Having chosen my niche, bought a domain and set up my new website, I now delve into keyword research. The aim of this step is to:
- Identify keywords to target (particularly long-tail keywords in the beginning)
- Identify my competitors and see what keywords they are targeting
- Get a general understanding of the niche
- Inform the page structure of the website (pages and subpages, or silos as some folk refer to them)
- Inform a Content Plan (a list of ideas for pages on the website, with a rough timeline)
Keyword research
The tool I will be using for keyword research is SE Ranking – basically, it is a bit like AHREFS and SEMRush with a bit less functionality but a lot more affordable (check out my review here).