Keyword research is the foundation of every SEO strategy, especially when it comes to onsite SEO.
Done well, it provides direction for what type of content you should be optimizing for.
On the other hand, a good keyword with a badly executed strategy won’t help you make sales in your ecommerce store.
Keyword Research for SEO
When doing keyword research for ecommerce (or otherwise), there are two major ways to go about it:
- Starting from nothing with your own research.
- Spying on the competition.
Before getting started, it’s important to understand the various factors that go into choosing good keywords.
Here are a few important considerations:
Search Volume
There are several free keyword research tools, though this author swears by the paid tool, Ahrefs. Use your tool of choice to determine search volume.
A high exact match search volume means there are a lot of users searching for a given term. That said, high search volume might also indicate high competition for ranking. You have to be realistic when comparing search volume to ranking difficulty in terms of your website’s domain authority.
A basic rule of thumb for choosing keywords is that anything over 20 monthly searches is worth at least considering.
Ranking Difficulty
A high ranking difficulty score means that it will be hard to compete with existing search results. Ultimately, it comes down to your website’s domain authority in your specific niche.
Ahrefs provides a useful tool for determining where you stand when it comes to domain authority (they refer to it as “domain rating”), based on your existing backlinks. – Read more
