the middle ground between what the audience inputs in a search engine and your content or website.
Optimizing your keywords can help increase traffic, filter it, and ensure that the audience visiting your site are actually looking for your content.
To optimize your keyword, you need to do keyword research. With keyword research, you gain insights into how a particular keyword would work and the type of traffic it attracts.
It’s easy to do keyword research these days with the help of a keyword research software. However, do take note that you should target long-tailed keywords as they are more specific and attract higher-quality traffic.
It is important that you do keyword research to ensure that your intended traffic finds your content or your site. Whether it be for a business, an article, or any content or information on the internet, if you want to attract quality traffic, keyword research will be of huge help.