Finding great keyword ideas is the first step towards laying the content marketing foundation. If search engine optimization (or organic traffic) is your primary goal, then a lot depends on how well you research and select your keywords.
However, the biggest problem with keyword research is that there are a couple of tools that almost everybody uses — which includes your competitors, too.
Unless you are using a paid tool like Moz or Ahrefs, which your competitors aren’t using, the keywords you will all shortlist won’t be a little different. This makes finding novel and unique keywords all the more difficult as well as important.
In this article, we list 6 places where you can find new keyword ideas. The best part is that all the following tools/tricks won’t cost you a dime.
Let’s begin.
1. Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a goldmine of great keyword ideas. Fortunately for you, not many online businesses leverage the power of Wikipedia keywords.
The best way to use Wikipedia is to use it for finding related keywords and ideas that you can explore. The way Wikipedia displays its topics is a great way to list semantically related keyword ideas. If you have a business blog where you explore multiple topics and areas to grab as much traffic and leads as possible, Wikipedia is the perfect place for you to find keyword ideas.
Here is an example of the power of Wikipedia keywords when I search for “recreational fishing”.
If you use the same keyword in Google Keyword Planner, you won’t find these wonderful ideas.
That’s what makes Wikipedia such a powerful tool for keyword research and finding great ideas that your competitors may not be actively looking for.
2. Amazon
Yes, Amazon is the most popular website for shopping, but do you know that it also has a wealth of great keyword ideas?
Here is how to find them.
Use your main keyword to find relevant books in your niche. Pick a couple of highest rated books and use the ‘look inside’ feature to peek in and browse the ‘Table of Contents’ section.
As you can see, you will find plenty of great keyword ideas.
You can explore each of these keywords by testing them into Google search results, reading other articles about them, or using the Google Keyword Planner tool to find the search volume and level of competition.
3. Google Trends
Google Trends, despite being one of the best online research tools, is highly underrated. Not many content marketers and online businessmen actively use Google Trends as much as they should.
A common misconception is that Google Trends can’t help you with industry-specific content. But you can search within specific business categories. Moreover, you can also target geographical locations or regions to analyze — if your target audience is region-specific.
Also, if you have a blog that rides on breaking news, Google Trends becomes all the more valuable for you.
As it can easily provide you a list of topics that people have been searching for the past 24 hours, you can jump on the bandwagon and leverage the high search volume by producing content fast.
If you are looking at Google Trends with this strategy, the following two tips will come in handy:
- When trying to leverage a sudden surge in trend, make sure to produce and publish content as early as possible. If you do it before other competitors can do, you get yourself a distinct advantage.
- Secondly, in order to fully unlock the power of this strategy, you will require a large and active social media network. If you can quickly publish content on surging topics and share them on active social media profiles, you can get yourself the biggest share of the traffic.
4. Quora
Quora is a Q&A website, just like Yahoo Answers — except it’s a lot more active.
It’s a great website, but how can you use Quora for finding new keyword ideas? Well, it’s simple. You browse for questions related to your niche, and you can easily find dozens of great keyword ideas to write content on.
The great thing about Quora is that you can be very sure of the keywords you find from there. Since people (your target audience) are already asking for information on those topics, you can be sure that a great piece of content will be useful to many.
5. Google’s Related Searches
This has to be one of the most ignored tools in the history of content marketing and SEO.
Google presents at least 8 keyword suggestions for every query you run through it, but most content marketers simply ignore these related searches.
We agree that some of the keyword ideas in the related search column can be absurd, but rest assured that you will find keyword gems in there every now and then.
Unlike the Google Keyword Planner, the Google Related Searches column often has different keyword ideas.
While the Google Keyword Planner is a wonderful tool, my biggest problem with it is that it almost always shows keywords ideas that are too closely related to the main keyword you input.
This is where Google Related Searches is slightly ahead.
You can find semantically related keyword ideas that you can’t find in the Google Keyword Planner. We recommend creating a list of all the keywords you find in a spreadsheet.
Every week, you can shortlist those keywords, find their search volume, the level of competition, and commercial intent with tools like Google Keyword Planner, and select the ones you think would serve you best.
6. Google Keyword Planner — Landing Page
You might have assumed that we hate the Google Keyword Planner. Well, we don’t.
We still believe that it is an amazing tool to find new keyword ideas, but only if you are using it correctly.
Searching with a seed keyword and hoping to find fantastic keyword ideas don’t work. However, you can still use the Google Keyword Planner to find some profitable keyword ideas with a slightly different method.
Look at the following screenshot.
Instead of mentioning your product, service, or niche in the first column, you can instead put the URL of your landing page.
When you do that, you get sufficiently different keyword ideas.
Moreover, you can also use this opportunity to paste the URL of a landing page from your competitor’s website. It would work especially well if your competitor is using Google AdWords ads to derive traffic and conversions.
We suggest testing a few different URLs. In the end, you will be able to shortlist plenty of great keyword ideas that you can explore and write content on. At the very least, you will be able to mix up your usual keyword strategy and add a new dimension to it with this technique.
Final Words
Make no mistake. Finding great keywords is the most important step before you start spending money on content marketing, lead generation, traffic acquisition, or sales.
Use these free tools and techniques to find new keyword ideas. Using the same old Google Keyword Planner with the same set of strategies won’t do you any good.
The online marketing world is changing and evolving very fast. These new ideas will help you stay ahead of your competitors.
