Advanced Keyword Research Tutorial (5-Step Blueprint)

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