As a content marketing ninja, you know that SEO reach is important for your content. However, you might not be using keyword research to your advantage.
Keyword research identifies which phrases are used on search engines when people are looking for information, products, or services. By understanding these keywords, you can optimize your content to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and get more traffic to your website.
You might find it amusing to see how many people are searching for something per month, what words they’re using, and what questions they’re asking. The great thing is that you don’t have to spend hours doing keyword research. A brisk 10-minute walk can provide incredible insights.
To restrict the scope of this article, we’ll only be discussing the top 5 easiest ways to do keyword research. But if you’d like to read about keyword research in detail, you can visit our blog on ‘Expert’s Guide to Keyword Research: How to Find The Keywords That Will Rank.’
Now, let’s quickly look at various keyword research metrics and terms you need to be familiar with to get started.
Keyword Metrics and Terms That You Need to Know
There are various keyword metrics and terms that you need to know before starting your research. Here’s a quick overview of the most important ones:
Keyword Difficulty
The keyword difficulty of KD means how difficult or easy it is to rank for a keyword in an organic search. The score is based on a number of factors, such as the strength of the top 10 results, the number of backlinks, and more. The higher the number, the more difficult it is to rank. This metric is represented on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the most difficult.
For instance, if you search for ‘white label SEO‘ on SEMrush, you’ll see that the difficulty score is 54%. This means that it’ll be relatively difficult to rank for this keyword. If too many high-authority websites rank high for your focus keyword, you might want to look for another keyword with less competition.
Search Volume
The number of people who have used a given keyword to perform a search on a search engine in a given period of time (monthly, daily, etc.).
You can use this metric to get an idea of interest in a given keyword. The higher the volume, the more popular the keyword is.
To get an estimate of the monthly search volume for your keyword, you can also use a free tool like Google Trends.
Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
CPC is the amount of money you spend per click on one of your PPC ads. This metric is essential because it allows you to quantify the expenses of your Google Ads or Microsoft Ads.
You can find the CPC for a given keyword in the SEMrush KeywordMagic tool. Type in your keyword and scroll down to the “Advertising” section. The CPC is listed under the “Avg. CPC” column.
