Can't We Skip Keyword Research?

I came across an interesting forum post today. The guy was wondering if he could just skip keyword research and just go ahead with writing about his topic. His logic was that if he ignored keywords, he would still naturally include good target keywords. Although this may produce slightly better content, he would be missing out on many potential keywords and opportunities for more related content. Essentially he would be losing some traffic.

Missing Potential Keywords

When you write about a topic, it is not realistic to expect all of your keywords to naturally be included in your writing. Just because you might know a lot about a topic, it does not mean that you use all the different terminology that exists in your niche. You likely have preferred names for things and you write a certain way.

Your visitors use a very wide range of keywords to find what you are writing about. They do not all use the exact same vocabulary and spelling, especially if you are targeting multiple geographical regions. People use search engines differently too. One person might prefer to search for one or two word phrases. Another person might like to type entire sentences or questions.

If you do not take the time to find out which keywords are more popular, you are only targeting the people who think like you. If you're lucky you might accidentally target some other keywords too. Think of all the other keywords that you are probably forgetting.

Missing Related Topics

In addition to searching differently, your target visitors may be looking for a wide variety of things related to your topic. Some people may only want broad information or images. Others may only be interested in a very specific subtopic of your chosen topic. If the person is looking to shop, they might only be looking to compare products or they might be trying to find a particular product. Without doing proper keyword research, you might not think of some related topics that people are also frequently searching for.

If you are an expert in your field with years of experience, you probably can accurately predict a lot of the related topics that people might be searching for. Still you might be wrong about the preferred terminology. There could also be related topics that are brand new that you didn't even know about. Trends change over time and new keywords can become popular overnight.

When you research related keywords you might realize that there is an important topic that you have not covered with your website content. This may warrant a separate article or even a whole new section of your website. By covering many topics related to your niche, you develop an authority website that answers all of your visitors' questions. Plus you get more traffic from a wider variety of keywords.

Summary

So before you start writing your next article or blogpost, make sure you first research all of the possible keywords that are used within your niche. If you want a successful website, you don't want traffic from just a few keywords, you want traffic from every important keyword related to your topic. You want to target people who think and search all different ways.

Jeremy Biberdorf is an internet marketing professional with over 10 years of experience. Check out his website for more information about how to do keyword research. If you need help with keyword selection, Jeremy also offers keyword services.