VANCOUVER, BC
705-1221 Homer St, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6B 1C5
TORONTO, ON
250 Yonge Street, Suite 2201, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5B 2L7
Back

Advanced Keyword Research Tutorial (5-Step Blueprint)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Want to do keyword research the right way in 2019? Then check out this insanely actionable SEO tutorial.

In this video I’ll reveal my 5-step process for finding awesome keywords that your competition doesn’t know about.

Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll learn:

First, I’ll go over the first step to having any sort of success with keyword research. You see, most people fire up a random tool and pick a keyword out of thin air. But there’s a better (and smarter) way.

Next, I’ll get into the ninja strategies that I use to find topics and keywords. Many of these are a bit outside the box, but they work.

Then, you’ll learn how to pick a keyword from a list of options. If you’ve ever wondered: “OK so I have a bunch of keywords…how do I pick the best one?”, you’ll really enjoy this section of the video. Here’s where I’ll show you which factors matter when deciding between different terms to optimize your site around.

And finally, I’ll cap things off with a sweet little bonus tip (and a mini case study).

Of course, like any of my videos, I also sprinkle in LOTS of examples, pro tips and case studies. I’ll also show you how I use the Google Keyword Planner (and a few other tools that I recommend).

In short, if you want to learn how to do keyword research, I recommend checking out today’s video.

Transcript:

00:00
– In this video, I’m gonna show you my proven
00:02
five step keyword research blueprint.
00:04
This is the same blueprint I’ve used
00:06
to help grow my site to over a hundred fifty thousand
00:09
unique visitors per month.
00:11
I’m Brian Dean, the founder of Backlinko
00:12
the place where marketers turn for higher rankings
00:15
and more traffic.
00:16
And today you’re gonna learn
00:17
exactly how to find the best keywords for your business.
00:21
Keep watching.
00:27
When I first got started with SEO
00:28
my approach to keyword research was a total mess.
00:32
Back then, I’ll fire up the latest and greatest
00:34
keyword research tool
00:35
and start typing in a bunch of random keywords.
00:38
So, what’s wrong with this approach?
00:40
My competitors were doing the exact same thing.
00:43
No wonder most of the keywords I found
00:45
were insanely competitive.
00:47
Now over the years I developed a keyword research blueprint
00:50
that works really well.
00:51
Specifically, this blueprint will help you
00:53
uncover keywords that your competition
00:56
doesn’t know about.
00:57
So let’s dive right in with step number one of this process
01:00
which is to identify your customer persona.
01:03
This is a step that most people skip
01:05
and it hurts them.
01:06
(zapp) Aww. What was that?
01:08
So what is identifying your customer persona actually mean?
01:12
Let me explain with an example.
01:14
My site sells SEO Training products
01:16
to small and medium size businesses.
01:19
Most people in my position
01:20
would open up a keyword research tool
01:22
and type in things like; SEO training and SEO courses
01:26
into the tool.
01:27
What’s the problem with this approach?
01:29
First off like I mentioned before
01:30
your competition is doing the exact same thing.
01:34
Which means you’re gonna run into
01:35
the exact same set of keywords as your competitors.
01:38
But more important than that
01:39
this approach ignores a very important fact
01:42
about your customer and that fact is this:
01:44
your customer spends 99.9 percent of their time online
01:49
not searching for what you sell.
01:51
In other words, if you only target your customer
01:54
when they search for the exact thing you sell
01:56
you’re missing out on hundreds of other opportunities
02:00
to get in front of them.
02:01
For example in my case
02:02
I noticed that most of my customers were SEO agencies.
02:06
So I went to forums and online communities
02:08
where SEO agency owners tended to hang out.
02:11
That way I could see what my target customer search for
02:14
when he wasn’t searching for SEO training.
02:17
And I discovered that there are dozens of keywords
02:19
that my target customer typed into Google
02:21
that were related to my products but had nothing to do
02:25
with SEO training.
02:26
Keywords like on-page SEO
02:28
list building
02:29
how to get more traffic
02:30
and SEO tools.
02:32
And because I target these keywords
02:34
I get my business in front of
02:35
thousands of my target customers every single day.
02:39
And when my target customers ready to buy
02:41
I’m the first person that comes to mind.
02:44
That’s the power of doing keyword research
02:46
based on your customer persona.
02:48
And all you need to do for this step
02:50
is say my customer is X.
02:53
For example, if you run an online flower shop
02:55
you might say; my customer is a bride
02:58
getting ready for her upcoming wedding.
03:00
That was easy, right?
03:01
Now that you’ve identified your customer persona
03:03
it’s time to find topics that your customer
03:06
is interested in.
03:07
Which leads us to the next step
03:08
in my keyword research blueprint
03:10
which is to find topics that your customers care about.
03:14
So how do you find these topics?
03:16
Its simple.
03:17
Go to where your target customer hangs out online.
03:20
Then look for topics that they tend to discuss.
03:23
Seriously, that’s it.
03:25
For example in my case, my customers tend to hang out
03:27
at marketing-focused communities
03:30
like inbound.org and growthhackers.com
03:33
In your case
03:34
your target customer may hang out in places like
03:36
Pinterest, Reddit, YouTube, industry blogs and niche forums.
03:40
Once you’ve identified where your target customer hangs out
03:43
it’s time to keep an eye out for topics
03:45
that are important to them.
03:46
For example in my case, I noticed that link building
03:49
was one of the most popular topics in the online communities
03:53
that my audience spent time on.
03:56
So I wrote down link building as a topic.
03:58
And I kept digging until I found at least five topics
04:01
that my target customers talked about
04:03
in online communities.
04:05
Now that you have at least five topics
04:07
it’s time to drill down into finding keywords.
04:10
Here, my four favorite tactics for finding on-tap keywords
04:14
that your competition doesn’t know about.
04:16
First we have Google Suggest.
04:19
To use this strategy, just head over to Google
04:21
and type your topic into the search field.
04:24
But don’t press Enter.
04:25
Instead, take a look at the keywords
04:27
that Google suggests for you.
04:29
These are usually awesome, long tail keywords
04:32
that you can go after.
04:34
As a quick pro tip, try putting a few spaces
04:36
before your keyword.
04:38
This will show you a completely different set
04:40
of keyword ideas.
04:42
Next up, we have quora.com.
04:44
Quora is a massive community of people that ask
04:48
and answer questions on every topic under the sun.
04:51
All you need to do is search for your topic in Quora
04:54
and see which keywords tend to show up.
04:56
Our next tactic for finding keywords is to use Reddit.
05:00
Like Quora, Reddit is a massive community of people
05:03
that discuss every topic under the sun
05:05
from pets to politics.
05:07
To use Reddit for keyword research
05:09
simply head over to Reddit and search for your topic.
05:12
When you find a thread on your topic
05:13
keep an eye out for words and phrases that tend to come up
05:16
again and again.
05:18
These make awesome keyword ideas.
05:20
Next up we have Google’s Searches Related To feature.
05:24
To use this feature, simply type your topic into Google.
05:27
Then scroll to the bottom of the results.
05:30
Google then show you other searches
05:32
that are related to the keyword you just put in.
05:35
These are usually excellent long tail keywords
05:37
that you can target with your content.
05:40
Finally we have Wikipedia.
05:42
What other site had in-depth articles for topics like
05:45
mall walking
05:46
The Lingerie Football League
05:47
henlias, the five-second rule.
05:50
To use Wikipedia for keyword research
05:52
just head over to Wikipedia and type in your topic.
05:55
Then take a look at the other entries
05:57
that that article links to.
06:00
These are usually closely-related topics
06:02
and even potential keywords themselves.
06:04
Also, make sure to check out the table of contents
06:07
for the entry.
06:09
Again, these are usually keywords
06:11
that are closely tied to your topic.
06:13
Now that you have a list of potential keywords
06:15
it’s time to choose the best from your list.
06:18
How? By analyzing each keyword’s commercial intent.
06:22
One of the first websites I ever built
06:24
shot to the top of Google for my target keyword.
06:27
And because that keyword got a ton of search volume
06:29
that single ranking helped that site generate
06:31
over 60,000 unique visitors per month.
06:35
All good right? Wrong.
06:36
Even thought that keyword got a ton of searches
06:38
the people that searched for that keyword
06:41
were flat broke.
06:42
Which made monetizing that traffic impossible.
06:45
Sorry dude, I’m broke.
06:48
That’s why today I pay very close attention to a keyword’s
06:51
commercial intent.
06:53
Commercial intent simply means
06:54
how likely someone searching for a given keyword
06:57
is to buy from you.
06:58
Here’s how to find out if your keyword
07:00
has a high commercial intent or not.
07:02
First, head over to the Google Keyword Planner
07:04
and type in one of your potential keywords.
07:08
Then take a look at the Suggested bid column.
07:11
This shows you how much advertisers are spending in AdWords
07:14
for a single click from this keyword.
07:17
Obviously, the higher the suggested bid
07:19
the more valuable that keyword is.
07:22
Another simple way to size up commercial intent
07:24
is to see how many AdWords ads
07:27
appear when you search for your keyword in Google.
07:30
If you search for your keyword and see lots of AdWords ads
07:33
it means that people are chobbing at the bit
07:35
to bring those searchers to their site.
07:38
Okay, now it’s time for our last step
07:40
which is to look at each keywords search volume.
07:43
Back in the day, Google would show you
07:45
exact search volume numbers in the Google Keyword Planner.
07:49
Unfortunately, that ship has sailed.
07:52
Today, unless you’re running active AdWords campaigns
07:55
they show you an extremely unhelpful search volume range.
08:00
So how can you see how many people searched
08:02
for your keyword?
08:03
There are two freemium tools that get the job done.
08:07
The first is semrush.com.
08:10
To find a keyword search volume
08:12
simply type the keyword into SEMrush
08:14
and they’ll show you how many searches that keyword gets
08:17
every month. Simple.
08:19
You can also use kwfinder.com.
08:23
Again, just pop your keyword into the tool
08:25
and you’ll see the exact amount of searches
08:28
that it gets every month.
08:30
Now before you decide in a keyword
08:31
I recommend one last bonus step.
08:34
Now this step is completely optional.
08:36
But in my experience it helps you find the absolute
08:39
best keywords for your business.
08:41
And that step is to look at your keyword’s growth
08:44
in Google Trends.
08:45
For example, let’s say that you found two keywords
08:48
that have similar search volume and commercial intent
08:51
and you don’t know which one to pick.
08:53
But when you look at Google Trends
08:55
you notice that one keyword is growing in popularity
08:58
and the other is dropping like a stone.
09:01
Obviously you’d wanna go with the keyword that’s growing.
09:04
A couple of years ago, this step saved my butt.
09:07
I was debating whether to target one of two keywords.
09:11
Google Keyword Tool
09:12
or Google Keyword Planner?
09:14
You see, Google has recently renamed the Google Keyword Tool
09:18
the Google Keyword Planner.
09:20
But the keyword Google Keyword Tool still got
09:23
20 times more searches than Google Keyword Planner.
09:27
So I almost pulled the trigger on Google Keyword Tool.
09:30
That is until I looked at Google Trends.
09:34
That’s when I noticed
09:35
that searches for the Google Keyword Planner
09:37
were skyrocketing
09:38
while searched for the Google Keyword Tool
09:41
were steadily dropping.
09:43
So I decided to go with the Google Keyword Planner
09:46
and it was a good move.
09:47
I now rank in the top five for that keyword
09:49
and it’s a keyword that’s growing in popularity everyday.
09:53
Okay, so that’s all there is to my five step
09:56
keyword research blueprint.
09:57
If you follow the blueprint you should have a handful
10:00
of excellent keywords that you can use.
10:02
And once you have those
10:03
it’s a matter of creating landing pages and content
10:06
optimized around those terms.
10:08
If you liked this video, make sure to subscribe
10:10
to my YouTube channel right now.
10:12
It’s easy. Just click on the Subscribe button right here.
10:16
Also, if you want exclusive SEO techniques
10:18
that I only share with subscribers
10:20
head over to backlinko.com
10:21
and sign up for the newsletter. It’s free.
10:24
Now I want to turn it over to you.
10:26
Which step from this video was new to you?
10:28
Or maybe you tried them all already.
10:30
If so, you probably have a favorite technique
10:32
that works well for you.
10:34
Either way, let me know
10:35
by leaving a quick comment right now.
10:38
Okay, let’s do it.
10:39
I just ssshshh do that if…
10:41
Oh man, I can’t this is a tough one.
10:42
Good? Aight.
10:43
Ahh, gotta move around more.
10:45
Ah-haa-eh.
10:46
In depth, pfft, pfft… okay.
10:48
Donesky.

Optimized Webmedia Marketing is the best SEO Vancouver company and the best Vancouver SEO company. We offer top-notch search engine optimization (SEO) solutions to companies of all sizes. To learn how we can help optimize your website to attract more visitors, book a free consultation.

ONE-STOP SHOP

SEO, GOOGLE ADS, PPC, DIGITAL MARKETING SOCIAL MEDIA, AMAZON, WEB DESIGN

OUR AWARDS
Testimonials

What our clients say
about our studio.

OUR CLIENTS
OUR PARTNERS
OUR ASSOCIATIONS

Let's Start a Project Together!

    0/5 (0 Reviews)

    We use cookies to give you the best experience. Cookie Policy