How to Conduct Keyword Research Like a Pro

Few interior designers have a background in marketing. Instead, most of their education has been focused on the design elements and how different items work together in excellent room scenes. 

This is why so many interior designers struggle with marketing efforts that could boost their business significantly. Specifically, they need to learn how to conduct keyword research that can be used on their website and in their blogs. 

 What is keyword research, and why does it matter for growing your business? Keyword research is the process that you go through to determine which terms your clients are using to find services similar to your own. They might surface in the form of a phrase or a question, but no matter what form they take, they are essential to your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. 

If you want to know how to do keyword research to skyrocket in the search engine results pages, here is everything you need to know. 

Tips to Follow for Keyword Research

Are you ready to do the hard work of learning how to do keyword research? These top tips will help you get started the right way and give you a solid foundation to build upon for the future of your SEO efforts. 

Find What Your Clients Want to Know

Conducting keyword research like a pro means taking the time to think as your clients think. Consider their pain points and the type of solutions they are likely to search for. What questions do you frequently encounter in your interior design practice? These are all great places to start when conducting your own keyword research. 

 If you struggle to answer the core questions that your customers might be asking, you can use tools like Answer the Public to see what other people are searching for. Similarly, Google can provide insights using their Related Questions section when you type in a search query.  

Think About Intent

It is no longer enough to work keywords into your articles in some magical pattern. If you want to learn how to do keyword research, you should be focusing on user intent or what your client is hoping to learn or accomplish by reading your material. If you aren’t sure what clients are looking for with a specific keyword, look at what your competition is doing with the same topic. 

 Google and the other search engines measure a successful website by how much time a user spends on it. The longer they spend on your page, the more useful Google ranks your website, which can catapult you to the top of the results pages. 

Be Ready to Buy or Hire

In addition to thinking about the intent behind a user query, you also need to consider whether they are likely to purchase your services after their interaction with your content.  

Interior designers should focus on keywords with the highest chance of transforming into a closed deal. If you don’t think that your keyword research will yield a sale, you should likely choose a different keyword to focus on. 

Brainstorming Keywords

Now that you know a few of the basics regarding how to do keyword research, it is time to start thinking about which words, topics, or queries will give you the best results. Take a look at traffic on your existing pages and see which areas your clients tend to interact with the most.  

If your website is linked with Google Search Console, it should be easy for you to view the analytics on your pages in this way. 

Break down your most visited pages according to a topic, such as interior design tips or other pages that yield lots of traffic and interaction. From here, you can brainstorm specific topics that fall into these categories. For example, under interior design tips, you might have topics like: 

• Choosing a color palette
• Adding texture to a room
• Best lighting fixtures for small spaces

 Another way to brainstorm keywords is to look at trends on social media or popular forums like Reddit. If you notice a particular question or topic coming up frequently, then you may want to add it to your list of potential keywords. You can even look at what your competitors are using to get their pages to rank on Google and add those words or phrases to your list. 

 You can get plenty of ideas that fall into each one of the categories that your clients interact with the most. Once you have a few ideas down on paper, it is time to dive into the actual keyword competition analysis. 

Keyword Competition Analysis

When using a tool like Google Keyword Planner or SEMRush, you can easily locate keywords that your clients are searching for. These systems will usually tell you whether the competition is low, medium, or high. What does that mean for the keywords that you want to target with your design business? 

 Low competition keywords will be the easiest to rank for. This means that fewer other sites are ranking for those keywords. While the search volume may not be as high, you stand a better chance of getting your page to rank higher in the search engine results pages for these keywords due to a lack of competition. 

 High competition keywords mean that there are lots of competitors who are trying to rank for the same keywords. It can be very challenging to beat out your competitors for these keywords, especially if your site is new and still growing. 

You might be outranked by major outlets, such as design schools or more experienced interior designers. While the search volume for this type of keyword tends to be higher, you have less chance of ranking for these keywords. 

 Medium competition falls somewhere in the middle, as you might imagine. You may have a good chance of ranking on the first page for these results, particularly if you are using long-tail keywords instead of shorter and broader ones. 

Long-Tail vs. Short-Tail Keywords

What is the difference between long-tail keywords and short-tail keywords? It has to do with the type of search your client is conducting. Short-tail keywords tend to include just one to two words. In general, these keywords yield the broadest results base. As a result, there is likely to be more competition for these keywords, making it much more difficult to rank for such a generic search term. 

 Long-tail keywords can be three to five words or more. They are usually far more specific and are easier to rank for because they will have less competition. Whenever possible, try to focus your content on long-tail keywords because you have a better chance of being found.  

How to Conduct Keyword Research

Once you have the basics down, it is time to take a closer look at exactly how you should go about conducting your keyword research. It will take some time to do this properly, but it is worth the small investment you will make when your page consistently ranks at the top of the search engine results pages.  

Here are a few of the steps you should follow to get started: 

1.     Identify Client Pain Points and Interests

One of the best things you can do to conduct highly accurate and valuable keyword research is to identify what your clients need from you.  

What questions are they looking to answer? What topics are of the most interest to them? Always start your keyword research by answering these questions.  

2.     Set Goals for Your Business

Identify what your goals are for your brand. Do you simply want to increase brand awareness, or are you hoping to close a certain number of deals with new clients? This can help you narrow the list of potential topics your ideal clients may be interested in.  

3.     Create Seed Keywords

Once you have a list of topics related to your business and clients, you will want to start making a list of seed keywords. Seed keywords are the types of terms that your clients might be searching for. Brainstorm the things that you believe your clients want to learn from you. This will inform your SEO strategy and help you optimize your website. 

4.     Identify Long-Tail Keywords 

You have the best chance of ranking for long-tail keywords that will be more specific to the intent of your clients. While seed keywords are great for getting you started, they tend to be broader and have high competition. Consider what terms your competitors are ranking for, and then try to do some research around these ideas.  

Use keyword research tools like KeywordTool.io, Ubersuggest, or Google Keyword Planner. These tools give you greater insight into the traffic and user intent behind certain keywords, which allows you to grow the list of keywords you want to target. 

Conducting Your Own Keyword Research 

Learning how to do keyword research is a learning curve that you will improve upon as you find a system that works for you. These steps can help you get started with the necessary research to help improve your ranking in the search engines. 

For more ideas on how to drive website traffic, make sure to see our article on 25 Ways to Drive More Website Traffic!