SEO keywords (also known as “keywords” or “keyphrases”) are terms added to online content in order to improve search engine rankings for those terms. Most keywords are discovered during the keyword research process and are chosen based on a combination of search volume, competition and commercial intent.
Why are SEO Keywords Important?
When you optimize your content around words and phrases that people search for, your website can rank higher for those terms.
Needless to say, ranking higher in the SERPs can drive more targeted traffic to your website. Which is why finding keywords people search for is step #1 of any SEO campaign.
In fact, SEO is pretty much impossible without keywords.
But when you have a list of the right keywords, you can start working on important SEO tasks like:
- Figuring out your site architecture
- Planning out product and category pages
- Writing content for blog posts and YouTube videos
- Optimizing landing pages and sales pages
With that, here’s how to find keywords for SEO.
Best Practices
Use Google Suggest
Many people struggle with SEO because they target keywords that are WAY too competitive.
In fact, I’ve had many clients tell me that they want to rank for super competitive search queries like “weight loss” and “insurance”.
Is it possible to rank for single-word SEO keywords like that? Sure.
But even if you do everything right, it can take years. Which is why I recommend focusing on long tail keywords.
Long tail keywords are long (usually 4+ word) terms that searchers use in Google and other search engines. And they tend to have a lower keyword difficulty compared to 1-3 word “head terms”.
So for people that are new to SEO, long tails are usually the best keywords to start with.
Fortunately, finding long tail terms is a breeze thanks to Google Suggest (also known as Google Autocomplete).
For example, let’s say you wanted to create a page about “keto lunch”. Well, if your site is new, the keyword “keto lunch” is probably too competitive.
But when you type keto lunch into Google, you get a list of long tail keyword suggestions.
Pretty sweet.
Find Question-Based Keywords With These Two Free Keyword Tools
Are you looking for keywords for blog posts and articles?
If so, then you’ll love these two free keyword tools. Both tools bubble up question keywords. Which are PERFECT keywords to create helpful SEO content around.
The first tool is called AnswerThePublic.com.
This tool scans the web for questions that your target audience asks about your topic online.
The second tool for finding question keywords is called “Question DB”.
It’s actually super similar to AnswerThePublic.com. But it tends to bring up its own unique set of questions.
The great thing about these tools is that the question keywords you get are long tail keywords. This means they usually don’t have a ton of competition on Google’s first page.
Find Outside The Box Keywords
The #1 issue with any keyword research tool is that they usually spit out words and phrases that are super related to the seed keyword you typed into it.
For example, look at the keyword suggestions that I get from Semrush when I type in “SEO tips”.
