What is keyword research and how does it work?

keyword research is the practice of discovering and analyzing keywords related to your website, blog post topic or product, in order to create a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. By researching and understanding the words and terms that people are using when searching for information, products and services related to what you offer, you can use keyword research as part of your overall SEO strategy to improve organic search results.

Understanding how keyword research works is key to using it effectively. Once you have identified words or phrases that are relevant to your organization, the next step is to enter those words or phrases into a keyword tool. By using either a paid or free tool such as Google Keyword Planner or keywordtool.io, you can see how many times the word or phrase is searched for by month on search engines (also known as monthly search volume), as well as related phrases and other data necessary for SEO purposes, such as competition level of each term and cost-per-click associated with AdWords campaigns on Google. Understanding these values will help you make an informed decision on how to better target an audience and increase visibility in searches related to those terms.

Once the data has been gathered from the keyword tool, it's important to analyze it in order determine which terms are best suited to optimize content around in order generate more organic traffic and engagement which will lead better visibility on webpages of search engine results pages (SERPs). For example, looking at the average monthly search volume for any given keyword can help inform decisions about which words should be used most often as part of long tail keywords in content that appear in your website's metadata; whereas looking at competition level can inform decisions about whether it should be competed for with AdWords campaigns on Google or whether applying SEO over time would be a more effective approach. There are several aspects of keyword research that should be considered before incorporating any term into an SEO strategy because it's important that this data is relevant not only today but down the line when trends change in what people are searching for within their industry.

Ultimately, keyword research plays an important role when it comes to optimizing content for search engine algorithms such as Google's so website content appears higher up on SERP pages than its competitors who focus too much energy trying put out content without taking into consideration what their target audiences may want or need from a search query perspective. It's important therefore that businesses continue performing keyword research periodically in order maintain good rankings online while keeping up with teaming information out there