The heart of your SEO. The foundation for building ideas and thoughts in your industry. The vital link between you and your audience.
What are we talking about? Keywords, of course!
Keyword research is a fundamental aspect of any SEO strategy, so it’s important to know why you should do it, and how you should go about it. The power of keyword research lies in better understanding your target market and how they are searching for your content, services, or products. Too many people bypass this crucial planning step because keyword research takes time, and why spend the time when you already know what you want to rank for?
The answer is that what you want to rank for and what your audience actually wants are often two completely different things. Focusing on your audience and using keyword data to your advantage will make for much more successful campaigns than if you were to focus on the typical desirable keywords.
With that, we are so excited to announce the launch of our brand-new Keyword Research Certification from Moz Academy. It joins our four other Certifications in our course catalog: SEO Essentials Certification, Technical SEO Certification, Local SEO Certification and SEO Competitive Analysis Certification.
With this engaging, on-demand instructor-led course, you can learn at your own pace, participate in tasks and take quizzes along the way, as well as complete a final exam, earning you a certificate and LinkedIn badge as proof of your achievement.
Why take this course?
Contrary to popular belief, keyword research is not a one-off task. You should dive into keyword research every time you create new content, or refresh existing content. By regularly assessing the ways in which people search – and by identifying specific and ever-changing ways that people search for content within your niche – you can continue to create content your audience will enjoy and share. Combined with other solid SEO processes, keyword research helps you to produce a repeatable content process that consistently earns traffic over time.
What’s included in the Keyword Research Certification?
The Keyword Research Certification is a five-part series focused on keyword research, strategy and analysis. Complete with over four hours of video lessons, tasks, and activities, you’ll be able to test your understanding and apply important concepts throughout. At the end of the series, you’ll take a final exam and receive your certificate and LinkedIn badge.
The certification is organized into five sections:
1. Explore the Fundamentals of Keyword Research
The first course of the series lays the groundwork for the rest of the certification curriculum, beginning with a discussion of why keyword research matters and what it looks like.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
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Define keyword research, and describe its importance in reaching your target audience
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List the types of keywords, and describe how they shape your keyword strategy
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Explain past Google algorithm updates
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Dispel SEO myths, and anticipate future trends in keyword research
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Select an SEO keyword ranking tool best suited to your needs and goals
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Track and measure your keyword success
2. Get to Know Your Customer
Now that we’ve established the purpose of keyword research and how it fits into your larger SEO strategy, it’s time to dig in: who are your competitors?
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
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Actively listen to your audience, and apply these conversations to your keyword planning
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Align your strategy with how Google perceives entities and your industry
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List the types of search intent, and match your content to audience intent
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Format your content for SERP features relevant to your industry
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Evaluate keywords using Moz Pro and other tools
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Discover hot topics in your industry, and analyze the type of content Google finds valuable
3. Create a Keyword Strategy
In this course, you will learn how you fit into the sales funnel and establish a process for conducting keyword research.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
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Describe the stages of the sales funnel and how they relate to SEO
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Create a keyword model based on the sales funnel and semantic search
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Establish a process for keyword research
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Analyze your website’s current rankings and identify your strengths
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Develop scalable keyword lists and keyword clusters
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Identify target keywords to create new – and improve existing – content
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Create an SEO tracking system, and assess a brand’s Search Visibility across keyword clusters
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Map your keyword strategy to your website’s most valuable pages
4. Track Your Success & Next Steps
In this section of the Certification, you will learn how you can track your keyword success and know how to customize a strategy to suit your needs.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
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Identify questions your audience is asking
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Employ a variety of tools to discover how people are talking about your brand
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Adjust your SEO strategy according to local, international, and B2B best practices
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Uncover new content ideas, and use keyword tools to acquaint yourself with an unfamiliar topic
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Increase your visibility by discovering featured snippet opportunities for your brand
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Evaluate your competitors’ success, and refine your blueprint based on your findings
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Support your keyword strategy with healthy technical SEO and link building practices
5. Final Exam
Once you’ve completed your training, you will have the opportunity to take an exam to earn your certificate and LinkedIn badge to display your accomplishment to professional peers, employers, and potential clients.
Keyword Research Certification FAQs
How do I get certified?
The Keyword Research Certification is available now on Moz Academy. Simply access the series from the course catalog, register, and get started! Once you’ve completed the series and passed the final exam, you’ll receive an official certificate and a badge for your LinkedIn profile.
How long will the series take to complete?
The certification series includes approximately four hours of instructor-led curriculum, in addition to activities to test your understanding and the final exam. With all of that in mind, you can expect your time commitment to be about six-seven hours in total.
How long is the Keyword Research Certification valid? Do my credentials expire?
You will have access to the training materials for one year after purchase. Your Keyword Research Certification credentials, however, will not expire.
I don’t have a Moz Pro subscription – is the Keyword Research Certification still relevant for me?
Yes! We do use Moz Pro, in addition to various other tools, to apply certain concepts throughout the certification series. That being said, having a Moz Pro subscription is not a requirement, and you’ll learn how to apply the concepts regardless of which tools you use. The concepts and activities throughout the certification are generally tool-agnostic.
