In this video tutorial, I will show you how to install the Keyword Surfer Chrome Plugin for SEO keyword research.
Free keyword research tool for SEO
Keyword Surfer is a free Google Chrome extension that gives you keyword metrics directly in Google Chrome search results.
According to Tom from UppercutSEO, a leading SEO services agency, If you want to optimise your website for search engine rankings, then it makes sense that you first do proper keyword research to make sure you are optimising your website for relevant keywords.
One of the primary goals of search engine optimization is to ensure keywords that relate to the products or services we provide I placed across content on different website pages.
We can also use other SEO tools like SEO Quake to check for keyword density, page title, header tags, alt tags, schema markup and much more before publishing a website page.
Click here to watch a free video tutorial for adding SEO Quake Plugin to Google Chrome.
Keyword surfer gives you direct results in the Google search bar as shown below.
In the above example, I search for the keyword phrase: London Web Designers.
Keyword surfer returned results of 4,400 UK searches per month and pay per click cost at £12.15.
This is useful information as you can see there are active searches each month for this keyword and the cost per click is high.
Based on this information it would make sense to try and rank higher in the search results for this keyword phrase.
Keyword Surfer also gives you an alternative list of related keywords
The alternative list of keywords is very useful, this list gives you a quick overview of other similar keyword phrases and the total monthly search volume.
In the above image, you can see a UK flag, you can click on this and switch to a different country to ensure keywords stats are relevant for your location.
Keyword surfer generates three useful correlation charts
Traffic Correlation Chart
The chart above lists the top nine organic search results with the amount of traffic each website receives per month.
Words Correlation Chart
The example chart above lists the top nine organic search results and the number of words on the website search result page.
Keywords Correlation Chart
The chart above lists the top nine organic search results with the number of times the specific keyword phrase is mentioned on the website search result page.
Keyword Surfer Chrome Plugin Download
Watch my free Keyword Surfer video tutorial
Keyword Surfer video tutorial
How to install and use the Keyword Surfer Chrome extension
Keyword Surfer FAQs
What is the purpose of Keyword Surfer?
Before we start website SEO optimisation, it is worth checking if the keyword phrases we want to rank high for in Google search will produce potential results.
Our primary goal is to drive traffic to our websites for search engine users looking for the products or services we provide.
We can use keyword surfer to check if keyword phrases have good search query volume and then incorporate the best keywords into the content on our business website design solutions.
Does the Keyword Surfer extension support different Google GEO locations?
Yes, there is an option to change the results returned by keyword surfer for different Google Search GEO locations. Simply click the flag icon and select the relevant country from the drop-down menu.
Why is keyword research important?
It is important to do proper keyword research when you start planning a website design solution to promote your business. If you want to rank high in Google Search then it would make sense that your pages, page titles, headers, alt tags and meta descriptions contain keywords that are relevant to your business.
I would recommend that you create a spreadsheet that lists the keywords you want to rank in Google search. You can then create a strategy to distribute the keywords across your content and build pages dedicated to the keyword phrase.
For example, I wanted to rank on page 1 of Google for Soho Web Designers.
To achieve this I created a dedicated website page: https://dcpweb.co.uk/web-design-soho-w1
It is worth noting that keyword phrases like “Soho Web Designers” will generate massive amounts of traffic, but the keyword is very targeted and only requires a single conversion per year to justify the effort in creating the page and content.
What is keyword difficulty?
Keyword Surfer is great for quick and easy keyword research. However, Keyword Surfer does not return results for keyword difficulty.
It is important to understand how difficult it is to rank for a given keyword phrase, as some keywords will have lots of search volume, but this also means that many websites are competing for a top 10 listing in Google. If you are a new business then high volume keywords are probably not the best option to try and rank your website in Google search. It would be better to focus on long-tail keywords that generate less traffic but are targeted at the customers you are looking for.
For example, I am based in London and I want to find more London based businesses that require website development services.
If I do a Google Search for Web Designers I can see the following results:
In the above image you will see:
- Keyword Surfer monthly search volume = 165,000
- Pay per click cost = $11.70
- The number of results returns returned by Google = 463,000,000
Now if I do another Google Search but add a GEO location to the keyword. For example, London Web Designers. I can see the following results:
In the above image you will see:
- Keyword Surfer monthly search volume = 4,400
- Pay per click cost = $12.15
- Number of results returns returned by Google = 85,300,000
So, based on the above information I can see that the keyword London Web Designers has a lower volume of searches per month, but returns fewer results from Google. Interestingly the cost per click is higher so this would suggest it is more beneficial for me to rank high for this keyword as it will be easier.
Having said that, the keyword “London Web Designers” is still very competitive which is why it is also worth my spending time to rank other GEO location pages in Google search like the example above “Soho Web Designers”.
We can use tools like SEM Scoop to check how difficult a keyword phrase is to get a high organic search engine ranking.
Note: You can click on the above images to enlarge.
In the above images, I can see that the keyword difficulty is lower at “25” for the keyword “London Web Designers” compared to “35” for the keyword “Web Designers“
Also, the domain authority is much lower at “38” compared to “59”. In general the higher the domain authority, the more difficult it will be to rank for the keyword in Google Search.
There is also other useful information such as:
- The average domain age = 13 years.
- The average inbound links = 43k.
- The average number of words on website pages = 2738.
Using Keyword Surfer and SEM Scoop can give you a powerful free solution for completing keyword research for website SEO.
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Article by Pankaj Shah: DCP Web Designers in London
