The ULTIMATE Guide to Keyword Research PART ONE (Inside Partha's Mind)

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byParthaB

4.2K followers

Updated 2 years ago

Well, everyone else was doing the “Inside My Mind” earlier in the month, so why not me as well?

Okay, let’s get a few housekeeping rules out of the way:

Large pot of coffee brewed.

Hug your family goodbye and tell them you’ll see them in a few days.

Enough food and drink to feed an army.

Sleeping bag at the ready.

Check!

You’re now prepared and able to read a Partha Blog Post.

Partha, Why Do You Hate Keyword Tools?

“Hate” is a strong word.

And in reality, I don’t “hate” anyone or anything.

However, that’s not to say that some people and inanimate objects don’t annoy me, but that’s another story.

I wouldn’t say that I hate keyword tools, I can just see them for what they are.

In fact, I’ve had spells of using Google Keyword Tool, Wordtracker, Ubersuggest, AHREFs, SEMRush, Keyword Chef, and Jaaxy.

Any while you’ll find some fantastic keywords, topics, and phrases to go after, I honestly don’t believe that the vast majority of people use keyword tools correctly.

BUT, my biggest problem with keyword tools is that they are ALL based on information already out there.

So, in effect, most keyword tools and old-fashioned SEOs (people still spouting pre-2019 SEO “Rules”) will have you targeting keywords, phrases, and topics that a million other websites have as well.

In fact, I’ll even go as far as to say that I’m not really a fan of “analysing the competition”.

By this I mean that you’ll often hear that it’s a good idea to legitimately “steal” your competitors keywords and write better articles on these topics yourself.

However, what makes anyone think that a website in its first year or two is going to outrank a website that has high authority?

Okay, out of the 100s of potential ranking factors I would still say that RELEVANCY and SATISFYING SEARCHER INTENT are probably the main ones.

But, I would hazard a guess that if I wrote a fantastic article around a certain keyword that I’d still rank below an average article written by a website that has been online for 10 years, has over 10,000 articles, and over 1,000,000 backlinks.

As sophisticated as Google has become over the past 2.5 years, I still believe that age and popularity of a webpage will rank it higher.

In fact, you can see this for literally every search you perform online.

The top 3 results for any given keyword found via a keyword tool are typically articles that have been written over 2 years ago and the website in question has an awesome domain rating, and 100s of thousands of backlinks.

Google will pretty much always rank this website’s content above yours.

And this is the main issue I have with keyword tools.

Pretty much every keyword you’ll ever find and consider using will have been used and written about by millions of websites like this.

Quick change of subject, and without being cruel or mocking (okay, maybe a little bit), I do often find myself laughing when I hear or see someone very new to the world of online marketing wondering why they aren’t ranking, getting traffic, making sales, etc.

Please excuse the sarcasm:

“Yes, Wacky Affiliate newbie, I see your issue. Quite clearly your 1,012-word article on “Best Sneakers For Soccer” on your 2-month old website, should be ranking above an article written 5 years ago by Nike, Adidas, or Cristiano Ronaldo. I don’t get it, why doesn’t Google rank you above these losers?”

You know as well as me, it’s not going to happen.

But, it’s these types of keywords that you’ll find via Keyword Research Tools.

Realistically, you’re not actually finding “longtail keywords” via a keyword tool.

Yes, the keywords that you find may be 4, 5, 6 or more words in length, but they’re still not “longtail” as far as I’m concerned.

For me, longtail means a phrase that not everyone in the world and their mother is targeting.

And unfortunately, most keyword tools don’t have enough data on these types of phrases.

So, what do keyword tools do in this situation?

They state that the search term has ZERO traffic or as Jaaxy likes to say, <10.

Basically, a keyword tool doesn’t have enough data (remember all the information you find in a keyword tool is based on historical data) to provide you with an SEO and Traffic figure.

With that being said, for anyone who has used more than one keyword tool you’ll typically find that the data you receive dramatically varies from tool to tool.

Plus, can any of you honestly say that you have used a keyword tool, written and published an article, ranked it number one on Google, and then received the traffic that the keyword tool states you will?

And yet in the last month alone, my top 5 articles on the Exercise site are all based on Google Autosuggest keyword research.

All the 5 articles are based around keywords that Jaaxy, Ubersuggest, and AHrefs told me there was NO TRAFFIC.

However, one article at 12,000+ visitors in the last 30 days, another at 8,000+ visitors in the last 30 days, two more above 3,000+ visitors in the last 30 days, and another article with 1,800+ in the last 30 days, TELLS ME DIFFERENT.

If I had followed the “advice” from the various keyword tools, I would never have written these 5 articles, and I would have had approximately 28,000 fewer visitors to my website in the last 30 days.

Keyword tools are NOT my friend.

Keyword Research and Topic Clusters

Okay, something I want to talk about is writing articles in topic clusters.

By this I mean, writing a series of articles around one common theme.

For me, this is how you should build out a website.

So, as an example, for a website in the Make Money Online (MMO) niche I would choose the categories I would like to focus on.

Realistically, I could go straight to the Bootcamp Training and pick the main core subjects from the learning modules, and then use these as my categories.

So, as an example, after a quick scan through Bootcamp some of my categories could be:

Building Your Website
Plugins
Website SEO
Purchasing a Domain
Keyword Research
Writing Product Reviews
Social Media
Tracking & Analytics
PPC

Okay, you get the idea.

I would then focus on one of these categories and then find say 15-20 different questions based on that particular subject.

I would then write these 15-20 articles and then move onto the next category.

Once I have my 15-20 articles in various categories, which may take me 6-12 months to write, I can then review which articles are doing well and which aren’t.

If I find that a particular category or topic is doing really well in terms of traffic, I would then add to this cluster.

This means I would find another 15-20 keywords/phrases/questions and set about writing those articles.

Basically, niche blogging is just about repeating this system over-and-over-and-over again.

So, as an example, the first category - “Building Your Website” would look like this.

I would open a Google incognito tab and then simply go through a series of question phrases along with my main subject matter.

I do love a bit of “Why Does My” as a great question phrase to get started:

So, I would go to Google and type in - Why Does My Wordpress Website

Now, autosuggest will come up with a few suggestions (hopefully).

However, you can receive different phrases based on where you place the cursor and what you potentially type into that space.

So, I could do as follows:

Why Does My Wordpress Website

As you can see I have placed 3 spaces between the words “Why” and “Does”.

As soon as I click into that space with the cursor I’ll receive different autosuggest phrases.

I could then try

Why Does My Wordpress Website

As you can see I now have a space between the words “My” and “Wordpress”.

If I click and place the cursor between these two words I will potentially receive different autosuggest queries from the example above.

You can then do the same with letters of the alphabet:

Some examples:

Why a Does My Wordpress Website

Why Does b My Wordpress Website

Why Does My Wordpress t website

Everytime you place your cursor in a different position or you type a different letter into a different position, you’ll receive new Autosuggest queries.

And remember what I’ve ALWAYS told you:

Autosuggest provides REAL QUERIES typed into the Google Search Bar by REAL PEOPLE.

So, far more accurate in terms of a potential keyword to write and rank for than any keyword tool could ever give me.

You’ll also notice that my main phrase, i.e. Wordpress Website is not a niche-generic term.

What I mean by this is I haven’t used “Make Money Online” or “Affiliate Marketing” in order to find keywords/phrases/questions.

Now, you probably know that many of you ask me to look at your websites (and yes, I know there’s still 3 of you waiting to hear back, I’ll get there eventually).

But, what I often see is these very generic terms being used for keyword research.

Trust me when I say that even if you find a “Make Money Online” or “Affiliate Marketing” keyword that has great stats according to a keyword tool, it will be near to impossible to rank for a website under 2 years old for these types of phrases.

It’s the same as those who are in the “Weight Loss” or “Self Help” niche (and about 1,000 other niches too).

If you’re looking for keywords don’t start with a seed phrase of “Weight Loss” or “Self Help”, they’re far too generic and there will be at least 2,000,000 other websites for you to compete against.

This is why niche research is so important, and why I always recommend that you research your niche via Q&A sites, Social Media Groups, and forums first (or for those in the MMO niche use the Wealthy Affiliate “Recent Questions” section)..

Quora, Reddit, Facebook Groups, and niche-related forums have REAL PEOPLE asking REAL QUESTIONS.

As another example, no-one really types “How to Lose Weight” into Google in search of an answer.

“Self Help Tips”.

Okay, yes there are some, but even us as searchers have become far more sophisticated over the years.

Nowadays these searches would probably be something like this for the weight loss or self-help niche respectively:

“Can I Lose My Love Handles Without Exercise or Diet?”

“Why Do I Get So Upset When I Don’t Get a Like on Facebook?”

These are proper longtail keywords as far as I’m concerned.

They are phrases that REAL PEOPLE have typed into Google (I haven’t checked before someone tries to correct me), and they are articles that probably haven’t been written by 12,279,356 other people before you.

PLUS, a keyword tool will probably tell you that these phrases have NO traffic, but this is purely because not many people have written about these subjects before.

Keyword tools don’t have enough data, so they mark it as ZERO traffic or <10.

You know as well as me, people are definitely asking these types of questions.

Let’s Breakdown an Article

What I want to do now is to go through all the stages of an article for you.

I want to show you how I came up with the keyword, plus how you can find other related keywords.

Why I decided to target this keyword.

The traffic it has received since I wrote it.

The main keywords that I am receiving traffic for and comparing these against Jaaxy results.

Plus, a little secret to help you with YOUR keyword research.

Are You Ready?

Let’s do this.

Right, I wrote an article about the supplement creatine on my Exercise website back in June 2021 - “Why Does Creatine Make Me Feel Sick/”

Creatine is basically a supplement that provides the muscles with more energy for intense training.

It’s completely legal and safe, plus it’s naturally produced in the kidneys and liver, as well as being in red meat, fish, and dairy.

Most people who are fairly serious about their training will typically supplement with creatine.

Also, note that I specifically chose a subject that wasn’t generic to write about, e.g. “weight loss”, “fat burning”, “build muscle”, etc.

You MUST delve deeper into your niche and really understand what the people in your niche are discussing or want to know about.

Anyway, the article I initially wrote in June 2021 started performing quite well by about October and was pulling in about 23-37 people PER DAY.

I hadn’t actually concentrated on an article cluster for this topic, so I thought this would be a great opportunity.

So, I set about finding creatine-related keywords using Google Autosuggest.

I initially chose to type in the following phrase:

Is Creatine

So, a question word (is) and then my seed phrase (creatine), plus I left 3 spaces between “is” and “creatine”.

I then started to go through the alphabet (a.b.c.d. etc.) in the space between “is” and “creatine”.

By the time I got to “b” I had found the phrase:

“Is it Bad to Dry Scoop Creatine?”

I like!!!

I checked page one of Google for competition and I found one Quora post, one Reddit post, and one post on The Student Room Forum.

PERFECT

Remember, I always say look to see if there are at least 2-3 of ANY Q&A sites, Social Media or forums on page one.

If so, you have a fantastic chance of ranking.

I set about writing and publishing the article on November 7th 2021.

I quickly checked Jaaxy just to see what it had to say (I didn’t really care, but just more out of interest)

The traffic stats were as follows:

So, whereas the SEO and QSR (I hate QSR and I really don’t think it’s been relevant since October 2019 BTW - if you want me to discuss that at some time in the future, then just ask) are very good, the traffic stats are pretty poor, and no doubt most people would ignore this keyword and NOT write the article.

I did write the article and here are the traffic stats since I published on November 7th 2021.

So, in the first month I received 83 visitors to my article “Is it Bad to Dry Scoop Creatine?”

That is actually really good.

Once more, I’ve spoken before of allowing 8-9 months for an article to achieve its full traffic potential.

And realistically, for a fairly newish website (let’s say less than a year) it’s highly unlikely that you’d receive ANY TRAFFIC AT ALL to that article for the first 2-3 months (if you've been following a keyword tool. Things are very different when you use Autosuggest for low competition keywords).

Always remember, you’re not writing for NOW, you’re writing for the FUTURE, so don’t expect miracles early on.

Here's Month 2 traffic stats for this article during December 2021:

So, a nice 652 visitors to my article, "Is it Bad to Dry Scoop Creatine?" in December.

And here's the traffic stats from 1-30 January 2022 (sorry, I checked this a couple of days ago, so didn't have the full month's stats.

So, a lovely 1,597 to ONE ARTICLE during the first 30 days of January.

Remember that Jaaxy said the main seed keyword had traffic of 24, so I could expect an average of 5 visitors A MONTH (this will differ depending on where you're ranked on page one, i.e. number one ranking receives more traffic out of the potential 24 visitors than being ranked at number 3, approximately 8 visitors a month for no.1 ranking and 4 visitors a month for no.3 ranking).

Well, I have only one thing to say about the keyword tool stats and the actual traffic I received:

"IN YOUR FACE JAAXY!!!!"

With that being said, in part 2 of this presentation I will go through my Google Search Console stats with you and go through the top 3 actual phrases that I am receiving traffic for.

Remember, one article will typically rank for 100s of different keywords (another reason I don't like Jaaxy rank checker. You can only check your seed keyword's ranking in Jaaxy because you don't know the many other keywords you're ranking for and receiving traffic for - Use Google Search Console for this - but, as I say, I'll cover this in more detail in Part 2.

At the time I wrote this article my website was just over 14 months old and had approximately 380 articles on it.

BTW this gives you an idea of how hard you have to work if you want to hit that magical $5,000 per month in the first TWO YEARS of blogging).

Don’t get me wrong, you can achieve the income and traffic figures you want well before 2 years and without writing 300+ articles, but you’ll still have to work just as hard, but with more of a focus on Off-Page SEO (again, I’ll talk about this at another time, plus Kyle has asked me whether I’d be willing to do expert classes on this subject - although I’m not sure you lot could put up with staring at my face and listening to pure Cockney sarcasm for 45 minutes).

Let’s Draw Part 1 to a Close

Okay, I don’t want to overload you with information.

Plus, you know this total guide is going to be at least 3 parts (I never know when to shut up, do I?)

Here’s the links to my previous articles on keyword research:

Partha’s Guide to Keyword Research Part 1

Partha’s Guide to Keyword Research Part 2

However, there’s now a few more things that you can add to these.

Remember:

Make additional spaces between words in Google Autosuggest
Move the cursor to different parts of the phrase in Google Autosuggest
Place letters of the alphabet in different parts of the phrase
DO NOT use generic search terms when looking for keywords
If you find phrases in Google Autosuggest, these are REAL PHRASES typed into Google’s Search Bar by REAL PEOPLE (much more reliable than any keyword tool IMHO)
Write your articles in topic clusters, i.e. 15-20 articles on the same subject
Review after a few months and if you find that a particular article or articles are doing well then write more articles on that topic cluster.

That’s Part 1 done for now and I PROMISE I’ll make an effort to go through the comments here and answer any questions (apologies, I know I didn’t on my last few blog posts).

For now, Thank You For Reading

Partha