The Ultimate Guide to Keyword Research for SEO in 2023

What’s in this article

This article provides an in-depth guide to keyword research for SEO in 2022. It emphasises the importance of keyword research in understanding and reaching your target audience, discovering new topics, and enhancing brand awareness.

keyword research 2022

Digital marketing is the trending marketing technique because of the many benefits it offers, and it involves selling products and services online via websites or blog posts. Digital marketing requires that you bring your brand to potential customers by optimizing your websites so they can rank higher on search engines. One way to ensure your site is well optimized for search engines is by introducing relevant keywords to your posts. These keywords help your target audience find you, but only if used correctly. This article will explain how to research keywords that bring you closer to your target audience by helping your web pages rank well on various search engines.

Importance of Keyword Research

Whether you’re looking for broad search terms or long-tail keywords, we all know how critical keywords are to your site’s SEO ranking and why you must include them to attract the right audience. But you can only get the best results from keywords when you use them correctly. Researching your keywords helps you come up with ones that are accurate and directed at your target audience. Here are some other significant reasons to do keyword research.

  • Keyword research helps you understand your audience and how to reach them
  • Helps you to find new topics that keep your site relevant on search engines
  • It helps you get quality leads that make more sales
  • Helps build your brand’s awareness and attract more audience
  • It helps you get your Keywords right and bring in potential buyers for your product or service.

How to Research Keywords

Researching keywords before using them is very rewarding, but the process can be confusing if you do not know how to do it. However, researching keywords is pretty straightforward, and here are some pointers to help your keyword research.

  1. Understand Your Brand/Products: The first step in keyword research is understanding the product you want to advertise to your audience and how it helps to solve their problems. This knowledge will help you understand what keyword to use to best present your brand to your audience.
  2. Understand Your Target Audience: Your target audience refers to the group of people your product addresses. This set of people is most likely interested in what you offer, and bringing them to your site is the priority. Understanding who your target audience is gives you an insight into what they are likely to search for on search engines.
  3. Brainstorm Keywords: After you have completed the first two types of research, your next step is using the information to brainstorm keywords for your blog. You can put together a list of ideas and cross-check them with the details you gathered from your brand and target audience. This step will help you select the best keywords that describe how your products address the needs of your target audience.

Top Keyword Research Tools

Technology has helped find the right keywords easier by introducing several tools that help to research keywords. You can use these research tools to find as many keyword options that can appeal to your audience and drive in lots of traffic for your webpage. Here are some of the top available keyword research tools.

  • Semrush keyword overview
  • Google
  • Google Ads
  • Semrush topic research tool
  • Answer the Public
  • Google trends
  • Keyword Everywhere
  • Soovle

Bottom Line

Getting your keywords spot on is essential to ensuring they are effective. Researching keywords will help you identify the best ones, and this article has highlighted the best ways to complete this task.

Need help building quality backlinks to your site?

If you do wish to build links for your business site, get in touch with a trusted Gold Coast SEO company such as Heart Digital, who provide eCommerce SEO servicesGoogle Ads services and much more.

Frequently asked questions

Interested in finding out more about Heart Digital and our services? Here are some of our most frequently asked questions.

Got another question for us? Please contact us.

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO for short, are the steps taken to appear highly on Google search results, or other search engines. For example, if you are based on the Gold Coast and have a power outage, you will need an electrician. In 2022, the first thing most people will do is an online search for “Gold Coast electrician” and then contact one of the highest-ranking businesses in the search results.

For the electricians that appear high in the search results, their ranking can be incredibly valuable and a steady source of new business. For those who do not rank highly, and appear beyond page one of the search results, they often rely solely on word of mouth and / or referrals to attract new business. For most businesses, limiting new business to a network of contacts can make growth almost impossible.

A good SEO agency can help get your business to the top of the Google rankings and turbocharge business growth.

A well-designed website is only half the battle. Afterall, a stylish website is of no value if no-one ever visits it.  Most businesses need a steady flow of visitors to ensure their website is front and centre for customers when they search for a specific product or service…and on Google there is more than enough traffic to go round – every second (on average) there are 63,000 Google searches!

Beyond attracting traffic, there are many other SEO benefits:

  • SEO offers much higher close rates (about 15 per cent) for new leads when compared with other forms of marketing (often less than two per cent).
  • SEO brings quality traffic to your website. When you begin an SEO campaign, your website is updated to incorporate specific keywords relevant to the traffic you need to attract. This ensures that you zero in on your preferred audience that are most interested in your business’ product or service.
  • SEO is very measurable, making it easy to understand results and return on investment.
  • SEO, particularly for e-commerce businesses, ensures your business is open 24/7. This means that potential customers can engage with your business, leave enquiries and even make transactions when your business is not ‘open’.
  • SEO can level the playing field among businesses sizes. We’ve helped small retailers outrank conglomerates like Myer and a family construction business dominate multi-nationals, among countless other examples. None have the budget of the bigger companies, but with a well-executed SEO campaign, they can thrive online.
  • SEO is very sustainable. For a relatively small budget, SEO can be an ongoing strategy that can be more effective than traditional marketing and thereby reduce spend in these areas.
  • SEO need not be tied to geographical boundaries. You can expand your SEO campaign as your business grows, with minimal additional expanse. For example, if you are a Gold Coast business looking for customers in Brisbane, or vice versa, increasing this reach is possible via an SEO campaign.
  • Utilising SEO techniques ensures you have a better website. At the heart of effective SEO, is an ongoing obsession to improve the user (visitor) experience. When Google sees this, they improve rankings, but it also means that websites that do SEO properly are generally more functional and easier-to-use.

A do-it-yourself approach is always a possibility. However, it is worth considering that the learning curve is incredibly steep (and the goal posts move regularly!). Those taking on an SEO campaign themselves will need to consider page optimisation, conversion rate optimisation, keyword research, Google My Business, link building, content creation, use of metrics ….the list goes on. The reality is that there are many moving parts in any successful SEO campaign.

Given these challenges, we think it makes sense to work with a reputable SEO agency. And our experience over the years has told us that the agency approach will always prove more successful, cheaper and faster than keeping SEO in-house.

Working with a team that lives and breathes SEO each day will represent your best chance of SEO having a material impact on your business’ growth.

With more than a billion websites in 2022, SEO campaigns can take a few months to gain traction. This is most relevant in competitive industries and/or major metropolitan locations. For more niche businesses and / or smaller geographic locations, we’ve often seen a surge in rankings within weeks.

SEO is not a short-term fix though – it does require an ongoing commitment from clients. Along with hard work, patience and expertise from your chosen SEO agency.

Brace yourself for a frustrating answer (sorry!) – it depends. The cost of SEO is determined by several factors including:

  • Industry competitiveness – some industries are far more competitive than others. Playing SEO catch up against businesses with well-established online presences, takes time and costs money.
  • Geographic locations – to state the obvious, Brisbane is going to be harder market to crack for SEO compared to Southport on the Gold Coast. That is definitely not to say it is impossible to see great results in Brisbane, it just can take more time and resources (which drives up the price).
  • Your website – is it SEO ready, or are you going to need major changes before you can launch an effective SEO campaign? Potentially this can add some cost to the start of your SEO campaign.

We’ve have to have a look at your website, as there could be a number of reasons why you’ve seen a drop in traffic.

If your drop in traffic is fairly sudden, we’d encourage you to have a read of our Google Penalty Recovery Services page.

If the drop in traffic has happened over a long period of time, the reasons are likely to be less sinister. One reason could be that your competitors are now focused on SEO and have got the jump on your business. Or it could be time for your business to revisit its own SEO and find out the reason for the deterioration.

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