When it comes to doing SEO or search engine optimization, keyword research is fundamental. To put it simply, keywords are the actual phrases that people type into Google or other search engines in order to find the information they’re looking for. For example, if a person is interested in finding a red dog collar to buy, they will likely type a phrase such as “red dog collars” into Google.

Then, they will look at the results of that search in order to find a red dog collar they like and possibly purchase it. The websites that rank higher up in search engines for their keyword results, typically get the most traffic and sales.

As a result, SEO was born so that webmasters could optimize their sites as much as possible to rank in one of the coveted top three spots so they could get the most traffic and sales.

As you can see, keyword research is an essential step in search engine optimization because all keywords are not equal. When building and optimizing a website, you need to find the most relevant keywords with reasonable amounts of search traffic.

Basically, if you optimize one of your site’s pages for a keyword that no one is actually searching for, then you won’t get any traffic. This is where the use of keyword tools comes in since they show you the keywords in your niche and their monthly traffic volume.

There are many types of keyword tools that you can use, such as Long Tail Pro, KwFinder, Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, and Keyword Tools. All you need is access to at least one of these tools to start looking for relevant keywords.

Now, for example, if you’re in the dog niche and have a dog website, then you should start looking for keywords by typing in various short keywords such as “dog,” “puppy,” “dog beds,” “dog products,” “dog foods,” “dog breeds,” “golden retriever,” “Shar-Pei” etc. The results of these keyword searches will show long-tail keywords related to those main keywords and their traffic.

For example, you will likely see keywords such as “how to train a dog” with 15,000 monthly search volume. If you have a dog website, then optimizing a page for this long-tail keyword may be a good idea since it has a decent amount of search volume, and it is highly relevant to your site.

If you have a product such as a dog training book, you can add it to this page and easily make sales.

In closing, proper keyword research is the foundation of any website. So, be sure to do as much keyword research as you can for your niche, find all of the relevant long-tail keywords, and create and optimize pages on your site. This will help improve your SEO and get loads of targeted traffic that you can convert into real customers.