A blog is only as good as its content, so finding out what your audience wants to read is critical. Everyday the internet, your users, and they way they interact with content online changes. To keep up with those trends to ensure you are writing content that will still resonate with your audience, it is important to do research.
But where do you start?
Well, it starts with that search box we all know so well.
Strategy #1: Don’t Hit Enter
This strategy was first introduced to me in a SEER blog post about finding long-tail keywords to target. More recently, however, I have been using this strategy to find out what my audience is researching. Let’s say, for example, that I am a food blogger that specializes in homemade dog food recipes for all the dog lovers out there.
I could easily write about all the different dog food recipes out there but how do you know what KIND of recipes your audience is looking for? Well, start where they start.
Adding the asterisk before “dog food recipe” allowed us to see all of the topics our audience is researching. People are not just looking for dog food recipes, they are looking for dry dog food recipes, vet-approved dog food recipes, and grain-free dog food recipes. Knowing this, you can tailor your content calendar around these long-tail keywords.
You can also use the 5 W’s (and the 1 H) to find questions around your specific blog topic. If I was a fashion blogger, I might look at questions around how to wear certain fashions or what to wear with statement pieces that are trending:
If you don’t want to worry about getting advanced with Google Search, simply add in the keyword and you will find topics surrounding those keywords that may help you with your content creation process. If I were writing a blog about party planning, I would want to know what people are looking for around party planning:
Seeing this information, I might start creating checklists for my readers around various parties that they might be planning. Or maybe I could give some insight into how I started my own party planning business.
Your readers use Google every day, so why not find out what they are typing?
So, remember…
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Don’t hit enter
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Add an asterisk before your keywords to long-tail keywords
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Use the 5 W’s (and the 1 H) to see what questions you can answer for your audience
Strategy 2: AdWords
The great thing about Google is that they have a slew of free tools for you to use for keyword research and content ideas. If you have a Gmail account, I suggest you create an AdWords account so you can use their free Keyword Planner tool. Follow these steps to set it up:
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Create a Gmail account
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Enter in your site URL as seen below
Once you have it set up, you can use their keyword research tool to find keywords that are searched often. To do this, follow these steps:
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Enter around 5 keywords that are relevant to your topic. For this example, I will use dog food recipes.
You can target these keywords by location, language, and search engine if you would like to get more granular but that is typically not necessary.
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From there, Google Keyword Planner will tell you the following:
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Average Monthly Search Volume: this is the number of times that keyword is searched on a monthly basis. This number is important when deciding which keywords to include in titles and content. The more it’s searched, the more popular the topic is.
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Related Keywords: these are keywords that are related to the 5 that you first input at the beginning of the process. This is a great way to find out what your audience is searching for most.
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Seasonal Trends: use these trends to predict when topics are popular. This will help you create a content calendar that is timely and useful when your readers need it most.
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With this information, you can make smart decisions about what topics to write about, when to publish, and which keywords to include.
Strategy #3: Ubersuggest.org
Now that you have a list of popular keywords, you can use the first strategy and throw them into Google and not hit ‘Enter’. Or you can let a nifty little tool do it for you. Ubersuggest.org takes all of the information that you would get from Google Search and puts it in one tool. To find long-tail keywords and content ideas, follow these steps:
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Go to ubersuggest.org
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Enter in your keyword
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Ubersuggest will then provide a list of relevant keywords in alphabetical order. You can either export or go through and pick the keywords that you think are most applicable to your blog and topic.
And look at that! You’ve got a little over 10 dog food recipes that you can now create for your audience!
Of course, these are not the only tools out there but these are some great places to start. This is particularly true if you are ever stuck in a rut, have writer’s block, or just want to learn more about your audience.
Have any tips or tricks that you like to use? Let us know if the comments or on Twitter at @AmpliFound!
