How to Do Keyword Research for Your WordPress Blog

Keyword research is a crucial part of any content marketing or SEO strategy. Finding the right keywords can help you attract more organic search traffic, rank higher in search engines, and create content that resonates with your target audience.

In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll walk you through everything you need to know to perform effective keyword research for your WordPress blog or website.

What is Keyword Research and Why is it Important?

Keyword research allows you to identify high-value keywords and keyphrases that people are searching for in search engines like Google.

By creating content around these terms, you can tap into user intent and attract visitors who are actively looking for information related to your niche.

Here are some of the key benefits of doing keyword research:

• Discover New Content Ideas: Keyword data helps you find gaps in your content and uncover new topics and angles to write about. This keeps your content fresh, comprehensive, and engaging for readers.

• Rank Higher in Search Engines: Targeting keywords that are highly relevant to your business and have decent search volume can help boost your organic rankings.

• Get More Traffic: Ranking for valuable keywords drives more organic search traffic to your site from Google and other search engines.

• Understand User Intent: Different keywords indicate different needs and intent. Keyword research helps you create content tailored to what users are looking for.

• Beat the Competition: See what keywords your competitors are ranking for and find new opportunities to outrank them by targeting less competitive terms.

• Track Performance: Use keyword data to see which terms are generating traffic and ROI, and double down on those high-performing keywords.

Overall, keyword research gives you data-driven insights to create strategic, useful content and optimize it for search engines. It‘s one of the foundational pillars of a successful content marketing strategy.

Step 1: Brainstorm Keyword Ideas

The first step is coming up with a list of potential keyword ideas and phrases that are relevant to your brand, products, and content.

Here are some tips to generate effective keyword ideas for your WordPress site:

Leverage Existing Resources

Look at your existing content assets – like blog posts, landing pages, and guides – and extract keywords and topics that already perform well. You can also review your analytics to see which pages generate the most organic traffic.

Dig through previous keyword research and ensure you‘re still targeting those high-value terms. Expand on keywords with decent traffic but could be performing better.

Do Competitor Research

Study competitors and sites in your space. See which keywords they rank for. Use tools like Semrush to analyze their organic keywords and traffic sources. Identify gaps where you can outrank them.

Explore Related Keywords

Start with a core term related to your business, like "email marketing" for an email service provider. Then use keyword research tools to find extended keywords and phrases, such as "email marketing automation," "small business email marketing," etc.

Brainstorm Questions

Think from the searcher‘s perspective. What kind of questions would they be asking on Google about your products or services? Those often make for powerful long-tail keyword opportunities.

Use Keyword Research Tools

Leverage keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, UberSuggest, Semrush, and WPBeginner‘s Keyword Generator. Enter a core term and these tools will auto-suggest hundreds of extended phrases and questions.

Step 2: Perform Keyword Research

Once you have a list of potential keywords, the next step is researching them to filter down to the best options.

Here are the key factors to analyze for each keyword:

Search Volume

This indicates how many monthly searches a keyword gets. High volume is good, but extremely high competition on high-volume keywords can be tough to rank for.

Look for a healthy balance between good volume and competition. For newer sites, look for at least 500-1000 monthly searches to begin with when starting out.

Competition

This measures how hard it is to rank for a keyword. Metrics like keyword difficulty and paid difficulty (for Google Ads) indicate competition levels.

Ideally look for "medium" difficulty ranges for optimal mix of volume and ability to rank. Going after only high competition keywords may prove challenging.

Relevance

Ensure the keyword is a good match for your brand, content, and solutions. Don‘t just chase volume – find keywords aligned with your goals.

Commercial Intent

Keywords that indicate users are ready to buy or sign up for a product/service are great for lead generation and driving ROI from organic traffic.

Trends

Look for rising keywords showing growth in search volume and traffic potential. But keep current top keywords as well.

Long Tail Keywords

These ultra-specific long phrases (like "email marketing automation templates") are easier to rank for. Include these for low hanging fruit.

Keyword Difficulty

This metric predicts how hard it is to rank for a keyword. The lower the score the easier it is. Difficulty scores range from 0-100.

CPC

Cost Per Click indicates how much advertisers are bidding for a keyword in Google Ads. High CPC means high commercial value.

Search Results Analysis

Research what content currently ranks for the keyword and identify how you can create something superior.

Keyword Gap Analysis

Find "missing" keywords that your competitors rank for but you don‘t. This reveals new opportunities.

Step 3: Organize Keywords into Groups

Once your keyword research is complete, the next step is to organize keywords into groups or categories.

By Topic

Group keywords by topic, like "email subject lines", "email automation", "email segmentation", etc if your focus is email marketing.

By Intent

Group keywords by search intent, like "buy email marketing", "email marketing guides", "email marketing jobs", etc.

By Page Focus

If optimizing existing pages, group keywords by which page they are most relevant for.

By Priority

Divide keywords into high, medium, and low priority buckets based on volume, difficulty, and importance.

By Commercial Value

Group keywords into tiers based on their estimated commercial value using metrics like CPC.

Proper grouping makes it easier to develop targeted content and optimization plans for your website pages.

Step 4: Perform Competitor Keyword Research

Your keyword research is incomplete without studying what your competitors are targeting.

Competitor analysis reveals:

• Keywords your competitors rank for that you don‘t – major opportunities.
• Terms where you can potentially outrank your competitors.
• Gaps in competitor content you can fill with new keywords.
• New keyword opportunities based on analyzing competitor content.

Here are some tips for effective competitor keyword research:

Identify Close Competitors

Find 3-5 "direct" competitor websites similar to yours. Niche research tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush have competitor discovery features.

Analyze Organic Keywords

Use SEO tools to analyze the top organic keywords your competitors are ranking for. Look for high-traffic keywords you‘re missing out on.

Study Keyword Gaps

Compare your keyword rankings with competitors to identify gaps. Target competitors‘ keywords that you don‘t rank for.

Benchmark Your Rankings

See where your rankings overlap or fall behind competitors for shared keywords. This shows you optimization opportunities.

Analyze Their Content

Review competitor content and topics. Extract keyword opportunities you can target that they haven‘t.

Track Their Rankings

Use rank tracking to monitor your competitors‘ search rankings over time. Outperform them on shared keywords.

Identify Rising Keywords

Discover new emerging keywords your competitors have started targeting. Quickly create content for these terms before they become too competitive.

Doing regular competitor keyword analysis gives you an "outside-in" research perspective.

Step 5: Cluster Keywords into Topics

To maximize relevance, it helps to identify related keywords and cluster them into topics and subtopics.

For example, for "email marketing" you can have:

• Email marketing automation
• Email marketing platforms
• Email newsletter design
• Email subject lines
• Email segmentation
• Email marketing metrics

And so on. Look at your keyword list and identify 2-3 core topics. Then populate each topic with related subtopics and keywords.

Now you have a structured keyword framework centered around topics. This also helps create pillar content targeting each major topic.

Step 6: Create Content Around Keywords

The whole point of keyword research is to create high-quality content optimized for those terms.

Here are some tips for effectively utilizing researched keywords in your content:

Optimize Pages for Topic Clusters

Pick 1-3 core keywords for each page and develop the content around that topic cluster.

Focus on Priority Keywords

Emphasize high-priority keywords early in your content to get the relevance signals. But optimize for secondary keywords too.

Include Related Long Tail Keywords

Work related long tail keywords naturally into paragraph copy for secondary optimization.

Add FAQ Content

Turn "how to" and question keywords into FAQs and answers within your content.

Follow Keyword Intent

Craft content that caters to the searcher‘s intent behind each keyword. Fulfill the need or query.

Include Keyword in Title, URL & Headers

Work primary keywords into page titles, URLs, and H2/H3 headers for optimal SEO impact.

Optimize Images & Alt Text

Give images file names and ALT text with target keywords where relevant.

Link Internally

Link to internal pages also related to the keyword topic with clear anchor text.

Promote New Content

Share your new keyword-optimized content on social media, email newsletters, etc. to amplify organic reach.

Keeping keywords front and center will ensure your content ranks and converts.

Step 7: Track Keyword Performance

Continuously tracking the performance of your target keywords is crucial for optimization.

Here are key metrics and tools to track:

Keyword Rankings

Monitor rankings in Google for target keywords using tools like SEMrush, Moz, and Serpstat.

Search Traffic

Check Google Analytics to see search traffic and conversions for keywords. Find winning keywords driving ROI.

Organic Traffic by Page

See keyword-optimized pages generating the most organic visits within GA. Double down on high-performing pages.

Optimize Underperforming Pages

Fix pages that target keywords driving low conversions. Refresh content or shift optimization.

Ranking Volatility

Watch for unstable rankings that fluctuate dramatically. Work on consistency.

SERP Features

See where you rank for keywords across all SERP features – organic results, images, news, videos, etc.

New Opportunities

Continuously add new keywords from ongoing research and integration with SEO tools.

Set up tracking dashboards and reports to monitor keyword performance over time. Pivot your optimization strategy based on hard data.

Advanced Keyword Research Tips

Take your keyword research to the next level with these pro tips:

Use Multiple Keyword Research Tools

Get diverse keyword suggestions by using both free (Ubersuggest, Google Keyword Planner) and paid tools (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz).

Filter Low Search Volume Keywords

Weed out keywords with extremely low search volume unless they closely align with your content goals.

Combine Keywords into Phrases

Join individual keywords together into natural sounding long tail phrases.

Only Target Relevant Keywords

Avoid going after arbitrary keywords just for volume. Stay tightly aligned with your brand.

Mine Competitor Backlinks

Find keywords competitors are ranking for in their backlink anchor text using Ahrefs and SEMrush.

Analyze Trending Keywords

Use Google Trends to spot rising and falling keyword trends, seasons, and opportunities.

Study Featured Snippets Opportunities

Research keywords where you can rank in the featured snippet spot at the top of Google.

Use Autocomplete Suggestions

Type keywords into Google and collect autocomplete suggestions that pop up for new variations.

Read Related Forums and Blogs

Find keyword ideas in your community‘s content sources like forums, Quora, Reddit, blogs, etc.

Create Keyword Clusters

Group related keywords around anchor terms that make intuitive sense for your brand and pages.

Next Steps: Put Keywords to Work!

With your keyword research complete, it‘s time to put it to work for your website:

• Optimize Existing Content: Refresh old content using new keyword opportunities uncovered.

• Develop New Content: Turn high-potential keywords into new comprehensive content like blog posts and guides.

• Enhance On-Page SEO: Update page titles, meta descriptions, headers, URLs and image tags with keywords.

• Fix Technical SEO: Improve site speed, mobile optimization, backlink profile and other technical factors that boost rankings.

• Monitor Progress: Use analytics and rank tracking to continuously monitor keyword performance.

Keyword research is just the beginning. Consistently take action on the insights to grow your organic search visibility, traffic, and conversions over the long term.

Now you have a complete blueprint for doing effective keyword research for your WordPress website. Just remember to focus on quality over quantity, and only target keywords closely aligned with your brand and content strategy.