How To Do Keyword Research For Blog Posts: A Beginner’s Guide
Do you want to learn how to do keyword research for blog posts once and for all?
Some might argue that this is not possible:
Google rolls numerous algorithm updates every year. Nothing about the process of optimizing web pages stays the same.
Actually, one thing does, and that is keyword research.
Mastering the art behind doing efficient keyword research will help grow your traffic. Once you know how to filter your content ideas, you’ll be able to create blog posts that will attract thousands of views every day.
Today, we’ll talk about what keyword research is, why it matters, how to do it effectively, whether you should use a free keyword research tool, etc.
This post may contain affiliate links – read my disclosure.
Recommended Read:
- What To Blog About (When You Don’t Know What To Blog About)
- How To Start A Blog That Will Make You Money
What Is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is a discovery process that allows you to find and analyze phrases users search for while looking for content such as yours.
Whether you like it or not, you need to learn how to do keyword research for blog posts:
If you know what keywords your target audience enters into Google’s search bar, you’ll be able to use them to optimize your articles.
Finding the best keywords possible for your blog post is crucial for two reasons:
It will satisfy the search engines enough so they would rank your content high on their pages, but it will satisfy the readers as well:
By all means, that’s what nailing the user’s intent is all about.
In other words, productive keyword research entails discovering and using keywords your target audience is looking for and delivering content that satisfies the intent behind the search.
Why Does Knowing How To Do Keyword Research For Blog Posts Matter?
First and foremost, keyword research is not just about coming up with the best keywords to target:
It’s also about gaining valuable insight into the search queries your readers look for online.
Such insight will help you understand how people perform any particular search on Google.
Years ago, targeting keywords that exactly match a reader’s search was one of the most important ranking factors, but not anymore.
Right now, if you want to see your post on Google’s first page, that post must deliver a solution to the problem your readers are looking to resolve.
While browsing online, people type the keywords they think will help them find solutions to a problem they have.
Now, if these people land on your content during their research, that’s how your website will start getting traffic.
Here is where the keyword research process can get tricky:
More often than not, what you want your site to rank for and what solution your readers are looking for are two different things.
As a result, you shouldn’t create the type of content that tells Internet users what you want them to know.
Instead, you have to publish articles that cover content the readers need to discover.
Benefits Of Proper Keyword Research
Mastering the process of keyword research will benefit you as a website owner in many ways.
These are the essential ones:
Web Traffic Growth
Actually, I don’t think I have to say much about the connection between keyword research and getting traffic to your blog.
It’s quite simple to understand it:
If you know what keywords to target in every piece of content you publish, that content will rank higher on the search engines.
When that happens, your content will pull more visitors to your blog.
Customer Growth
Answering questions and solving problems for your readers will allow you to turn visitors into customers.
Going after keywords with large search volumes will let you provide answers to questions thousands, even millions of people, have.
Utilizing Marketing Trends
Performing fruitful keyword research works the same way for evergreen topics and currently popular marketing trends.
Taking advantage of the hottest trends will allow you to create content audience members are actively searching for at the moment.
Factors To Consider When Doing Keyword Research
Three essential factors will affect the outcome of your keyword research process and the phrases you’ll decide to target:
- Search Volume: Ranking on position one, page one of Google for a specific keyword will not do you a lot of good if no one ever clicks on that result. Go after keywords that have some monthly search volume. Personally, I never target keywords with less than 50 monthly searches.
- Authority: Your site won’t rank well if very authoritative websites are occupying the top positions on Google for the same phrases. As a blog owner, you have to work hard to increase the Domain Authority (DA) of your site. Once your DA is high enough, Google will start seeing you as an expert in your respective field.
- Relevance: By all means, relevance has a lot to do with the user’s intent. Your keyword will secure a rank on page one of the search engines only if it satisfies the searcher’s needs.
How To Do Keyword Research For Blog Posts – Blog Keyword Research Free Guide
Generally, bloggers and content creators have different approaches to conducting keyword research.
I’ll walk you through the keyword research process I go through every time I brainstorm content ideas and their relevant keywords.
That process is simple and easy to follow. Feel free to take advantage of it until you come up with your own SEO and keyword research strategy.
1) Create A List Of Broader Topics Relevant To Your Business
Your search to find the perfect keyword or phrase has to start somewhere.
An excellent place to begin the process is by thinking of some general search terms related to your business.
Most marketers and content creators call these broad search terms topic buckets.
Write down at least ten topic buckets that cover the nature of your business. Later on, you’ll use them to come up with specific keywords to target.
Knowing who your target audience is inside and out is crucial if you want to make the best of this keyword research stage.
Get inside your customer’s head and think about topics that person is searching for online.
Let’s imagine that you blog about blogging. More likely than not, these will be some of your topic buckets:
- How to start a blog (10K)
- Web hosting services (6K)
- Make money blogging (5K)
To clarify, the number you see behind each topic is the monthly search volume of that phrase.
2) Narrow Your Topic Buckets Down To Specific Keywords
While we have a long way to go until you get a complete answer to the question of how to do keyword research for blog posts, the next step you’ll have to take will clear the whole picture big time.
Assuming that your topic buckets are all set, it’s time to fill them with specific keywords you’ll target when creating your content.
Again, each keyword you’ll decide to go after has to match closely the searches your target customers perform online.
Shall we grab the How To Start A Blog topic bucket and look for specific keyword phrases your readers type into Google’s search bar?
Have a look at what these phrases might be:
- How to start a WordPress blog
- How to start a blog business
- How to start a blog page
- Steps to starting a blog
Remember – the goal during step two is not to write down a final list of the keywords you’ll use in your content creation strategy.
Instead, keep these keywords in mind since they’re phrases your readers may research to discover content relevant to that particular topic bucket.
3) Learn How User Intent Affects The Keyword Research Process
I know – I already explained what user intent is earlier in this article on how to do keyword research for blog posts.
Still, I have to press on user intent harder since understanding it will define the ability of your content to rank high on the search engines.
These days, Google cares far more if your article covers the problem a reader intends to solve than the keyword you target.
Going back to one of the topic buckets you see above, let’s chew on the meaning of the word blog for a minute.
When a person types the word blog into Google’s search bar, what’s the intent behind that person’s research?
Do they want to know how to launch a WordPress blog or how to create a blog post?
After all, a blog can mean both of these things.
Never commit to using a specific keyword until you fully understand the user’s intent of the people looking for that keyword online.
Pro Tip:
If you want to nail the user’s intent every time, type the keyword you plan to target into Google’s search bar and check the results.
Doing this will show you what Google sees as the most relevant results to your search query.
4) Research Related Search Terms
Chances are, most of you probably already know to always check the related search terms that pop up when you type a keyword in Google’s search bar.
Don’t underestimate this step when you’re doing keyword research:
These related search terms will give you valuable insight into what other keywords people are researching when they browse online.
To gain even more information, click on any of the related search terms and study their related search terms.
The Google keyword research tool is the best one there is!
5) Use Keyword Research Tool To Decide On A Keyword To Target
Utilizing the power of a professional keyword research tool has to be an inseparable part of your keyword research process.
A keyword research tool will provide you with all the data you need to decide on a specific keyword to target.
Keyword Research Tools You Can Use:
- Ahrefs Keyword Research Tool
- Google Keyword Planner
- Keywords Everywhere
- SEMrush
- Ubersuggest
- Moz
- KWFinder
Is There A Free Keyword Research Tool?
Basically, most of the keyword research tools available come with free and paid plans.
Ahrefs, for example, requires a monthly fee before it gives it access to all the data you need to do your job properly.
But you can use its free features to gain keyword insights to some extent.
What Is The Best Free Keyword Research Tool?
In my opinion, the best free keyword research tool is Google Keyword Planner.
You can still use this tool for free if you know how to access it without paying anything at all.
Go ahead and set up a Google Ads account to access Google Keyword Planner for free.
No worries – you won’t have to pay for Google ads just because you’ll have an account!
How To Do Keyword Research For Blog Posts – Tips And Ideas
Alright, let’s take a look at the working process that will allow you to pick a keyword to target from start to finish, shall we?
Here are the steps of this process:
1) Use Google Keyword Planner To Narrow Down Your Keyword List
Personally, I use Jaaxy – it’s my favorite keyword research tool for a variety of reasons. See what these reasons are here.
However, you can go with the Google Keyword Planner if that’s the tool you prefer.
So, GKP will show you all the essential data about the keyword you plan to use, such as monthly search volume and traffic estimates.
Having access to this data will narrow your keyword ideas down:
It will show you which keywords to take out of your list.
To clarify, you should get rid of keywords with very low search volume (no traffic) and very high search volume (too much competition).
2) Give Priority To Low-Hanging Fruits
For those who don’t know, low-hanging fruit is a term that describes phrases with low competition you can rank for even if your blog has no DA.
When you’re starting a blog, it’s not a good idea to go after high search volume keywords because Google will rank established sites for them instead of yours.
With that said, you should make sure that you have both head terms and low-hanging fruits in your topic buckets.
Generally, a head term doesn’t contain more than three words. Meanwhile, a low-hanging fruit has more words and can be a whole question.
Why it’s so important to have head terms and long-tail terms on your list?
Well, you need to work with both of them to build a long-term keyword research strategy.
Users research head terms way more often than they do low-hanging fruits. However, low-tail keywords are way more specific than the head terms.
3) Pick a Keyword To Use
OK, learning how to do keyword research for blog posts is pointless if you don’t know what to look for when you decide on a keyword to target.
I’ll use Jaaxy to show you all the data the tool provides me with to help me decide whether to go after a keyword or not.
Shall we see what happens once I run How To Start A Blog through Jaaxy?
Let me explain the meaning of the terms you see in the screenshot above:
- AVG (the average amount of searches the keyword is getting per month)
- Traffic (visits to your site if you achieve first-page rankings in the search engines)
- QSP (number of competitive websites ranking on Google for this exact keyword)
- KQI (keyword quality indicator – green is great, yellow is OK, red is poor)
- SEO (score based on traffic and competition – the higher the score, the better your chance to rank for the keyword)
Now that you have access to all this data, choosing a keyword to target becomes as easy as it can get.
You can start using Jaaxy for free once you create a free account on Wealthy Affiliate.
4) Check The Keywords Your Competitors Are Ranking For
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying to copy everything your competition does and do the same.
Instead, knowing what keywords your competitors are chasing after will give you more ideas to add to your topic buckets.
How To Do Keyword Research For Blog Posts – My Closing
At this point, you already know to go about doing keyword research and what the process entails.
Mastering the art of effective keyword research will put you through an extensive learning curve.
But it would be all worth it once you see your keywords ranking well in the search engines!
Do you have any questions on this topic?
Is there something you don’t understand about keyword research?
Ask me whatever you want about keywords, and I’ll answer to the best of my knowledge.
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You have done an excellent job explaining how to do keyword research for blog posts, so many beginners struggling with understanding how to research properly for the best keywords to get the most traffic
Since I started using Jaaxy my traffic has increased dramatically, so this is my one and only keyword research tool I will ever use
Jeff
I don’t see myself changing Jaaxy anytime soon either, Jeff!
Thanks for visiting my site.
Informative post. It gives a better idea of how to own a site that can rank by using correct keywords and apply enough SEO to our website. Jaxxy seems like a very useful tool. Thanks.
It’s more than useful, Yongli.
I’m happy that you enjoyed my post.
Hi,
Great article about the keyword search if you are a blogger or a vlogger. I personally found it very useful and will be applying this knowledge into practice.
Thank you
Habib
You are welcome, Habib.
Glad I was able to help!