Popular Keywords at Your Fingertips
Blogs need to be created around search engines initially. Even though you think that your content will be discovered without much work and promotion, you are wrong. While search engines do cut some of the work out for you, there are still some steps that you have to follow in order to see the best results in search engines.
Using tags as keywords, integrating keywords into your headers, as well as titles, can certainly help you optimize your content to deliver relevant results to people that search for terms with the included words, but isn’t where you should stop. People might not be thinking like you when you wrote your content, so your keywords might not be of much help when they aren’t the same as what people are searching for.
A great way to find keywords is by using your search engine, something that we have all become accustomed to by now.
In this post, I’ll explain a few ways to find good keywords which you can use as tags or include throughout your content (I advise you against writing for the search engines, of course). I’ll be focusing on terms related to this blog, such as “blogging,” “blogging tips,” etc.
As the market leader, Google has recently introduced some tools that make it easier to find related searches and discover what people are searching for.
You’ll find that there is a list of related searches when after you enter in the keywords. In most cases, you’ll find that you have to go to a separate options area to access this feature. Nonetheless, is is provided without having to do much work.
Some of the related searches that it discovered for the term “blogging” were: starting a blog, advantages of blogging, business blogging, blogging history, blogging software, blogging dangers, blogging sites, blogging in education, free blogging, and blogging websites. Terms that weren’t included in your search are highlighted, while the terms you used are highlighted in the results.
These keywords also tend to be the most popular, including their order, so you may want to investigate writing posts around them.
A “Wonder Wheel” feature is also available, which is similar, in helping you dissect how people search. Branching off “blogging” is “podcast,” which breaks down to: “podcast tutorial,” podcast pickle,” “podcast adult,” “podcast education,” “sopcast,” “zencast,” “create a podcast,” and “podcast player.” This time, results became a little less similar, but still related.
Yahoo
Yahoo’s related searches are a part of their “Search Assist” technology, included at the page when you click “More…” next to the “Also try” bar.
The terms were similar to that of Google’s, although they are a bit more diversified, ranging form “blogging sites,” “blogging project runway,” “free blogging,” “make money blogging,” through “political bloggers.”
Nonetheless, the first few actual results were similar to Google’s results, however beyond this, they were quite different. The key in targeting keywords is to use a mixture of what people would actually search for, based on more vague and more long-tail keywords, which might not see as much traffic initially.
Interesting between Google’s and Yahoo’s results is the fact that advertisers are able to target better on Google (at least in my opinion), providing more relevant advertisers for these terms (Yahoo’s focuses on a variety of Internet products, form hosting to search engines, while Google’s includes actual blogging services and tools).
Ask
Still a contender, Ask offers a mixture between the other search engines. The actual definition of the term is delivered, along with phrases, rather than keywords (within the right panel).
Often branching away from the traditional search engine, this one bases some of its results on questions that people “answer,” in posts. Let’s say you create a post that contains a question in the title. This search engine may index it, linking to the page, although this is fairly new, under “Ask Q&A.”
Some of the relevant related searches for “blogging” include: “What is the Meaning of the Term Blogging?,” “How Do I Start Blogging?,” “Define Blogging,” “History of Blogging,” “Blogging Advice,” “Explain Blogging,” “Blogging Guides,” “Blogging Phenomenon,” “Blogging Tips,” “What Is a Blog?,” “What Is a Blogger?,” and “What Exactly Is a Blog?”
Most of these questions could be answered simply by looking at results, after clicking on one of these related searches. Ask, in all honesty, might be the best search engine for determining what people are looking for when they visit your blog. You are able to pinpoint questions that people may be asking, especially if you don’t personally receive a lot of feedback on your site.
Bing/Live
Bing is a re-branded search/decision engine that combines Microsoft’s older “Live” search engine into a new version.
It’s results are a little different than the other search engines, as you may only be given one result. In the case of the term I used, you are given a sidebar with additional areas to search through, including: “Overview,” “Key Concepts,” “Software,” “Guidelines,” “Community,” and “News.” This helps you separate the results by category, ideal for if you are writing posts and want to specifically target an area without having to include additional criteria in your search keywords.
Beneath these main ares are related searches, which change what is shown above them as you click on and search for additional keywords. In the case of Bing, these terms/searches were displayed: “Blogging Sites,” “Blogging Websites,” “Blogging For Money,” “MSN Blogging,” “Myspace Blogging,” “Blogging Directory,” “Blogging Tips,” and “Blogging 101.”
Conclusion
Over the span of the time that you are blogging, many keywords should become apparent as being more popular. They are often added through naturally written posts, although you should occasionally focus on adding them to your site through tags and in your titles. When you are able to specifically target keywords, you will see better rankings within the search engines, which only leads to more traffic in the long-term.
Through all this, it becomes apparent that the future of search engines is by helping you find information more quickly when you don’t know exactly what you are looking for, with the search engine helping you discover additional topics.
