Do you ever go into the second page of google when you search for something? I don’t, most of the time. One might not even know there’s second page results or doesn’t bother going there unless one is searching in desperate measures. This is the ultimate goal of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), to be seen in the first page of the search engines - ideally to be at the top 3 of search results.

SEO has been a concept of for webmasters and content managers since 1990s but it didn’t get big until 2000s. It paved a whole new way of doing business online. Now it’s almost always in each digital marketing models.

It is worth noting that the foundation of SEO is keyword research. While we do traditional market research before, we now have revolutionary keyword research now. Not that it replaces the earlier but absolutely smart to have it your business plan, too. SEO is understanding the search engine traffic and your customers. It is very easy to master but it can also easily backfire it can cause you money for penalty.

1 - Research process

Put yourself in the shoes of your target customer.

• Search something online with the keywords that you think would bring the best result. Study the search results and relative searches.
• Note the auto-fill options as you type the keywords on the search bar
• Check related searches at the bottom of the search page

2 - Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner (GKP) only shows you keywords that are VERY intimately tied to the keyword you gave it. This tool shows accurate keywords that people use to find something specific. The problem with this tool is everyone is using the keywords provided so your post get buried in a sea of hits.

3 - Target Audience’s Profile

Part of the research is establishing your target audience profile. Their gender, age, estimated income, interests, strengths, weaknesses, what they want to accomplish by going online. This will depend on the product that you are trying to sell. Profile research is best done before the keyword research to narrow down the best keyword results.

4 - Wikipedia Table of Contents

Wikipedia is almost always the first page that comes up when you search for a trivial subject. Where else can you get a more extensive indexing per subject than the widest archiving of Wikipedia? The table of contents will give you an idea of the most relevant subtopics of everything in their book.

5 - Long-tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are basically related searches at the bottom of the page or the search bar suggestions as you type your inquiry. This is one of the techniques that works well with Google Keyword Planner. For example, the keyword you got is best web solutions. You can have a unique and more specific search by putting in best web solutions in Bicol. This will give you lesser traffic but more targeted campaign for people who are most likely to use / buy your service.

6 - Objective Data / Research

Just like any marketing research, SEO works with ample research and data. Thus you may need to run local statistics, analysis tools like Google Analytics, geographical and cultural research.

7 - Tools for SEO

Developers realizing the power of SEO has granted us many resources online to make the perfect recipe for our SEO. You don’t have to use them all at once but rather learn when to use each tool.

• Google Keyword Generator

Google Keyword Planner is a tool that helps to build new Search Network campaigns or expand existing campaigns. It will help you to get keywords and ad group ideas, historical statistics, keywords trend, competitions, bidding etc. This service is offered for free by Google.

• Wikipedia

By the end of December 2016, Wikipedia was ranked fifth in the most popular websites globally. Also, be Wikipedia content is distributed under an open license, anyone can reuse or re-distribute it at no charge. The content of Wikipedia has been published in many forms, both online and offline, outside of the Wikipedia website.

• Reddit

As of 2017, Reddit had 542 million monthly visitors (234 million unique users), ranking #7 most visited web-site in US and #22 in the world. Across 2015, Reddit saw 82.54 billion page views, 73.15 million submissions, 725.85 million comments, and 6.89 billion up-votes from its users.

• Google Search Console

It allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites. As of May 20, 2015, Google re-branded Google Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console.

• Google Trends

Google Trends is a public web facility of Google that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages.

• Forums & Discussions

Searching keywords + forums is an effective strategy to know what people are interested in knowing. Most of the time, people who pays attention and spends great deal of time researching online can be found in forums thus making it a reliable source of keywords.