International Keyword Research: Finding the keywords

In previous entries of this series, we have been highlighting the importance of using the right keywords to improve search results and better position your website within the desired market. But how can we find the actual words that yield these results? If hiring a SEO expert isn’t on the cards, there are a few options we can take a look at to get the ball rolling.

AdWords Keyword Planning Tool

Google AdWords is one of the most common ways to advertise your business online, as it benefits from Google’s immense access to data all over the world to narrow down target audiences receptive to certain products or services. All this collected data also includes popular keywords that can be used to your advantage via the Keyword Planning Tool. Fortunately, it doesn’t require the purchase of an actual ad campaign to access all the keyword information, so it’s an excellent risk free option to get started right away.

Analytics

Often used to track website traffic and little more, Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can also be used for plenty of other statistics, including the success ratio of our chosen keywords. The Queries section can provide information on what percentage of the time does one of your pages, when shown for that keyword, get clicked on. It can also let you know how many times one of your site's pages has been clicked after showing in a search for that keyword, or the amount of times one of your website's pages, ranked for that keyword, has been shown in the search results.

Google Trends

Google Trends can be very helpful when planning to introduce new keywords into the mix. This tool will let us know the popularity of individual words based on global or local trending topics and search popularity. Trending topics online are generally dependent on news developments, product launches, and other globally relevant information that can reshuffle the most popular searches in the span of 24 hours or less. Keeping on top of what’s hot and what’s not, and having the information to ride a keyword that is escalating in popularity can provide a significant boost to traffic on a website.

It should also be mentioned that these three tools are managed and developed by Google, so they have a very convenient symbiotic relationship amongst each other that makes them significantly more easy to use. Sometimes there is a silver lining to some monopolies after all.