Keyword Research Is Not Out of Fashion, But It's Not What It Used to Be
Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2024 3:37 am
Search engine marketers rightfully need objective data and ongoing reporting to do their jobs well. In the world of marketing, we need to constantly challenge our assumptions and improve our user understanding so that we can ultimately produce better content, compete strategically with our competitors, and maximize our return on investment (ROI).
One of the most important data sources used by search engine optimization (SEO) experts has been keyword data discovered through the art of keyword research. But today, keyword research is not the guiding or informative powerhouse it once was.
This doesn't mean that keyword research is out of fashion.
We claim that this is not the case.
But it is undeniable that keyword research is not what it used to be.
If you want your SEO strategy to be successful georgia mobile phone numbers database you need to factor this assumption into your keyword research and SEO planning approaches.
The Slow Decline of Keyword Research
SEO used to be not exactly white hat – at least not by today’s standards.
Today, the most successful search marketers on the planet focus on developing the best content, reaching a niche audience, and being truly, qualitatively better than their top competitors.
But 20 years ago, SEO was simply a game of manipulation, and keyword research was at the heart of it.
With a few keyword research tools, you can quickly get a sense of how many people are searching for a particular term and how many competitors are ranking for that term, allowing you to identify the best possible keywords to target. You can create a list of 20 or 30 target keyword phrases, then start developing content around each of those phrases, increasing your relevance and authority in the eyes of Google’s algorithm.
track keyword positions relative to Competitors
Source: Seo.co
Assuming you had the time and resources to do it, and there were no big players getting in your way, this was a clear and simple path to success. You could spam on-site posts using the same phrases over and over again and you could almost guarantee that you would eventually rank for those phrases.
Over the years, this approach has become less and less viable as Google imposes keyword stuffing penalties and keyword data becomes less reliable.
A decade ago, it was still a major mainstay in the SEO industry.
Today it is a shadow of its former self.
So what happened?
Four Big Factors That Limit the Value of Keyword Research
There are four major factors that limit the value of keyword research in the modern age.
1. Semantic search – First, we need to think about the role of semantic search. Initially, Google worked almost exclusively on verbatim keywords and phrases. If you searched for a phrase like “best mountain bikes,” you would almost exclusively find results that contained that phrase or a very close match. But starting in 2013, Google began rolling out updates that focused on improving the semantic analysis of user search queries. Instead of just looking at the exact phrase, Google began trying to “understand” the search query, providing results that spoke to the search query, even if they weren’t exact or close matches. With the introduction of semantic search, it could return pages like “best mountain bikes,” “how to choose a mountain bike,” or “what mountain bikes are good for beginners.” So, even if you pay little or no attention to keywords and keyword phrases, it’s possible to rank for a wide variety of different search queries.
2. User search intent – On a related note, Google is increasingly focusing on user search intent as the primary motivation for its search engine results page (SERP) rankings. Instead of looking for close matches, Google is looking for pages that are most likely to appeal to what the user is trying to do. There’s a lot of subjective processing going on behind the scenes, and since we’re not familiar with the intricacies of Google’s ranking algorithm, we can’t say exactly what’s going on. All we can say is that the importance of keyword data probably pales in comparison to the importance of understanding user search intent. If you can give users what they want, and you can do it consistently, keywords are only a secondary consideration.
3. Misleading data – On top of that, independent studies have confirmed that the data you see about keywords in Google’s Keyword Planner (and many other popular SEO tools) can be inaccurate or misleading. Sometimes the data is completely out of date. Sometimes it’s skewed by bot traffic tracking. And sometimes, you can create vastly different data sets using different tools, even if those tools claim to use the same primary sources.
4. The Role of Authority – Finally, it’s important to recognize that even if you have hypothetically perfect keyword optimization, you still need to address the authority issue. Google needs to see your domain as highly authoritative and trustworthy in order to rank. This is why it’s so important to conduct routine backlink analysis for your domain so you can understand how many backlinks you have pointing to your domain , how valuable those backlinks are , and how you can build better backlinks in the future.
Is Keyword Research Outdated?
Does this mean that keyword research is completely obsolete?
Not exactly, and there are a few main reasons for that.
- Keyword research isn’t just about keywords. First, keyword research isn’t just about finding exact-match keywords that you can pop into your site’s content. It’s also about discovering semantically related phrases, studying what your competitors are doing, brainstorming potential content topics, and tying together different related topics. Even if you don’t use the data itself, a keyword research exercise can help you identify a superior content strategy or find a way to outdo your top competitors.
- Inaccurate data is not useless. We know that Google SERPs and rankings can be volatile. That’s why Google Grump’s ranking system exists . But we don’t use search engine variability as a way to completely eliminate the value of tracking rankings. Even if your ranking data isn’t perfectly accurate in real time and your rankings are distorted by SERP fluctuation, it’s still valuable to track your progress over time. Similarly, just because keyword data isn’t always perfectly accurate and data changes regularly doesn’t mean research is useless.
- LSI data can provide great content ideas. If you start by looking at latent semantic indexing (LSI) keyword data, you can get a much better understanding of user search intent and generate great content ideas that your target audience will really enjoy. This is arguably one of the biggest advantages of traditional keyword research, as good content is still at the core of an effective SEO strategy.
- Competitive research is still important. It’s important to understand who your competitors are, how they rank, and how they target users as part of their SEO strategy. To this day, keyword research remains one of the best ways to get this data.
One of the most important data sources used by search engine optimization (SEO) experts has been keyword data discovered through the art of keyword research. But today, keyword research is not the guiding or informative powerhouse it once was.
This doesn't mean that keyword research is out of fashion.
We claim that this is not the case.
But it is undeniable that keyword research is not what it used to be.
If you want your SEO strategy to be successful georgia mobile phone numbers database you need to factor this assumption into your keyword research and SEO planning approaches.
The Slow Decline of Keyword Research
SEO used to be not exactly white hat – at least not by today’s standards.
Today, the most successful search marketers on the planet focus on developing the best content, reaching a niche audience, and being truly, qualitatively better than their top competitors.
But 20 years ago, SEO was simply a game of manipulation, and keyword research was at the heart of it.
With a few keyword research tools, you can quickly get a sense of how many people are searching for a particular term and how many competitors are ranking for that term, allowing you to identify the best possible keywords to target. You can create a list of 20 or 30 target keyword phrases, then start developing content around each of those phrases, increasing your relevance and authority in the eyes of Google’s algorithm.
track keyword positions relative to Competitors
Source: Seo.co
Assuming you had the time and resources to do it, and there were no big players getting in your way, this was a clear and simple path to success. You could spam on-site posts using the same phrases over and over again and you could almost guarantee that you would eventually rank for those phrases.
Over the years, this approach has become less and less viable as Google imposes keyword stuffing penalties and keyword data becomes less reliable.
A decade ago, it was still a major mainstay in the SEO industry.
Today it is a shadow of its former self.
So what happened?
Four Big Factors That Limit the Value of Keyword Research
There are four major factors that limit the value of keyword research in the modern age.
1. Semantic search – First, we need to think about the role of semantic search. Initially, Google worked almost exclusively on verbatim keywords and phrases. If you searched for a phrase like “best mountain bikes,” you would almost exclusively find results that contained that phrase or a very close match. But starting in 2013, Google began rolling out updates that focused on improving the semantic analysis of user search queries. Instead of just looking at the exact phrase, Google began trying to “understand” the search query, providing results that spoke to the search query, even if they weren’t exact or close matches. With the introduction of semantic search, it could return pages like “best mountain bikes,” “how to choose a mountain bike,” or “what mountain bikes are good for beginners.” So, even if you pay little or no attention to keywords and keyword phrases, it’s possible to rank for a wide variety of different search queries.
2. User search intent – On a related note, Google is increasingly focusing on user search intent as the primary motivation for its search engine results page (SERP) rankings. Instead of looking for close matches, Google is looking for pages that are most likely to appeal to what the user is trying to do. There’s a lot of subjective processing going on behind the scenes, and since we’re not familiar with the intricacies of Google’s ranking algorithm, we can’t say exactly what’s going on. All we can say is that the importance of keyword data probably pales in comparison to the importance of understanding user search intent. If you can give users what they want, and you can do it consistently, keywords are only a secondary consideration.
3. Misleading data – On top of that, independent studies have confirmed that the data you see about keywords in Google’s Keyword Planner (and many other popular SEO tools) can be inaccurate or misleading. Sometimes the data is completely out of date. Sometimes it’s skewed by bot traffic tracking. And sometimes, you can create vastly different data sets using different tools, even if those tools claim to use the same primary sources.
4. The Role of Authority – Finally, it’s important to recognize that even if you have hypothetically perfect keyword optimization, you still need to address the authority issue. Google needs to see your domain as highly authoritative and trustworthy in order to rank. This is why it’s so important to conduct routine backlink analysis for your domain so you can understand how many backlinks you have pointing to your domain , how valuable those backlinks are , and how you can build better backlinks in the future.
Is Keyword Research Outdated?
Does this mean that keyword research is completely obsolete?
Not exactly, and there are a few main reasons for that.
- Keyword research isn’t just about keywords. First, keyword research isn’t just about finding exact-match keywords that you can pop into your site’s content. It’s also about discovering semantically related phrases, studying what your competitors are doing, brainstorming potential content topics, and tying together different related topics. Even if you don’t use the data itself, a keyword research exercise can help you identify a superior content strategy or find a way to outdo your top competitors.
- Inaccurate data is not useless. We know that Google SERPs and rankings can be volatile. That’s why Google Grump’s ranking system exists . But we don’t use search engine variability as a way to completely eliminate the value of tracking rankings. Even if your ranking data isn’t perfectly accurate in real time and your rankings are distorted by SERP fluctuation, it’s still valuable to track your progress over time. Similarly, just because keyword data isn’t always perfectly accurate and data changes regularly doesn’t mean research is useless.
- LSI data can provide great content ideas. If you start by looking at latent semantic indexing (LSI) keyword data, you can get a much better understanding of user search intent and generate great content ideas that your target audience will really enjoy. This is arguably one of the biggest advantages of traditional keyword research, as good content is still at the core of an effective SEO strategy.
- Competitive research is still important. It’s important to understand who your competitors are, how they rank, and how they target users as part of their SEO strategy. To this day, keyword research remains one of the best ways to get this data.