Intent-based keyword research: Let Google be your guide

Whether paid or organic, when it comes to search marketing, keywords are king.

Good keyword research is at the heart of any successful search marketing campaign, so it pays to get it right from the get-go.

Good keyword research, however, isn’t just about search volume, competition level, suggested bids or any of the other metrics you see in a keyword research tool like Google’s keyword planner.

While all of these metrics are helpful, the most important trait of any keyword is the intent behind it.

From a data perspective, a keyword can look like a perfect fit, but if most of the searches related to a term aren’t related to your business, that keyword probably isn’t worth your time or money.

Unfortunately, Google’s keyword planner doesn’t tell you a lot about the intent behind a keyword. But that doesn’t mean you have to guess. Google can still tell you a lot about the intent behind a keyword; you just have to know where to look.

In this article, we’ll take a look at why intent is such an important part of keyword research, how to get at the intent behind a keyword and ways to use intent to guide your search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) keyword strategies.

To begin, let’s start by taking a look at how the intent behind a keyword can affect your SEM and SEO efforts.

[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]