Keyword research is hard but as a foundational step it is has been and will remain one of the most important parts of SEO.
If not for the complexity, just for the length of time it takes to discover what actually works and see it come into fruition. You can be forging down the same keyword themes and be making really good progress all the while occasionally testing a new keyword here or there just to see if it will work.
So why is it that when a fresh set of eyes, not even someone else’s just your own on a new day, in a new mindset, can find a gold mine of keywords that you didn't think existed?
When you are getting successful results from your own thinking when doing Google Ads there's a natural tendency to not stray away from what is already working. I mean why would you? Scientists have looked into the notion of missing obvious things. A great article by Seeker further discusses this great mystery. It mentions the classic gorilla video, whereby the viewer is asked to “count how many times the players wearing white pass the ball”, all the while a gorilla crosses the screen that people miss because of how involved in the task of counting passes they are. The article also has a quote that just about says it all from a Union College professor; “We have a bias to believe that we will notice the important things”. This is absolutely true for work as detailed as keyword research.
This one is a personal viewpoint, in that I believe it is hard to have a mistake in our work pointed out by someone, especially so if you have put months or even years into keyword research. When somebody comes along and finds a gaping hole in your research that you hadn’t even considered because of how deeply entrenched in the task you’ve been, it can be embarrassing. Worse still for marketers and business owners alike, it's a mistake that points out a missed opportunity for extra business and traffic.
It is vital that you keep your keyword research fresh as everything on the internet and really, in human existence, is constantly changing. I mean there will probably come a day when your simple webpage has exhausted all plausible and worthwhile keyword avenues. But if you have a business or blog that covers a number of topics it would be near impossible to ever reach a point in which you aren’t having to do keyword research consistently.
For your own sake have somebody else go over your keyword research. Make sure it is somebody that hasn’t been involved in the brand before, they may not even be a marketer or part of the business just get a different perspective. If you can have somebody come into the early stages of your research and find a tangent that you hadn’t even considered it could change your business moving into the future. If you’ve had keyword research from 2012, you have to understand that search patterns change and it is important to revise keywords every couple of months.
We are SEO experts and we’ll find those missing tangents or revise your current strategy. We have plenty of people who know what to look for and we can change that missed opportunity into a lucrative one.