Keyword Research Tools
Write articles that address YOUR readers’ needs!
The overwhelmingly positive response to yesterday’s blog posting tells me that there is going to be a LOT of article writing happening between now and July 1st! So over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing an assortment of tips and tricks to help you not only generate ideas for all those new articles, but also help you identify ways to make the articles you write more effective.
One way to optimize your articles’ effectiveness is through the appropriate use of keywords. People use different words when they search for online content. These search terms are called keywords.
Keyword Research tools can help you discover topics that people are currently searching for that are related to your expertise. Use this as a springboard to write articles that directly relate to the topics your potential audience is searching for. Provide articles that answer the readers’ questions in their search query.
Popular Keyword Research Tools:
- Wordtracker: Generates keywords for search engine and website optimization.
- Keyword Discovery: Compiles keyword search stats from worldwide search engines.
- Goodkeywords: Downloadable freeware that queries a number of popular search engines to identify good keywords.
- Google Alerts: Email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your choice of topic or keywords.
- Google Suggest: As you type in a keyword, Google offers suggestions and shows the number of results.
- Example: “Yoga” when entered into Google Suggest tells me that I should write articles about “Yoga Journals” or “Yoga Journaling”.
Key Insight: While you may be tempted to write only about the most popular topics, also remember that these topics have the most competition within the search engines — meaning, you are fighting against hundreds or thousands of competitors to get the attention of the market to your article.
Perhaps a better strategy is to focus on the middle to lower “tail” of the market by looking at the 50th-200th most popular keywords or phrases from your keyword research and use them as your basis for your next set of articles. There will be less competition for the ‘long tail’ than the short list of most popular terms and key-phrases.
Tip: Look at how your niche keywords may intersect with a holiday or current event. It’s a great way to pick up current interest traffic!
The keyword research tools listed above are just some suggestions — do you have one that you think is better? If so, please share it with the rest of us in the comments!
There’s still time to enroll in the 100 Articles in 100 Days Marathon Challenge and put these keyword research tools to good use… plus get a FREE mug! Are you in?
Ohh! This makes me so happy! I just sat down to write my 1 of 100 articles and could use some tips.
Happy day!
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