I have a friend that does SEO very well. What separates him is his passion for selecting the right keywords. He spends hours looking for keywords using multiple tools and strategies to identify the perfect match for his client. I personally think that he is old fashioned in his approach, but I have mad respect for him because he is extremely dedicated to getting this part of SEO just right for his client.
The reason why keywords are so important for my friend are that they are the foundation for any successful seo strategy. Keywords are the language of internet search. When we know the words that people are using we can get our information in front of our target audience.
Now I am more of a believer that you can make some mistakes when starting if you have the right tools. Ever since google made the keyword search tool a pay to play option it has changed the keyword game and required marketers like myself to be more creative and dig deeper to find the right keyword. Now we can get keywords from other places but finding the right keywords is more of a challenge when you have a huge selection and the values are not listed next to the words.
Because there are so many options for finding keywords and understanding all the different methods for finding keywords that people will react to I wanted to run through the quick methods I use and reveal the tools that I use when I am getting started and need a place to start (which usually is all you need).
Again these are non traditional methods and are great for getting started on a project.
Method #1
Google “Search Suggest”
The quick explanation
Go to google search > Type in first keyword > Collect suggested keywords from google
Watch this video that goes into detail for more info.
Method #2
Non Google Keyword Tools
So we know that google will only give you their keywords if you have an active adwords account, this was a super smart for google and a great way to make keywords valuable again. With that said the google keyword tool is awesome but does have two limitations that I wanted to point out before I share the newest tool I reccomend. Limitation number one is that you didn’t get LSI keywords, or Buyer keywords similar to what you would find on Amazon. Limitation number 2 the keyword planner is complicated and the amazing stuff like the suggestion tool in the planner is hard to find and use. I am sure that I can find a few other issues but all I have to say is that there are tools that are available that collect all the data you need from multiple sources and drill down to get you the best keywords to focus on for your various projects.
The tool that just came out recently that compiles keywords from multiple locations and then arranges them based oin value and relevance is the one that I really like, because for a small one time price you have everything you need plus this tool will verify with numbers why you should use the keyword you suggest. For more info visit the link to Serpinatr and watch the demo below:
Method #2
Youtube Tags
This method is one that is awesome for ranking videos. Basically you get keyword tags from high ranking youtube videos. Because youtube has tags in every video you can see what someone is trying to rank for, and see if google picked it up. It used to be a tedious process to find these tags as explained below, but thanks to my friend Derral Eves he created a google extension that helps you get these tags quickly bypassing the steps listed below. check out his tool called tubebuddy. Or you can watch this video that explains the long way and has another extension you can use.
Best of luck finding those keywords. If you need help choosing the right keywords contact us and we can certainly do our best to answer your questions.