SEO KEYWORD RESEARCH SERVICES

We love helping small businesses compete online against much larger companies. We ourselves are a small business that has used keyword research and SEO best practices to grow since 2012. 

SEO keyword research is an art. It’s a skill. And it’s something that we’ve perfected.

How did we become keyword research experts and why would we even want to claim that title?

Well, our company started by accident. We were financial auditors, skilled and trained to identify inaccuracies in financial documents. This training produced an innate ability to quickly recognize where companies were falling short.

We decided to apply these auditing skills to internet marketing and quickly found out that we were good at it. Specifically, we were really good at auditing competitor marketing efforts, reverse engineering their success, and identifying opportunities for our clients to capitalize.

Those marketing opportunities are most often in long-tail SEO keyword research. We offer keyword research services because we enjoy helping small businesses overtake companies with much larger budgets.

Long-tail keywords are important because:

1. Big companies usually ignore long-tail keywords.
2. Long-tail keywords account for over 70% of all web searches.
3. Long-tail keywords have higher conversion rates because they’re higher-intent-to-purchase.
4. These keywords are less competitive and easier to rank for because they are specific and are searched for less often than seed keywords. 

In other words, long-tail keywords are how people search the Internet, how you can outrank the competition, and how you can get more customers.

Our keyword research services focus on long-tail keywords for small businesses because they are effective. Long-tail keywords get less search traffic but have much higher conversion rates. They can drive high-intent-to-purchase users to your website to convert. 

We recommend finding keywords that have high search volume and low competition. These two metrics comprise keyword difficulty. Keywords with low competition and high search volume are easier to target and are effective in driving traffic to your website. Along with this comes thinking about sales-based keywords for your SEO strategy.

If you are looking to increase your sales, utilize keywords that are intended to drive sales. For instance, if you are a hair salon, it would be smart to target “hair salon in (INSERT CITY).” Using a keyword like this will target those actively seeking hair care services. If you used a keyword such as “how to cut curtain bangs,” the visitors to your website are likely not looking to visit your salon.

With this said, it’s good to target both educational and sales keywords. However, if you have a smaller budget, focusing on higher-intent-to-purchase keywords is the way to go. 

You can do your own keyword research using tools such as Keywords Everywhere, Google Trends, Ahrefs, or other third-party keyword research tools. These tools allow you to see the level of competition, the search volume, and related queries for keywords. 

Thoroughly. At Markitors, we create an SEO keyword research strategy that focuses on connecting with customers (and soon-to-be customers) at each stage of the buyer journey.  

We focus on the data that Google gives us, along with data that we obtain from analytical tools like Google Search Console and Ahrefs, and then use our own marketing noggins to identify the optimal keywords and the right way to target them. 

We start by sifting through the data to find out:

• What keywords are you currently ranking for? 
• What are your competitors ranking for?
• What terms are important in the industry and for your business in particular?
• What topics and areas of interest matter to customers? 
• What out-of-the-box strategies can we use to make this site stand out on the SERP?

With our experienced strategy team and the use of some handy spreadsheets, we compile a list of high-value keywords that are meaningful to your business. Then, we form a plan of action for how to best rank your website for these terms. 

Here’s an article we wrote for Forbes that explains more about what goes into our SEO keyword research.

Uncovering new keyword opportunities requires knowing where to look and determining which are worth going after. Our skilled strategists do that and more to ensure your website is sending the right signals to Google and attracting the ideal user. 

1. Each keyword research strategy forecasts results and returns. If you were to rank on the first page of Google for each keyword, what would that mean for your website in terms of conversions and traffic?
2. Clarity. Clients love our strategies because they provide them with a clear path on how to target these keywords through SEO.
3. Simplicity. Many keyword research strategies produce paralysis instead of action. We aim to keep things simple so that clients can take our strategy and actually implement our recommendations.
4. We get results. Our keyword research services provide clients with the results they want to see from SEO. SEO does take longer to show results but is maintainable and scalable in the long run.
5. They’re affordable. Our keyword research services are more affordable than many other SEO agencies. We price our keyword research services fairly and our clients notice.

Long-tail keywords are often ignored but are truly an effective method of driving traffic and upping conversions. We understand their value, so we target them often in our keyword research services. 

Here are three reasons why we love long-tail keywords:

Less Competition. Long-tail search terms are easier to rank for because there is less competition.

Higher Conversion. Long-tail search terms convert better because they are so specific and are often targeting potential customers with high intent to purchase.

More Search Impressions. Long-tail search terms help sites eventually rank for general related terms.

There are plenty of keyword research tools on the web, but these are a few that we recommend checking out when compiling a list of keywords.

Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

Ahrefs Keyword Explorer is our favorite keyword research tool because it is so comprehensive. It is a paid tool but is definitely worth the investment. Ahrefs Keyword Explorer gives you insight into a keyword’s search volume, competition, value, and more. 

Google Trends

Google Trends is a free tool you can use to do keyword research. Google Trends is especially helpful in content planning because it can help you find topics to write about. This keyword research tool shows the overall popularity of a search term and gives data on the locale.

Google “People Also Ask”

Another useful — and free! — keyword research tool is the People Also Ask box on Google search results pages. Here is an example of the People Also Ask box for the seed keyword “flower photography.” You can see some potential long-tail keywords to analyze from these related queries.

Anyone can do SEO keyword research. It’s just a matter of knowing what to look for, creating a content development plan, and executing the plan.

Clients usually hire us because they don’t want to spend hours on SEO efforts. Pouring over Google Webmaster Tools search queries and Google AdWords historical reports can be exhausting. They also don’t want to spend hours playing around with the Google AdWords keyword tool and going through different keywords to develop a keyword list and content plan.

They rather pay us to deliver them a report showing them exactly the SEO keywords to target and what content to create.

If you’re one of these companies, contact us to request a quote for our long-tail SEO keyword research services.