A study conducted by Infront Webworks shows that ranking on the first page of Google receives about 95 percent of web traffic, with the rest of the pages receiving approximately 5 percent of the total traffic.

To achieve this, two important things come into play: SEO and Keyword Research.

What is SEO in Keyword Research

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been around for a while, and it’s one of the key components to rank on Google.

It is the process of increasing the number and quality of users to a site by improving rankings in search engines results. All major search engines including Google, Yahoo, and Bing have a primary search result, where web pages are displayed and ranked depending on what the search engines consider relevant to users.

The main reason for addressing SEO and its ranking factors is to allow Google to understand when your web pages are relevant to certain search queries so that people can click the links and visit your website. Although there is no guarantee of ranking number one on Google, SEO plays a huge role in pushing your pages to the top position. With SEO guidelines changing all the time, you can expect search engine rankings to change with them.

Keyword Research Is the Starting Point for Content Marketing

Keyword research is a process used to find and research actual search terms that users enter into the search engines. The purpose of finding these terms is to help businesses and website owners achieve better search rankings and get information about their customers’ needs.

Knowing how to do keyword research allows businesses to improve their products and update their marketing strategy. This is the only technique to gauge understanding of what words web users are using to find your products. With this knowledge, it becomes easier to execute SEO and improve your conversion rate.

Keywords are part of SEO. In other words, SEO keywords in your web content make it possible for people to find your website through search engines. Optimizing your site for search engines, using a list of well-researched keywords, help to improve your site’s ranking by a great margin. In addition, keyword research can help to pinpoint your key competitors, as you discover what other stores are bidding on the same keywords. You can also use this information to understand the market trends and estimate the size of the market you plan to dive in.

How Google Crawls a Site

Google’s main aim is to organize dozens of information and make it useful and accessible to users. To do so, Google needs to crawl your site using bots to understand what it’s about.

Crawling ideally means following a path.

In SEO, crawling is all about following your links via bots on your site. The first stage is to find out what web pages exist on the site. Since there is no central archive of all the web pages, Google must keep on searching new web pages and add them to the list of existing pages. This is process is known as crawling.

The reason why most pages come up when you search a certain term is that Google bots have already crawled all of them before. Some of your site pages are discovered by following a specific link from a popular page on Google that points to a new web page. Other pages are revealed when a webmaster submits a sitemap or list of pages for Google crawling.

To improve crawling on your site, submit an individual URL to Google (for a single page) or link to an alternative page that is popular to Google. You can ask Google to crawl only one page -the home page. Make sure the page contains a good site map reading system will relevant links that point to important pages and sections on your site. This will help Google and users find your site easily.

Improving SEO Using Keyword Research

The world of search engine optimization has changed.

However, several key principles remain constant.

For instance, keyword research is still essential to discover what users are searching for, while SEO helps you rank better on Google’s search results.

But how can you improve on-page SEO using keyword research? Let’s find out.

Understand your current audience

For your keyword research process to be effective, you need to identify the exact keywords your target audience is looking for and see how they behave on your site.

The best tool for this task is the Google Keyword Planner. The tool will provide closely related keywords to your search term plus their respective search volume for the month. This will help you discover the buyer personas and the life cycle of your target audience so that you understand their choices and preferences. In this case, you can provide relevant content that your help boost your Google ranking.

Compile a list of potential keywords

Once you identify your target audience, prepare a list of potential keywords.

Search for keywords that target different visitors i.e., new users and those who are ready to buy. Include general terms that people may be looking for, and specific terms that explain what you sell.

Check your competitors

For any competitor who is ranking well in Google in your niche, it’s time to spy on them. Whatever strategy they are using, it’s working.

A simple technique to find which keywords your competitors are ranking for is to use a popular tool on SEMRush.com. Using your competitor’s domain name, you can spy on the keywords that drive the most traffic to their site.

This strategy reveals what site visitors are searching for, and the exact keywords to focus on.

Conclusion

Unlocking the challenges over how to rank on the first page of Google is still a mystery. But ultimately, some important strategies can help you perform better on Google’s search results.

Search engine optimization and keyword research are the backbones of improving your site ranking. This coupled with killer content that meets the users need will keep improving your authority in the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Page), and maintain your current presence as you grow your way to the top.

Research, apply, repeat, and you’ll keep dominating search engines over time.