How to Do Keyword Research for An ecommerce Website?

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Keyword research is the cornerstone of every eCommerce website optimization. If done well, it unveils the phrases, terms, queries, and answers that are critical to your users and customers.

Excellent keyword research provides direction for what type of content should be optimized for your eCommerce store. It supports your business goals, like capturing leads, getting more pageviews, improving conversions, or selling products and services.

What Is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the method of finding all possible search queries that may be relevant to your business and customers. It includes finding, sorting, and prioritizing keywords. Keyword research helps in building a solid keyword strategy.

Before plunging into the pool of research for keywords, know these basic terms.

• Short-tail keywords: Also known as head terms or focus keywords, rarely include more than four words. They are popular, high-volume search terms.
• Long-tail keywords: Referred to as “high purchase intent” or “high commercial intent, long-tail keywords contain three or more words. They grab people further in the buying cycle and tend to have a higher conversion.

Different Types of Keyword Search Intents

• Navigational: Navigational keywords are used when searchers look for a specific website.
• Informational: Informational keywords are used when searchers want to know or do something, such as create a homemade recipe.
• Transactional: Transactional keywords are used when a searcher wants to buy something.

How To Do Keyword Research for An Ecommerce Website

Start with Search Engines

Search engines, notably Google, are the best place to start. They help you know what people are searching for.

Suppose, you’re a customer searching for a product.

• What term would you like to type into Google to find what you are actually looking for?
• What phrases are being suggested by Google’s autocomplete feature?
• What questions are listed in the “People Also Ask” box?

Spend some time. Try every relevant search phrase and question that you can think of. At this stage, you need to focus on making a list of keyword profiles of all relevant keywords.

Create Keyword Universe

A good method to find your keyword for a brand new eCommerce website is to lean on competitor research. Find prominent companies in the industry that are not colossal brands. Steer clear of big brands like eBay, Amazon, and Walmart.

Start your search using an SEO tool to find competitors and look at their keywords. The tools you can use are:

• SEMRush
• Ahrefs
• Moz
• Google Keyword Planner

Check for Keyword Monthly Search Volume

Use an SEO tool of your choice to determine the existing search volume for a keyword phrase and how many competitors are optimizing websites for that same phrase.

The keyword phrases you tend to use on your site should already have some level of search volume. A high exact match search volume means a lot of users are using these keywords.

The key is to maintain a healthy balance between search volume and competition.

Remember,

• Ranking popular keywords or phrases is difficult because the competition space is crowded.
• Unpopular phrases likely mean fewer searchers are using that phrase.
• Little competition indicates other websites are not thinking the phrase to be important.

The goal is to search for keywords that are relevant to your industry, competitors, and target customers. Be practical when comparing search volume and ranking difficulty in terms of your website’s domain authority.

The idea for the best SEO practices for eCommerce sites is to choose keywords for anything over 20 monthly searches.

Keyword Difficulty

Also known as keyword competition or SEO difficulty, a high-ranking difficulty score is referred to as an SEO metric that evaluates how difficult it is to compete with existing search results. The higher the keyword difficulty, the more difficult it is to rank on the 1st Search Engine Result Page (SERP).

An SEO tool like Ahrefs can help you decide your position when it comes to domain authority or domain rating based on your existing backlinks.

Note that grabbing the top position on SERP can be difficult if high-quality content from a high-authority site has already taken up all of Page 1.

The idea is to tweak keywords by using a simple blue/yellow/red/green coloring strategy and figure out which keywords look great. You’ll need to do a little bit more research. This will definitely not go on your finalized list.

You need to cut short your possible keyword selections and make them relevant, and low-difficult.

Since your site is brand new or this is your first time trying to rank for something, focus on keywords with a difficulty of 0-10. To rank on page 1, you need to write high-quality content.

Create Benchmarks

Before you make any decision on your keyword strategy, establish benchmarks to guide your efforts around creating new content versus updating old content. Use keyword rank tracking tools to benchmark success.

Make sure you’re using a keyword ranking tracker to determine where you stand in a relevant search. A free tool like Google Search Console can help you. So, connect your eCommerce website with Search Console to accomplish this task and get free data readily available.

• Look at which keywords you’re ranking. Also, check their average position in search.
• Make certain that you manually add keywords besides those suggested within the report.

Regularly check your rankings. It will trigger you to improve the content that may be dropping in terms of average ranking positions. Dropping ranking is an early warning that updates are essential to retaining your spot on SERPs.

Spy on Your Competitors

Check how your competition is ranking. For this part of your research, head back to Google and search for each keyword and see what’s ranking.

During your competitor research process, look at specific keywords your competitors are using, the page authority required to rank where they’re ranking, their domain authority, and where their backlinks are coming from.

For doing competitor research, the SEMRush keyword tool can be the right tool. It helps determine all aforesaid pieces of the puzzle.

Use Long-Tail Keywords

Optimize content for long-tail keywords, particularly when creating product pages and blog post content. No doubt, a few people search for such queries. But they are also the ones who are sure of what they are. Consequently, these searchers become higher purchasing intent.

• High-intent keywords are those that have high commercial intent.
• They signify a strong possibility for the searcher to take any action
• Whether searchers inquire, purchase, or simply gather information. They may later become a buyer.

To identify keyword intent in terms of eCommerce, look at the cost per click (CPC) on your favorite keyword research tool.

Keyword research for an eCommerce website is important for many good reasons:

• Understanding your customers
• Reaching your target audiences
• Finding new relevant topics to cover on your website
• Getting qualified leads
• Increasing sales
• Improving ad campaigns
• Getting clicks and impressions
• Building awareness of your brand
• Drawing more potential users

Wrapping Up

When performing research, make sure that you’re focusing on the right metrics. Just considering search volume alone is not enough to serve your purpose. Follow the above instructions and search for keywords that can help produce highly targeted content to engage readers and improve conversions.

The post How to Do Keyword Research for An ecommerce Website? first appeared on KnowledgeCenter.