Keywords research has always been the fundamental practice in search engine optimize ion SEO. The practice of selecting and researching the right keywords is vital for every SEO project. Over the past few years, the process of selecting a keyword or a phrase has been simple and involved only entering a series of words or phrases into the search engine’s search bar to take a look at the viable options. However, with all the changes in Google algorithm and changes rolling in over the past five years, keyword research is looking to experience the most amounts of changes since 2018.
Let us take a look at how keywords research has evolved over the years and how the game can be played more accurately in 2020 to boost rankings.
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How Keywords Research Has Changed
While most of the process of keywords research remains the same in 2020, there are a good number of new elements coming into play to make keywords research process more elaborative. With new Google algorithm updates, the increased focus of Google is on mobile SERP to influence the ranking factors. There is no doubt that in 2020, the general keywords research has changed; SEO professionals can adopt some tried techniques to enhance their own keywords research in 2020 to get powerful results.
The Rise of Voice-Based Searches
On the Internet, voice assistants have been around for a couple of years now and with more refined additions coming every year. In the near future, voice search is going to a vital element of SEO for sure. The process is further supported by the Hummingbird algorithm of Google that has increased attention on semantic search keywords. With assistants like Alexi, Sire, and Cortina, the voice-based keywords search is going to be an important pillar of SEO game.
Mobile First Approach in SEO is Booming
Mobile optimization has also changed SEO game over the years; the increasing number of mobile internet users has allowed Google to provide updates such as Google Speed. This shows that optimizing your website for mobile devices is paramount practice in 2020 and an effective way to keep the traffic coming to that website.
If you are not aware of mobile optimization yet in 2020, then remember that more mobile focused Google updates are coming in 2021. These can help you to improve your website performance.
Focusing on the Topic of your Niche
When it comes to keywords research strategy, most people open a keywords research tool and see how the website is performing for a particular keyword. Then they use the same or different keywords for the content development; no matter how simple this process may look; this process is repeated by almost all SEO professionals to get the same results. This means it is unavoidable to have the similar keywords and your search may no longer provide the best results.
For instance, if you enter a keyword “action video games”, this keyword has a high search volume on the internet. There eared other popular options like “new video games” and “upcoming video game consoles”. These maybe good options to choose from, however, Rizwan Zahid, the marketing director, Pakistan’s oldest digital marketing firm states that people should use more options. Rizwan uses Ahrefs tool to see how video game related searches are doing; in a time like this where there is abundance of keywords to choose from, finding your niche can be a vital factor to increase your website traffic. Therefore, using exact keywords is becoming a thing of the past.
With this statement of an industry expert in Pakistan, it reveals that the keywords search in 2020 has taken new turns to change the standard process of keywords research. Google search looks much smarter than before; it is not a time for experimenting new things than to follow the exact-match keywords strategy.
Topic Research has become a Different Game
Courtesy of Hummingbird updates by Google, ten years ago, the dedicated page approach for keywords search was popular that is becoming less relevant. The topic research strategy has also changed since 2018. This is an important practice to know user behaviors, trends, and social intents; people use these metrics to create and search for new topics to publish. Good topic research is vital for content marketing strategy success. However, topic research can give you good ideas to cover brand subjects; you should use tools like SEMRush to guide you in specific phrasing you can choose.
Conclusion
The bottom line of the discussion is that competition is immense with Google providing new updates. Now the keywords search is not that simple because you are fighting against the subjectivity of modern search. Without using efficient analytical tools to evaluate objective score for keyword’s competition, getting the best results is not possible. The best way to research in 2020 is not to rely on guess work and avoid stuffing keywords into the content. A careful measurement of competition for a keyword or a phrase can enhance your topic research.
