How to Do Keyword Research for Free
There are over 3 billion daily internet users – but how do you reach out to a desired group of audiences? It’s simple – by doing keyword research and creating valuable content for a specific type of audience. But how to do keyword research for free – in case you’re just starting out or need some help?
That’s exactly what you’ll find in this post.
I’ll be showing you which tools you can use to access free keywords, but also how to find ideas for your keywords and how to know which keywords are good and which keywords are bad.
What is Keyword Research?
If you aren’t sure what keywords are – you can’t do keyword research or understand what you’re researching at all.
So let’s roll back a step and start from the beginning (in case you’re just starting out).
The keyword is actually a phrase that is often searched by people on the internet with the help of search engines such as Google.
Everyone knows Google, right? And everyone is using any of the top three search engines which are:
- Yahoo
- Bing
What happens when you type in a phrase in Google? You get top results for the searched keyword.
Now when you know what a keyword is – let’s jump straight to the keyword research.
Keyword research is a process of finding searched terms by people online. But why do we use tools to do that?
Because there are keyword research tools such as Jaaxy which lets you know plenty of useful information for each keyword – such as:
- How many people search for this exact keyword on a monthly basis
- How many competitors are out there ranking for the same keyword (results you see in search engines after typing in the keyword)
- The quality of the keyword
- Chances of acquiring a good position by ranking for the exact keyword
Depending on the tool, there is plenty of more information which you could rely on. However, these are some of the most important factors you should be looking into.
Once you find a keyword that is searched often and it doesn’t have too many competitors – you can write a valuable post around the keyword‘s topic and try to rank for the keyword.
But what happens after writing a post around the keyword? Continue down below to find out!
Why Should You Do a Keyword Research Before Writing Content
If you write a blog post or any other content type without doing keyword research, you will still provide value through your content – but you might not reach the right audience you’re hoping for.
When you do keyword research prior to writing the content, you can write a post around the keyword. What this does is it allows you to try and rank for the exact term (keyword). This will help you reach your desired audience.
Other than reaching out to a specific group of the audience – another benefit is that this type of traffic is totally free. That’s why such traffic is called organic traffic.
You don’t pay anything for it, but you have to do keyword research and write a valuable post that will get indexed & ranked by search engines such as Google.
Note: In order to rank a post, you also need to do basic on-page SEO optimization of both your site and content.
What Keyword Research Tool to Use?
There is no keyword tool that is free forever. Or at least I didn’t discover such a tool yet.
Keyword research tools cost – but most of them come with a free (trial) version which allows you to perform efficient keyword research for a limited amount of time.
One of my favorite keyword research tools is Jaaxy which allows people to make an account for free and get up to 30 free keyword searches -just for signing up.
Click Here to Read My Full Jaaxy Review!
What’s so great about Jaaxy is that as a Starter, you get 30 free keyword searches. This doesn’t mean you can only find 30 keywords.
This means you can look up for 30 different keywords – and yet the tool gives you plenty of related keywords along with the one you’ve searched for.
Therefore, with the Starter account and initial 30 searches, you can easily find 100+ keywords.
There are plenty of other keyword research tools such as:
- KWFinder
- Ahrefs
- Semrush
Now when you have plenty of options to choose from – let’s get down to the actual process of researching the keywords (and finding the quality ones!)
How to Do a Keyword Research
Now when you chose a keyword research tool you will be using (I will be using Jaaxy), here is what you should pay attention to:
- Search volume
- Possible traffic
- Competition
- Keyword quality
So start at the beginning and just jump into it!
Get Ideas
Keywords are basically ideas that people look for. You might have a specific audience in mind, but you might not know what to write about?
That’s exactly why you should get ideas before searching for keywords. Let me show you how I do it.
Let’s say I have a website about badminton, and I want to target badminton beginners who I will help get started and improve their skills & game through my content.
But I have no idea what my next posts are going to be about. If you’re feeling like you’re in the same situation – here’s what you should do.
Open up Google and start searching for “best badminton”. Auto-suggest will pop up and give me about 10 possible ideas.
I will choose the phrase “best badminton rackets“. This will give me 10 new phrases. I’ll settle with “best badminton racket for beginners“.
I know that this phrase will make a good keyword – and here’s why. Open up a keyword research tool and type in the phrase.
This keyword’s stats are:
- The average number of searches per month – 160
- The traffic I could get if I reach the first page of Google – 28 / month
- Competitors – 61 results competing for the same keyword
- Keyword quality – Great
- SEO – 95/100
The reason this keyword has a decent search volume and doesn’t have too many competitors is that it is a long-tail keyword.
A long-tail keyword is exactly what it means. It’s a very long keyword. Here are a few different keyword types.
- Very short keyword: badminton rackets
- Medium-length keyword: best badminton rackets
- Long-tail keyword: best badminton rackets for beginners
Very short keywords often have a high search volume but have too many competitors. They take longer to rank for and are hard to rank on the first page for the wanted keyword (especially without an established site). Often, these keywords are occupied by stores, in which situation it’s hard to outrank such competitors.
A medium-length keyword is okay as it combines high search volume and a decent amount of competitors. However, these keywords are ideal for established sites who have ranked for plenty of long-tail keywords previously.
A long-tail keyword is the best choice you can make since you still have a decent search volume (of a very specific audience) and yet very low competition.
For a very new website, everything below 100’s for QSR in the Jaaxy tool is ideal. As your site establishes, you can take on keywords with QSR up to 300.
Find the Golden Middle
You want to stick to the golden middle as much as possible. Why?
Because such keyword results will provide a decent amount of traffic, a low amount of competition, and a great quality that will help you reach out and acquire the organic traffic of a specific audience.
In this case, the specific type of audience would be a group of badminton beginners who are looking for their first or possibly second racket.
These keywords will also be easy to rank for and they’re ideal for new websites that are still in the process of gaining the trust of search engines.
You should take time to practice your keyword research as it might take time to get natural at it. Searching for longer keywords is always a wise decision.
Tips on Using Jaaxy
When you’re doing keyword research (especially using Jaaxy), there are a couple of rules to follow in order to get the most out of your keyword research.
- Always ensure the keyword is grammatically correct
- Don’t choose keywords that have less than 30 monthly searches
- Choose keywords with up to 300 competitors (QSR) only
- Don’t go for keywords that have red KQI (keyword quality indicator)
Are you ready to find your first couple of keywords?
Conclusion
Keyword research isn’t as complicated as it might seem at first.
Whenever I try to explain what keyword research is – people get so confused, but I just can’t understand why – since I am sure they’ve used Google (and other search engines) at least once before.
Therefore, keyword research is just a simple gathering of information on a chosen phrase that helps you reach out to a specific audience, acquire organic traffic, and offer valuable content to the right audience.
What keyword research tool do you like the most so far?
Hopefully, this post taught you how to do keyword research for free in the easiest way possible!
If you have any questions or need any help – don’t hesitate to leave a comment down below! I’ll do my best to help you out.
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