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How to crush keyword research
Hi friends,
Greetings from Ottawa!
Feedback is an interesting thing. I literally slept of smiling last Friday with all the responses that came in after y’all read the content strategy piece.
Honestly, I was elated that most of you found it useful…and timely.
That’s what I hope to achieve with these Friday pieces. And if you have any other topic or tactic you would love me to cover, hit the reply button, leave a comment below or send me a DM on LinkedIn.
On that note, here’s what I want to share this week:
How do you crush Keyword Research?
Your content strategy is 70% useless if you don’t get keyword research right.
Yep!
That’s how insanely useful this tactic can be. Heck, you could almost call it one of the most important strategic pillars of your content strategy/plan.
Get this right, and you are on your way to spotting the low-hanging fruits that give you quick content marketing wins while you scale up your content marketing plans.
And the good news is I’ve got a short and sweet process you can swipe 😁
Before we go tactical, I’m sure y’all know that keyword research is based on the fact that:
The higher the search volume a keyword has, the better
And if there are fewer blogs/pages/YouTube videos (yes, YouTube) competing for the same topic, the better
And finally, the more relevant that keyword is to your product/service, the better.
If you love numbers, then:
high search volume + low competition + highly relevant = Eldorado
Let’s use an example with the parent keyword — content marketing. Which one of the following five keywords would you start creating content for?
Using our mathematical formula, “content curation” and “content syndication providers” are the obvious answers.
“hire content marketer” has low volume, plus lots of competition. The last two have high difficulty scores, so it would be wise to stay away.
And if you are part of the crowd that tends to point out that “content syndication providers” have a ‘measly’ number of monthly searches, remember that 110 highly qualified visitors is better than 1000 unqualified visitors.
Unless you are building a product that sells traffic, low volume but highly relevant keywords are a goldmine.
Keyword research in 4 easy steps
Put together a list of all search terms that are relevant to your product/service.
Some great sources for your list include, but not limited to:
Remember the point on relevancy
Keyword tools like Answer the public
Words that people use when they comment on your blog, send in support queries or write reviews on sites like g2.
Get the monthly search volume.
I recently started using GrowthBar SEO for this — its pricing is startup/freelance/small business-friendly compared to others.
Finally, evaluate relevancy.
You’ll need to narrow it down to 3-5 keywords to focus on for the next few months. So evaluate relevancy on a scale of 1 - 5. Pick your top 3 or 5 highly relevant keywords, and start creating your topic clusters.
Content tools
A content tool I discovered this week
Need a metaphor to emphasize a written measurement?
The Measure of Things is a tool to help you understand physical quantities in terms of things you (or your audience) are already familiar with.
What am I reading?
On Writing Well by William Zinsser is a classic for anyone who writes non-fiction. I am six chapters in and I can’t drop it.
According to GoodReads;
“It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet. Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental priciples as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher.”
Not Enough Writers — Another session of “The Pitch Series” coming up
The first learning session was a blast.
You can find a mini recap of our session with Brittany Ryan on our LinkedIn page.
But we aren’t resting on our oars.
Because we’ve got the awesome Erin Balsa, conversion-focused content marketer and Marketing Director at the Predictive Index coming up next.
Nuff said!
Here’s the sign-up link!!!
Content writing jobs (Remote/Freelance)
Environmental Wellness Writer, Talent Fairy | Apply here
Legal Content Writer, Hynes Consulting | Apply here
Web Content Writer, Paladin | Apply here
Copywriter & Content Creation Specialist, MT Baker | Apply here
Content Writer, EmoryDay | Apply here
Blogger, Transition Concierge | Apply here
Content Writer, ThinkFuel Marketing | Apply here
Content Writer & Strategist, North Star Messaging | Apply here
All the best folks. And please share with any of your friends/colleagues who might find this useful 🙏🏾
My biggest takeaway this week 🚀
Don’t feel guilty for not being productive 8 - 12 hours a day. Just make sure you make your productive hours count.
What I’m thinking about?
Practice + self-education is a winning combo.
Gratitude corner
To you’ll who keep reading this fella’s newsletter.
To Erin Balsa for agreeing to come on Not Enough Writers and share her experience.
To everyone who’s signed up with Not Enough Writers.
Thanks for reading this far. I am grateful!
Stay safe and sane.
Dozie
P.S: If you like this newsletter and want to support it, please could you share on LinkedIn or forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here👇🏾