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Keyword research is elusive thing. Sort of like Bigfoot. Well… not really. Rand actually does an excellent job explaining how to get started in his Moz Academy lesson on Keyword Research. Check that link out! I want to get the same type of conversation started on Q&A. I'll let everyone know how I’ve learned to do KW research. Please let me know how you do it!!!!! The first thing you’ll want to do is create a list of keywords you feel like your brand should target. I would start with what you offer, your brand, and how you want people to find you. Brand – Obviously you want to rank for your brand. First thing you want to do is see how people are searching for you brand. Use Ubersuggest for this. This tool will give a huge list of ways Google is suggesting results to people. Take that list and look at one’s that relate to your service, product, or content and save them in a spreadsheet. This will let you start tackling longer tail keywords before you focus in on your exact brand. What do you offer? – Think to yourself; how would I find my own service? Let’s say you sell air conditioners. You should check out Wordtracker to get a sense of how many people are searching for “air conditioners.” Then look at the other suggestions Wordtracker gives. These suggestions are usually terms that you want to invest some research into, because people are actually searching for them. A lot of people don’t focus their efforts… They end up using a wide net, which is fine, it’s just hard to measure success and build good quality content around too many terms. Alright! Let’s say you have list ready to go. It’s time to do some competitive research. I’d start with the Keyword Difficulty tool section of Moz Analytics. If you’re new to keyword research you want to try a longer-tail keyword. Something like “air conditioners on sale” instead of just “air conditioners.” When you put a term in the Keyword Difficulty tool you’ll see the top ten people ranking for this term. These are based on Domain Authority and Page Authority. This is great way to size up the competition based on how strong their link profile is! Don’t stop there. If you see some lower authority scores in the top ten, then I’d consider it low hanging fruit. Run a full report now. There’s going to be a lot of information here, but I’d like to focus your attention to the On-page stuff. Check that data out. Look to see how well pages in the top ten are optimized(do they have A, B, C, D, or F grades?). If they’re mostly floating around the B and C grade range; try to optimize an existing page you want to rank for the term or create some new content.On-page in full report When you have a page built drop it in our standalone On-page optimization tool to get a guide on how should use your keyword. You can also use Moz Analytics’ On-page tool to track these grades in combination with your rankings data. Just keep tracking it here! How do you go about KW research and tracking? Let me know if you have any feedback on this process and please detail your own if you have time. I’d love to here what ya’ got. 61iB2ag.jpg

Hey Q&Aers! I just wanted to create a discussion thread here to talk solicit some feedback and help with Moz Academy! We want your help coming up with future lessons so we’re getting you the content you need. So, think about what you’d or your team would like to learn from Rand and others at Moz. Let us know! “So, what is Moz Academy?” you may ask. Well, Moz Academy gives subscribers the power to be better marketers, which will enable them to use Moz’s products with more depth and awesomeness. We want to provide a hub of marketing knowledge that will create a stronger community where people can teach each other while using Academy as a frame of reference. The key to this project is empowering you to kick even more ass than you already do! If you have any questions about Moz Academy, feedback about lessons, or ideas on a future curriculum please feel free to get involved in the discussion below. Looking forward to see what everyone comes up with.