This may not be said or acknowledged enough, but SEO tools, enriched with data from Google Trends, are the core of the digital revolution.
Think about it — every business that you come across is using a form of keyword research tool, like Google Keyword Planner or another keyword generator, to capitalize on trending keywords and generate content based on those relevant keywords.
But wait a minute, are keyword research tools only good for… keyword research? Perhaps not. After all, if they’re adept at pulling a list of keywords and highlighting keyword difficulty, they must also be capable of providing insights on search volume and potential content ideas.
On that note, let’s dive right in and understand the diverse use cases of keyword research tools.
1. Use Them to Understand Customer Intent
One of the biggest ways you can leverage keyword research tools, especially with insights from Google Trends, is to use them to find out customer intent, which includes diving into long-tail keywords.
For example, if you enter the seed keyword “engagement rings for women,” into the tools AlsoAsked and AnswerThePublic, they’ll show you what terms folks are searching for as well as the monthly search volume for each query.
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Based on your findings about what customers are looking for and what makes them click on your online store to buy a product, you might be able to change your sales scripts and marketing communications accordingly.
You can also leverage the same language used by your customers when typing the query, allowing you to talk like them and form greater connections.
2. Use Them to Understand Your Competitor’s SEO Strategy
Keyword research tools, when paired with insights from Google Trends, can give you an edge in search engine optimization by showing you:
- Which target keywords they’re ranking for
- Where do they get their traffic from (countries as well as channels)
- Keyword difficulty of the terms they target
- Search volume of their preferred keywords
- The kind of keyword suggestions they might be considering
- What content gaps can you capitalize on
- The quality of backlinks they’ve gotten
- Broken pages they have on their website
- Which keywords they’re paying for
- The kind of PPC ads they’re creating
- The results they’ve gotten (e.g., SERP ranking, traffic, share, search snippets, etc.)
- What type of content do they produce
Moreover, it’ll also help you identify who your direct competitors (those who work in the same niche as you) and indirect competitors (those who are in a complementary niche but often talk about the same topics as you) are.
Ahrefs has an excellent resource that’ll walk you through how to use keyword research tools to do SEO competitor analysis.
3. Use Them to Find Trends and Forecast Sales
With the help of seasonal SEO keywords, you can easily find trends to capitalize on and items customers might be looking to buy.
For example, if you run a clothing store and are noticing keywords like “Best online shops to shop scarves” (or if the “scarves” is substituted by things like gloves, jackets, fleece, boots, etc.), then it might be an indication that winter is coming.
Ideally, in this situation, you might need to switch up your SEO strategy to capitalize on these keywords by writing content marketing materials on them and/or running ads based on these keywords.
Seasonal long-tail keywords, informed by Google Trends, can give you insights into market movements. That way, you can also take a look at your inventory and stock up on the items that you’re seeing traction on.
4. Use Them to Find Business Opportunities
Keyword tools, especially those offering keyword suggestions, can help pinpoint market gaps and traffic potential based on search trend analysis. For example, a travel firm based out of Spain can easily look for destinations customers might want to travel to frequently and create itineraries for those destinations.
Or, if an Indian company that specializes in providing hair loss remedies finds out that many customers are looking for hair loss remedies in New Zealand, Nigeria, and Dubai, then this might be a great indication to expand their business operations there.
“Even a simple keyword opportunity analysis can indicate whether you need to include another neighboring area in your list of served locations,” says Dmitrii Kustov, marketing director at RegexSEO.
“We always analyze keyword opportunities to decide if it’s worth creating a separate page for a particular location because, without volume or inquiries, there’s no point in spending time on content creation.”
5. Use Them to Understand Which Topics to Refresh
If a popular keyword spikes in search volume, it might be time to revisit content you created years ago.
6. Use them to strategize domain or company names
If you haven’t already established your business, but you already have a clear, unique selling point, niche, and a go-to-market (GTM) strategy, but you’re still looking to finalize a company name or a domain name then that’s another area where keyword research tools can help you.
For example, if you want to open a digital marketing firm that’s specially curated for B2B customers, and you notice that keywords like “B2B digital marketing” are top-performing within your niche, then instead of naming your firm “XYZ marketing,” you can name it “XYZ B2B digital marketing.
The same goes for buying a domain name, too. Since domain names and company names also affect your SEO score, this will help you directly land on the top of the search engine results page (SERP).
7. Use Them to Find Keywords You Should Stay Away From
Keyword research tools aren’t only great in helping you find the keywords you should rank for, but they’re also excellent in helping you build a keyword list to stay away from.
Using insights on keyword difficulty can help you avoid terms that won’t benefit your search engine optimization efforts.
For example, if you’re looking for customers to buy your software, then you might want to stay away from keywords that have “free” written on them.
Or, if your company name is similar to someone from another industry, you might want to stay away from the other company’s industry-related keywords.
You can even input these keyword ideas in your PPC tools and ask them to match you only for queries with a broad match or a phrase match.
8. Use Them to Build Backlinks
Keyword research tools provide excellent insights into your competitors’ strategies, including showing you where your competitors get their backlinks from (and what type of backlinks they have).
You can get in touch with the same companies your competitor has and facilitate those backlinks for your business as well. For example, you can write an email to their editor to make this happen.
SEO tools are also great for identifying backlink gaps (you can simply go to tools like Ahrefs and click on “Show Link Opportunities”).
9. Use Them to Find Partnership Opportunities
Another great way to use SEO tools is to find partnership opportunities.
For example, if you’re a skincare brand, and some of the skincare search terms you might be seeing are “Selena Gomez skincare routine” or “Kristen Stewart Twilight makeup,” then these might give you an insight into the kind of influencers you should partner with.
On that note, if we look at the same examples from above (aka of travel agencies and hair companies), then:
- Travel agencies can look into insights about the specific kinds of activities customers want to do in the locations that are trending;
- Skin care companies can find out the hair type people are concerned about for hair fall.
With this data on hand, they can identify places and people to partner with that can help them facilitate their travel plans and educate them more about different hair types and patterns.
10. Use Them to Find Hidden Growth Options
Sometimes, keywords with low search volume might seem unattractive. However, they can lead to specific and valuable organic traffic.
Many businesses use tools like Moz Keyword Explorer to find metrics like keyword traffic and organic click-through rates (CTR) for particular keywords.
However, lower traffic and CTR rates don’t often mean that people aren’t interested in those keywords. It simply means that only interested people are clicking on these search terms.
For example, consider Campus.edu, which offers a business program. They may be interested in pursuing keywords like “associate degree in business,” which boasts a high Organic CTR. This indicates fewer distracting SERP features, creating more space for traditional organic blue links to stand out and capture clicks.
Get the Best Use of Keyword Research Tools with Flying V Group
While we do hope you found this list helpful, we have to make an honest confession for a moment: This isn’t the end of the entire list. We, in fact, do have more tips and tricks up our sleeve that’ll help you explore other opportunities with the help of keyword research tools.
But we only use these added insights exclusively to help our clients unlock their SEO potential and grow their businesses. So, how can you become a part of the network, you ask?
The answer is easy — simply go to our Contact Us page and fill in your company information!
In turn, we’ll help you with a free marketing plan. If you like it, we can begin working together! But if not, then no worries 🙂 Do we have a deal?
About the Author:
Guillaume Deschamps is a digital marketer focused on handling the outreach strategy at uSERP and content management at Wordable. Outside of work, he enjoys his expat life in sunny Mexico, reading books, wandering around and catching the latest shows on TV.
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