SEO tip 9 – Do a keyword research for knowing what to write

Before you start writing, there is always good to do a keyword research for knowing what to write. Because you do not want to write a 100% onpage optimized text that appears on spot one in Google if nobody is searching for the text, right? That would be waste of time and money. So before writing, make sure to do a keyword research.

What tool to use in keyword research?

There is one good free one, that is the Google Keyword Tool. That is more or less the standard tool for keyword research, from which everyone starts. And you have probably tested it already, but here is some more texts about how to really find the words to write about.

Start with a broad keyword research

When you are at the keyword tool page, start with writing a topic you are interested in writing about.

Now when the new Facebook layout is launched, nobody wants to read my posts about how to make Facebook profile banners anymore, so I have to write a new one about Facebook covers soon. It would be impossible for me to rank well with a blogpost about Facebook covers, there are too much competition, but I start with searching for that anyway.

Keyword tool gives you suggestions

So, I get a whole lot of suggestions of phrases to write about. I choose 10-20 of them and also adds some from my mind and puts them into the search box again.

So, now I have a couple of headings to chose from. I will now write two or three blog posts about some of those “keywords”. And I will write it optimized like in my SEO checklist. And hopefully my blog post then ends up somewhere quite high in Google.

Which words to chose in the keyword tool result table?

That is always a good question. You have to chose the keywords with less competition and a lot of searches. Searches you see to the right. Competition is a little harder, but try to search the words in common Google search engine and see which sites appears in top 5. If it is small sites or blogs, then the competition might be quite low. If it is big brands and corporate sites, the competition might be a little higher. And if there is a lot of sites with the exact phrase in the title (The blue line you can click on for every spot in the search results), then the competition might be quite high as well, because that shows that someone else are trying to get the spots as well, by writing texts about exactly the same.

Some more keyword tool tricks

If you are not writing in English, remember to change the “location and language” in keyword tool to your language, and then just look at the column to the right, where it says “Local monthly searches”.

Put the “Match type” to “exact” in the left sidebar. Then you will only see how many are searching for exactly the phrase you are targeting. But I am also targeting a lot of long-tail words in every blogpost, so for me the “broad” or “phrase” is enough data.

If you find keywords with more than 1000 local monthly searches in “exact” mode and there are low competition, do not hesitate, write about the keyword! Like NOW!

If you find keywords with more than 10000 searches in “exact” mode, buy a domain including that keyword and make a whole site about it. :)

Remember that the numbers are not 100% reliable, and often just about 0ne third of the monthly searches presented. Thanks for reading about how to do keyword researches in Google keyword tool!