Keyword Research and SEO Strategy

Doing keyword research is the most important first step in any SEO Strategy. Without Research, you shouldn’t even start your journey to the TOP 10 of Google Search. Before you can start creating content, you need to find the best keywords within your market that will rank fast so that people will start coming to your website.

Squirrly SEO brings you ALL the tools you need for the best SEO strategy and will guide you through what you have to do in order to achieve the best results.

Keyword Research Tool

The Keyword Research Tool from Squirrly SEO helps you discover long-tail keywords that your site can rank for on the first page of Google – without you having to leave WordPress.

Furthermore, Squirrly lets you find keywords that are relevant for the country you want to rank for so that you can focus on your country’s audience.

Long-tail keywords have less competition, which means you don’t have to go against SEO mammoths (industry-leading sites which typically populate the 1st page of Google). So you’ll have a real chance of making your way to the top of SERPs.

How to Access the Keyword Research Tool

To access Squirrly’s Keyword Research Tool: navigate to Squirrly SEO > AI Research > Find Keywords.

Squirrly’s advanced algorithms will reveal top keyword opportunities and feed valuable associated data. This up-to-date, real-time information (we don’t use cache) will help you assess keywords’ potential; so that you can pick the right ones:

• Competition

This is the most important metric to take into account when analyzing a keyword’s potential.

Competition tells you whether you can rank your pages for specific keywords. You’ll STOP wasting your resources creating content blindly and going after keywords your site can’t rank for. It will all finally make sense.

To analyze competition, we look at the top 10 sites that rank on Google for that keyword and their level of authority. If the sites that rank for a specific search query on the 1st page of Google have very high authority, your chances of ranking for that keyword as well will be much lower, unless you also have a very high site authority.

• Search. Shows the search volume (the number of search queries for a specific keyword in search engines such as Google). This metric allows you to know what Keywords and Topics your Customers actively search for on Google.

• Discussion. Shows you how popular a topic is on social media.

Control your keyword research experience.

The default option of Keyword Research will reveal around 10-20 results while the complex one can deliver around 50 results at once – that’s up to 50 new ideas for creating relevant content that has the highest potential for achieving top rankings. (doing a deep/complex keyword research requires having a Business account)

What’s more, the industry you’re in will be constantly monitored. This allows Squirrly to suggest new topic ideas you can pursue, even if you’re not actively doing keyword research.

This way, you can be sure that you’re not missing out on any incredible keyword opportunity.

Find New Keywords

• To reach this option, go to: Squirrly SEO > AI Research > Find Keywords

In the section Find Keywords, you can perform keyword research and find untapped key phrases personalized for your site and country to get more traffic.

Follow the steps from the video below and learn how to find the best long-tail keywords that your own site can rank for using Squirrly.

The Keyword Research Tool will give you lists of suggested Key Phrases made out of 2 to 5 words. This way, you can focus on the specific phrases people are actually searching for on Google.

It will also give you an advantage in ranking on the first page. These keywords are selected based on what the top 10 sites for your topic are also optimizing for. All you have to do is follow the steps detailed below.

Step 1. Enter a keyword that matches your business

To find the best long-tail keywords, start by entering a keyword (topic) you want people to find you for. Try to steer clear of topics that are too broad or too general (like jewelry, or car) and focus on more specific keywords that contain 2 or more words (like fine jewelry for women)

You can also open multiple tabs and perform multiple separate researches at the same time. (this option can help you save some time in case you want to research multiple keywords)

To show you just how easy it is to perform keyword research using Squirrly, here’s a quick example of how the process would look like if we were to research the keyword/key phrase: “spring cleanup”.

Step 1/3: Enter the Keyword and Select the Country and Language You Want to Focus On

Simply add the keyword(s) you want to research in the dedicated field. You can research keywords for each article by focusing on the countries you are interested in. You now have over 140 Countries to choose from.

This way, you can choose the best words to optimize for so that more people from your country will find you. Simply select the country you are interested in from the drop-down menu.

Additionally, if you want to find keywords in a specific language for a certain country, use the drop-down menu shown in the image below to select your desired language.

Once you’ve selected the country and language, click on Next >>. You’ll be taken to the next step.

Step 2/3: Select similar keywords (AI-powered)

Based on the keywords you used to start the keyword research process, Squirrly suggests extras you can try in step 2 of the Keyword Research process. Then, Squirrly will compile the final list with data in step 3 (driven by our Competitive Clarity Index).

You will get keywords with already-done-for-you research data, and since introducing AI in Keyword Research Tool in Step 2 and Step 3, we also follow the paths from the clusters we build with OpenAI for keywords, not just the ordinary Google search paths.

This helps us provide much better results AND the best part is that it will help you get unstuck. It will open your mind to brand new possibilities of what you can start searching for using the Keyword Research tool.

Consider selecting one or more of the keywords that are suggested in this step. You can choose up to three keywords from this list.

After you select other keywords that you want to research, click the Do Research button.

! Note that each keyword you choose from the list of similar keywords will take up a keyword research credit. It’s NOT mandatory to select similar keywords. It’s up to you whether you want to include keywords that appear in this list in your research or not.

The default option of Keyword Research will reveal insights about around 10-20 results to cut down the processing time. However, if you want to perform a more complex, deeper research, you have the option to Do a Deep Research and get insights for up to 50 keywords. (deep research requires having a Business account)

Click on the arrow from Do Research, and if you have a Business account, you will be able to choose which type of research you want to perform.

Step 3/3. Discover amazing long-tail keywords

Note that the research may take a little bit until the results are shown. All the processing is made in real-time so that you get fresh information for each keyword.

Every selected keyword will pass through an algorithm that will run over 100 queries on it and on the related keywords found.

It will check the competition (with our own Competitive Clarity Index), social discussion (our algorithms), and search volume (our own algorithm) for the last 90 days.

We’ve been building research algorithms since 2012. As we use Google API and run them through our Proprietary TECH to define search volumes and more, Social Media for discussions, the data will be FRESH every time.

The default order in which keywords appear in the list is generated by our system based on the ranking potential of each keyword. However, note that even if a keyword has: very high ranking chance at Competition , if people are NOT searching for it (has low search volume), you probably shouldn’t use it for your SEO Strategy.

Squirrly Briefcase

• To reach this option, go to: Squirrly SEO > AI Research > Briefcase

How many times has this happened to you? You’ve started researching ideas for keywords you could use in your posts. After a while, the process became so complex, that you lost count and forgot what was the keyword you began with.

It would be a pity to overlook great keyword opportunities because you don’t have an efficient way to stay organized.

The Briefcase feature provides a simple way to keep your best keyword opportunities in a dedicated, single place and build a strategy around your main keywords.

Add keywords to Briefcase

To add a keyword to Briefcase, just click on Add to Briefcase from the Keyword Research results. (as shown in the screenshot below)

Once you added keywords to Briefcase, you can go to Briefcase and you will see all the saved keywords.

Assign Labels to Briefcase keywords

If you didn’t add any Labels yet, you need to go to the Labels section and create labels in order to organize your keywords into tighter groups and build winning SEO strategies.

For example, you can group keywords based on the different stages that shape your customer’s journey: 

• “Problem awareness”
• “Solution awareness”
• “Solution comparison”
• “Decision”
• “Implementation”
• “After-sales”

Or you could group keywords based on Search Intent. The queries people use to search online showcase their intent. So, if you’re targeting keywords that come in a question format, you may want to assign a label named Informational.

Conversion-focused keywords that have words like cheap,  free shipping, best price incorporated can be grouped together using a label named Transactional. These are just a few examples; there’s really no limit on how you can use labels to organize your strategies.

To assign a Label to a keyword from Briefcase, just click on the menu icon (the three dots) from the keyword row and select Assign Label. (as shown in the image below)

One keyword can have multiple Labels assigned to it. Furthermore, once you assign labels to keywords, you can filter based on Label(s) and only view keywords that have a certain Label(s) assigned to them.

Select one or multiple labels for the selected keyword and click on the Save Labels button.

You also have the option to assign labels to keywords in bulk. Select the keywords for which you want to assign labels, then go to Bulk Actions, select Assign Label and then click on Apply. Then choose the label(s) you want to assign to those keywords from the pop up that appears and click on Save Labels.

Keywords Information

For every keyword you save to Briefcase, you will be able to see the following information:

• Usage: how many posts were optimized using the Squirrly SEO Live Assistant for that keyword.

This helps you to keep track of how much content on your site is optimized for a particular keyword you saved to Briefcase. In other words, you can see how you’ve mapped your SEO content across your site. You can also see exactly which pages/posts you’ve optimized.

• if the keyword ranks on Google (and on which position).

This will help you quickly understand if a certain SEO strategy has been successful or not. If you have a Business account, you will see the exact position a keyword ranks for on Google.

If you have the PRO or Free Plan, you will see an average position (data is retrieved from Google Search Console, so you will need to make sure that your GSC account is connected to Squirrly to be able to see this information)

• keyword research data : country, competition, search volume, and recent discussions (click on keyword info to view this).

Optimize with Squirrly Live Assistant

To be able to see the number of posts/pages that you’ve optimized for a certain keyword you saved to Briefcase, you first need to optimize an existing post or a new post for that keyword using the Squirrly SEO Live Assistant.

To optimize a post for a keyword, click on the menu icon (the three dots) from the keyword row and click on Optimize for this. (as shown in the screenshot below)

To 100% optimize a post/page for a certain keyword, follow the guidance provided by the Squirrly SEO Live Assistant feature.

Send to Rank Checker

To see if your website ranked for a keyword, you need to send that keyword to the Rank Checker section of Squirrly SEO. For this, click on the menu icon (the three dots) from the keyword row and select Send to Rank Checker. (as shown in the image below)

You also have the option to Send keywords from Briefcase to Rank Checker in bulk. Select the keywords you want to send to Rank Checker, then go to Bulk Actions, select Send to Rankings and then click on Apply.

Also check out the video below if you want to learn more about how to check the position in Google for a keyword using Squirrly.

Refresh Keyword Research

People’s interest in a certain topic can and will most likely fluctuate depending on the time of the year, different events, trends that appear, and so on.

So, over time, a keyword could have different research results. (for example, if kitten heels come back in style, the interest for topics such as how to style kitten heels will grow, and the search volume for keywords related to that topic will temporarily grow as well).

Therefore, it’s important to know if a keyword’s search volume has changed. Make sure to check the evolution of the keywords you’ve stored in Briefcase, and refresh the research.

To refresh the research for a keyword, click on the menu icon (the three dots) from the keyword row and select Refresh Research. (as shown in the screenshot below)

Delete a keyword from Briefcase

If a certain keyword is no longer relevant for your SEO strategy, you can delete the keyword from Briefcase.

To delete a keyword, click on the menu icon (the three dots) from the keyword row and select Delete Keyword. (as shown in the image below)

You also have the option to delete keywords from Briefcase in bulk. Select the keywords you want to remove from Briefcase, then go to Bulk Actions, select Delete and then click on Apply.

If you remove a keyword from Briefcase by accident, you can do a new Keyword Research for it, add it to Briefcase, and all the previously assigned labels will be restored.

Backup and Restore Keywords

We encourage you to back up the keywords from Briefcase periodically to make sure you can restore them in case you need it. (it’s especially important that you do this if you work with a team of writers and they have access to manage the keywords in Briefcase).

This feature is also useful if you want to copy the SEO Strategy to another website. It can come in handy in case you change your website as well.

To backup the Keywords, go to Squirrly SEO > Technical SEO > Import & Data > Backup Settings and SEO > Backup Briefcase

Click on the Download Backup button and Squirrly will create a TXT file with all the Keywords (one per line).

The keywords TXT will look like this:

To restore the Keywords, go to Squirrly SEO > Technical SEO > Import & Data > Restore Settings and SEO > Restore Keywords Select the TXT file from your backup and click on the Restore button.

Import Keywords in Briefcase

If you don’t want to do Keyword Research for your keywords, Squirrly SEO lets you import the Keywords in Briefcase.

For this, you need to create your own TXT list of Keywords (one per line).

Create a new text file and add the keywords as shown in the image below. (make sure that this is the format you use, each keyword should be on a separate line of text)

Then go to Squirrly SEO > Technical SEO > Import & Data > Restore Settings and SEO > Restore Keywords

Select the TXT file from your computer and click the Restore button. If the list of keywords is correctly formatted, you will be able to see all your keywords in the Briefcase section.

Squirrly Briefcase Labels

• To reach this option, go to: Squirrly SEO > AI Research > Labels

You can Color-Categorize your keywords based on your needs and stay on track with your campaigns.

For instance, you can label them based on the customer journey you want to use them for, such as “awareness stage” or “strong buyer intent.”

Everyone on your team will know what they need to work on in order to enhance your Authority on your main keywords. No more losing focus.

Add new Label

To add a new Label in your label list, click on the Add new Label button.

In the Label popup window, add a Label name, choose a Label color, and then click on the Add Label button.

Edit a Label

Use this option in case you named your Label wrong, want to change the color of the Label, or simply if you want to rename a certain Label to be more relevant when it comes to describing your current SEO strategies.

To edit a Label Name, click on the menu icon (the three dots) from the Label row and select Edit Label. (as shown in the image below)

Delete a Label

If you want to completely delete a Label, click on the menu icon (the three dots) from the Label row and select Delete Label.

You also have the option to delete Labels in bulk. Select the labels you want to delete, then go to Bulk Actions, select Delete and then click on Apply.

Squirrly Keyword Suggestion

• To reach this option, go to: Squirrly SEO > AI Research > Suggested

Keyword Suggestion Business: You’ll get keyword suggestions every week if we find better-matching keywords based on your research history.

The Keyword Research Assistant performs Keyword Researches on your behalf WITHOUT using any keyword research credits from your total monthly keyword research credits available.

To come up with high-opportunity, relevant keyword suggestions, the research assistant:

• Does research based on Main Keywords, Secondary Keywords you’ve used in your posts and pages.

• Does research according to keywords from Google Search Console.

• Does research based on your Keyword Research History.

Then, it will display a list of keywords with research data attached, in case it finds good ideas for you. Sometimes you might see no new keywords here, in case the Keyword Research Assistant can’t find new AND better ideas.

To reach the Suggested section, go to Squirrly SEO > AI Research > Suggested.

Add Suggested Keyword to Briefcase

Any time you find a keyword you like from the list of suggested keywords, you can save it to Briefcase by clicking on Add to briefcase. (as shown in the image below)

Delete Suggested Keyword

You also have the option to delete a keyword from the list of Suggested Keywords by clicking on Delete Keyword. (as shown in the image below)

Inner Links Helper for Inner Links Ideation

• To reach this feature, go to Squirrly SEO > AI Research > Suggested 

This feature will help you build more content for growing inner links for your Focus Pages by automatically identifying relevant topics.

Each topic it suggests for you is an opportunity to create a Focus Page-related article.

Here’s how it works:

Identifying Related Questions

To identify related questions, Squirrly looks at the data provided by Google via the People Also Ask feature (Google SERP feature) for the main keywords for which you’ve optimized your Focus Pages.

If Squirrly SEO identifies related questions, then Squirrly will display the Focus Page keyword (or a better keyword version obtained through research) together with the lists of related questions.

Each of these related questions can serve as a unique topic for a new article. Crafting articles around these questions can immensely help in building new inner links for your Focus Pages.

Determining the Right Focus Page for the Inner Link

You might be wondering, “Which of my Focus Pages should I link this new article to?” Worry not! The Inner Links Helper provides a direct link to the ideal Focus Page for the new content.

Just select “See Focus Page details.” For every set of related questions, Squirrly will display a button pointing to the recommended Focus Page right at the top.

By clicking this button, you’ll be directed to the Focus Page that would most benefit from this new inner link.

Creating Content for the Related Questions Found

Once you’ve selected a question or topic from the list, you have 3 primary actions you can perform:

• Click on “Optimize for this” to begin crafting and optimizing your new article with the help of the SEO Live Assistant.
• Choose to save the keyword to your Briefcase for future reference or content planning. For this, click on “Add to briefcase.” If a keyword is already in your collection, you’ll see the “Already in briefcase” notification.
• Add to Inner Links. For each question listed under “Related Questions Found”, Squirrly will verify if you already have published pages that contain that question and have been optimized for that question using the SEO Live Assistant.

If these pages exist, Squirrly will then determine whether an inner link has been placed on that particular question using the Inner Link Assistant that links to the Focus Page optimized for the keyword for which the related question was initially found.

If there’s no such link, Squirrly will suggest adding one. To add the suggested inner link, click on the “Add to Inner Links button” and Squirrly will automatically add an inner link, using the question text as the anchor text.

The link will point to the Focus Page optimized for the keyword for which the related question was initially found. And you will be able to see the new inner link in your list of inner links, which you can access at Squirrly SEO > Focus Pages > Inner Links.

If the inner link has already been placed, you’ll see the “Already in innerlinks” notification.

Additionally, if you want to directly navigate to the section where you can see the list of inner links currently set in Squirrly SEO and add new inner links, click on the “Inner Links Assistant” button shown below.

This will take you straight to the Inner Links section of Squirrly.

Squirrly Keywords History

• To reach this option, go to: Squirrly SEO > AI Research > History

In this section, you can see the Keyword Researches you made in the last 30 days

• shows you the keywords, the country, the date and a Show All Keywords button that opens a big list with all data from your previous keyword researches.

Checking the Keyword Research evolution over time is very important. Keywords can trend differently from week to week and finding the right time to use them in your articles is crucial for your success.

Squirrly SEO keeps a track for the last 100 Keyword Researches you made, together with the Keyword Competition, Search Volume, and Discussion.

To reach the Keywords History section, go to Squirrly SEO > AI Research > History.

Add Keywords to Briefcase from Keywords History

To add a keyword to Briefcase from the Keywords History list, click on Add to Briefcase .

Optimize for Keywords from the Research History List

If you want to create an optimized article or page targeting a keyword from the Research History List, just click on Optimize for this and Squirrly will open a new post with the keyword already added to the Live Assistant.