Selecting Semantic Keywords

What is Keyword Research?

Keywords are the terms that people enter into search engines to find information.Keyword Research Is the study of these search terms to find out where the search traffic in your market comes from, and determine which keywords your website can target with marketing.

Keyword research helps you:

• Understand and reach your audience 
• Find new relevant topics to cover on your site
• Get qualified leads 
• Increase sales
• Improve ad campaigns, get clicks and impressions 
• Build awareness of your brand

How to find semantic keywords

There are such methods to build a semantic core online:

1. Collect the semantics in search engine services.
2. Use the semantics of a competitor.
3. Collect keyword intersections of several competitors.
4. Apply keys that competitors use in contextual advertising.
5. Collect similar keywords.
6. Use search suggestions.

The main semantic keyword tools are:

1. Google Keyword Planner
2. Serpstat
3. KWFinder
4. Keyword Tool
5. Wordtracke
6. Key Collector
7. WordStream

How to make a semantic core of competitors’ keywords

The semantic core is often built using competitor keywords that were found with the help of the following services:

Serpstat

Enter the name of the competitor site from the TOP-10, select the module 

“SEO Research” and click “Search”:

Export the obtained keywords to a file, and then delete irrelevant keys, for example, branded requests related to the name of a competitive store. Using the same method, you’re able to collect the semantic cores of several competitors and select the most popular keys that are used on all sites.

Google Keyword Planner

In the service, select the option “Find new keywords”:

Specify the necessary site and click “Get Results”:

The received key options indicating the average frequency per month are available for download:

Keyword Tool

The service works both in the free and in the paid version. In the free version you can download a limited number of suggestions options:

To get the full data, you need to subscribe to the pricing plan. However, you can export the results and use them in Serpstat to get the advanced info.

How to collect semantic keywords using similar keywords and search suggestions

When entering a search request, search engines show similar keywords and suggestions that they use together with the search key. These keywords should also be included in the semantic core. To collect similar search requests, you can use the following options:

Google

Similar keywords appear at the bottom of the page:

Search suggestions appear when you enter a key below the search bar:

Serpstat

To find keywords with similar meanings, go to the “Keyword Research” module and click on the “Related Keywords” button. Enter the key, select the search engine, and click “Search”:

You can see some search tips in the “Search Suggestions” module:

An example of a semantic core compiled in KWFinder

To understand the principles of creating semantics, consider the choice of keys for an online shoe store. First of all, you need to think through what requests visitors can make to look for a similar online store. The most obvious request, potential customers should use is the word “shoes”.

Introduce it in the KWFinder service to get information about it and other additional requests:

After adding the keys, they can be exported or saved in the service to simplify further work.

To estimate the frequency of requests for this key, use the Search Volume metric. With it, you can see the dynamics of the use of the key in the search and evaluate the change in the trend line depending on the season and other parameters.

This data will help to find out the requests that are really the most popular, and find rarely used keys that have a high overall frequency. Thanks to this information, the site structure is being formed.

In this example, for promotion on the main page, high-frequency requests “shoes”, “shoe website”, “shoe store”, “online shoe store” and “buy shoes” are suitable. The keys “baby shoes”, “men’s shoes”, “women’s shoes” and “summer shoes” are best suited for the sections. Low-frequency requests, for example, “sale of Italian shoes in London”, are promoted on separate pages.

Similar work should be carried out with all types of shoes present in the online store, for example, to obtain statistics and select keys according to the words “boots”, “sneakers”, “shoes”, “sandals”, etc.