Using Google’s Keyword Planner
Google makes it easy to find keywords on just about any topic. Head over to the Google Keyword Planner and setup your account to get started. You can search for keywords by entering certain topics into the search bar. The tool will then spit out a bunch of different keywords for you to choose from that are related to the topic at hand. You’ll see a “search volume” ranking next to every keyword that shows you how many people are searching for this term every month.
While your first instinct may be to pick the keywords with the highest search volume, it’s usually best to pick a mix of keywords, some with low search volumes and some with higher search volumes. The higher the term’s search volume, the more competition you’re going to face on Google. Using less popular terms can be seen as “low hanging fruit”, making it easier for your website to make it into the top search results. Don’t be afraid of using longer search terms and phrases. Remember that 50% of search queries are four words or longer.
Using more popular terms will feel more like a marathon than a sprint. It might take your website several months or years to break into the top search results for these popular terms because so many websites are using them in their copy. After all, Google gets over 100 billion searches a month.
Staying Relevant to Your Target Audience
When you’re trying to come up with the right keywords for your blog, you need to make sure that you’re using terms that relate to your business and its products and services. Remember that people are going to be typing these terms into the Google search bar. If your website shows up in the results, it needs to be relevant to the original search term, otherwise Google will push your website further down in the search results.
This means that if you’re using the keyword “cleaning supplies”, you need to product content that’s related to this topic. Google will punish your website if you’re using the keyword “cleaning supplies,” but all your blog posts are about interior decorating. When a person types the search term “cleaning supplies” into Google, they expect to see results about cleaning supplies.
All your blog post topics and posts should be directly related to the keywords that appear in the copy. This ensures that your website is meeting the needs of your target audience and reaching people online that are actually interested in your business and its product and services.
Bring It All Together to Boost Traffic to Your Blog
Using the right keywords for your blog all comes down to staying relevant to the topic at hand. You can use the Google Keyword Planner to find out exactly which terms people are searching for online. Once you find the right terms, come up with blog post topics that are related to your search terms. Sounds pretty simple, right?
David is the Founder and Director of article-writing.co, the fastest-growing content creation agency in North America. He has transformed companies by offering high-quality content that has impacted their SEO ranking, revitalized websites with engaging and industry-relevant blogs and website copy, and championed successful email campaign copy.
