So I’m generally curious how in depth everyone is when it comes to doing keyword research in general, and how it fits into their content marketing plans?
Normally I identify a niche and outline what I want to write about, simply based on initial face value interest before diving into AHREFS.
It could be something around my house, or in my garage, something I’m using or have used before, or want to try and start using more often. It usually comes to me when I’m paying for something, that’s when my mind starts working and saying “hmm, I wonder if this service provider or product seller is really doing well within their business, let me check their niche.”
Whether it’s a product, service, philosophy, it usually comes to me one way or another. Once I have my idea outlined, I begin compiling a list of keywords that I know off hand regarding the niche, then take them into google and start looking at the first ten organic websites than rank for those keywords.
Once I’ve compiled a list of competitors and take a look at their blog and website design, length of content ect... generally looking for the kind of investment raised to build their websites, I tend to add their websites to a list of websites.
Once I do that, I go into my first keyword tool (AHREFS), and depending whether or not they pass the AHREFS research, I’ll jump into others, like Google Trends, or social platforms and market places. Usually though, starting with the competitors websites, I plug them into a site explore/content gap checker to check them for keywords against a domain in an unrelated niche. This is to try to expose as many connections between my competition as possible while not excluding any that the primary/unrelated domain might already have.
Once I do that, I tend to not filter any results from that list, and hand select/bulk add keywords that are relevant to the industry into a keyword list on AHREFS. I do this without caring for difficulty, or length, or volume. Once they’re all added, and I have a healthy amount of keywords (let’s say 200-300) inside of a keyword list, let’s call it (Niche Relevance List), then I jump into that keyword list, change the view mode to ‘All Keyword Ideas’ and normally this expands the keyword opportunities to millions.
That’s when I start to apply filters, and re-add more relevancy keywords. The first filter that I add is one that includes any question related keywords. So this could be “who, what, where, how, why”, you can always use the “questions” selector but I don’t want to limit all other types of keyword ideas using that portion of the tool.
Another way of quickly finding and adding more relevancy to my list is by changing the minimum keyword length to 6. This immediately identifies longtail keywords, and generally I use this process on a wash, rinse, repeat method to quickly raise a niche up to 1000 keywords or more of relevant keyword terms.
From there I start to apply critical filters to my overview of relevant keywords list depending on my business goals behind the niche.
If it’s a new domain, I drop the max KW difficulty to 10. If it’s an affiliate blog, I include buyer modifiers. If it’s a search display blog, I include query modifiers. If it’s a mix of both, I sort for both of them. (Usually both)
Then, I drop the max search volume to 500 or less. Now I know what you might be thinking, (why would he do dat?), well.. my thoughts are that having a higher search volume keyword = more competition = having to do more out reach and social media = perhaps not providing enough short term #1 positions.
I also think that if you create content in general that isn’t having a high probability of getting the #1 position, due to lack of authority, lack social signals, lack of age, or lack of content structure/seo optimization ect... may lead to many other things being affected in a negative way.
Sort of like fighting above your weight equates to losses that may hinder your overall boxing record? Idk, something I worry about.
So, that being said, on average that’s ultimately what I end up with, really easy winnable keyword fights that won’t take all year to rank for, and give me a little bit of niche credibility as the new website starts to rank.
What about you guys?
Submitted July 03, 2020 at 02:26PM by ChrisshinMC https://www.reddit.com/r/Blogging/comments/hku4ae/whats_your_keyword_researching_method/?utm_source=ifttt
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