Hi friends,
If you are just starting out as a blogger, you are probably creating some amazing content but not getting many visitors to see your blog? Are you wondering how others sites with similar content get ranked on the first page on Google?
You can too.
Keyword research for a blog is one of the most critical elements unlock the door for visitors.
No idea where to start?
Today I am going to show you a step by step guide to do keyword research for a blog using one of the most powerful keyword search tools in the market. I will be walking you through a specific example from the beginning to end, so you can start writing your next high ranking post TODAY.
Deal?
Before we start, let’s talk about tools. To be successful at doing keyword research for a blog, having a great tool is essential. There are many free tools available on the market, but they all have their limitations.
Getting ranked high in a search engine means you get more traffic to your website. More traffic equals more opportunity to monetize. If by having a great tool helps you make more money from your blog, in my opinion, it is worth an investment.
The tool that I use is called Jaaxy. It is one of the best tools on the market for finding high traffic keywords with low competition. It is also very beginner friendly, which I do appreciate.
In this guide, you will get a chance to test drive Jaaxy for FREE for yourself.
Without further ado, let’s get start it ….
Disclosure: Some of the links in the article contains affiliate links, which means that if you make a purchase through one of the links, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the blog and allows me to continue to make free content. I will only recommend products that I use and love. Thank you for your support!
Step 1: Brain storm what to write about on your next post
To start keyword research for a blog, let’s begin with the theme of your website.
Let’s say you have a website that focuses on Keto diet for weight loss. So your next blog post will be something relevant to this niche.
Type “Keto for weight loss” in the link below and click search. A new window will pop up, once you enter your details, the search result will show up.
Your search may look something like this…
As you can see, the results give you a list of keyword phrases that involve “keto for weight loss”, and don’t worry about all the columns to the right side. I will explain in more details later.
The problem here is, while “keto for weight loss” is a good specific enough niche for a website, it is too broad to cover by just one signal blog post.
So for your individual blog posts, we need to break this niche down to more specific topics under the umbrella, how do we do that? The ‘Alphabet Soup’ feature is the best place to collect ideas.
- Click on ‘Alphabet soup’ on the top left of the page,
- Type “Keto for weight loss” in the search bar, and you will see results similar to below…
The result is showing all the variations using the alphabet. For example + “a”, is a list of variations that involves “a” words before and after the keyword.
It continues down in alphabetic order. This is the same concept when you search on google, and it automatically tries to complete what you are trying to type.
So all of a sudden you have a long list of specific ideas that are under the umbrella of “keto for weight loss”.
I have scrolled further down the page to in + “s” and found “keto supplements for weight loss” as an example to take us further to the next step.
To be honest, there is no particular reason for which one to pick, just a personal choice. However, if you do this for your own blog, I am sure you will feel stronger on certain topics over others.
Step 2: Find a high quality long tail keyword phrase
Now that we narrowed down from a broad topic to a specific idea to write for the next blog, the next step of keyword research for a blog is to find a high quality long tail keyword phrase to use for the blog. This is the most critical step of all.
What is a long tail keyword phrase? It is a keyword search phrase that contains 3-5 words. They are very specific to what searchers are looking for.
What constitutes a high quality long tail keyword phrase? It needs to have high traffic and low competition. This is the secret to help you to get higher rankings in search engine.
In the example we are using, Alphabet Soup already helped us to come up with a long tail keyword phrase – “keto supplements for weight loss”, but we need to make sure this is a high quality long tail keyword phrase.
On the Jaaxy window, click the “Search on this” next to the “keto supplements for weight loss”. This will bring you back to the Keywords feature screen as below. In here, we will be comparing some important data for the core keyword phrase.
This is the same screen as when you first started searching, but now, we have a much more specific keyword phrase to look into. Click on “Get QSR” for each keyword phrase, some statistical numbers will show up for each keyword phrase. Here is what each means and what we should be aiming for…
Keyword:
- A list of long tail keywords that either contains or similar to the keywords that you typed in the search bar.
- The rule of thumb here is to aim for a 4 to 8 words keyword phrase to be specific enough to serve what people are searching for.
- The phrase needs to make grammatical sense
Avg:
- The average number of searches made for that phrase per month in Google, Bing and Yahoo.
- The rule of thumb here is to aim for >30 Avg monthly searches to ensure this is a popular enough topic to write about.
Traffic:
- How many estimated visitors you will get if you achieve first page on the search engine.
QSR (Quoted Search Results):
- This is your competition sites ranked for the same exact keyword phrase.
- The rule of thumb here, is the lower QSR the lower the competition the better. Shoot for <100 QSR.
KQI (Keywords Qaulity Indicator):
- This is pretty straight forward. Green is great, Yellow is ok, Red, don’t bother.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization):
- This is a score based on Traffic and QSR. It’s a core between 1-100. The higher the better.
- The rule of thumb here is, to aim a score >90. Personally I would go one step further to suggest >94 if you can find it.
Domains:
- The availability of the domain for these keywords.
- We won’t be using this feature for the purpose of this guide, but if you are in the market to hunt for a new domain, check out Wealthy Affiliate. It’s an All-in-one platform not only you can purchase domain names through them, but it offers web hosting, training for affiliate marketing, and so much more. Check out my in depth review here.
So looking at the list of keyword phrase variations and based on the suggested rule of thumbs, the top 2 on the list are good choices, because they are very popular searches based on Avg score and Traffic score, and very low competition based on QSR score. The SEO score >90 confirms that.
The 3rd and 4th ones on the list, don’t really make grammatical sense:
- “keto supplement for weight loss” (it misses the “s” for supplement)
- “best keto supplements weight loss” (it misses “for”)
In this step, we have confirmed that “keto supplements for weight loss” is a high quality long tail keyword phrase to build your next blog with.
Tips:
- Focus on one or two long tail keyword phrases for each blog post.
- If you are a beginner, I would try to optimize one long tail keywords before you build up to two.
Step 3: Bench market competitions
Now we know the topic we are going to write, and picked a high quality long tail keyword phrase, the third step of keyword research for a blog is to study the competition.
Back to the Jaaxy window, click “Search Analysis” on the top of the page (showing below), then type in the keyword phrase that we chose – “keto supplements for weight loss” and click “Find Keywords”.
It will show you a list of articles that are ranked from top order based on the exact keyword phrase.
Click on view “View Detail” on the top one.
The details unveiled some useful statistics on this article.
- Word Count: the number of words written on this article. This is a good benchmark on the word count you should be aiming for, for your blog post.
- Links on Site: the number of internal and external links on the page.
- Back links: the number of links from other webistes that point to your website.
- Alexa Rank: ranking in Alexa. Another indication of site strength.
- Adsense: whether they are paying for ad. If yes, this is a good indication that the keyword phrase is profitable.
What I found most useful here is the word count and links on site as this is something I can use as benchmark when I write my blog. Others, not much I can do about at this point.
I would suggest to read all these top ranked articles to get an idea what they are writing on this topic.
Step 4: A catchy title that contains the keyword phrase
At this point, you’ve done all your homework. To write your blog, let’s start with a catchy title that contains the keyword phrase.
Back to our example, here are a few suggestions as the title of the blog:
- What are the best keto supplements for weight loss?
- Brutally honest review on the best keto supplements for weight loss
- 5 best keto supplements for weight loss – do they work?
Step 5: Write your content
By now, we have done the keyword search for a blog, we are ready to start writing the content.
While writing a high quality content is a lesson all by itself, here are a few quick tips for you to consider.
- Know your audience and the pain point. Make sure what you are writing about is solving a problem for your audience.
- Write it as if you are speaking to your audience.
- Break the contents into smaller sections with subheadings.
- Try not to be wordy. Use bullet points when appropriate.
- Use visual images where possible.
Step 6: Sprinkle the core keyword phrase throughout your blog
Once you finish writing the main content, go back and check where you can insert the keyword phrase throughout the blog.
It is crucial to make sure the keyword phrase appears in your opening paragraph.
Through out the blog, try to aim for 3 to 5 appearances for the keyword phrase. This also varies depending on the length of the content. The longer your content, the higher apparence of keyword phrase you should be aiming for.
Step 7: 3 other places to incorporate the keyword phrase
Before you hit that publish button, here are 3 other places to incorporate the keyword phrase:
1. Page title – You can edit this in the bottom of your WordPress blog post. It will show up as the blue title in google search.
2. Meta description – You can find this in the same area as the Page title. This will show up in as the black text in google search as shown below.
3. Subheading – check to see if you could incorporate the keyword phrase in your subheading. This will help readers to scan the relevance of your content.
Step 8: Hit that “Publish” button!
That is it – congratulations! You have just created a keyword rich, quality content that will help you join the high ranking blogs in search engines. Good luck!
Please feel free to share in the comments any other tips and tricks that help to bring traffic to your blog.
Cheers,
Chloe x
Hello Chloe! I really like this step-by-step guide for beginners on how to do keyword research for a blog, really great information and very helpful. Thanks for the suggestion about Jaxxy. I’ve just been using Google search suggestions and related search terms but Jaxxy looks like a good way to take what I learn from Google search and dig deeper to find those gold nugget keywords. Thanks again for the recommendation, appreciated.
Glad to hear it was helpful! Hope you get chance to give Jaaxy a go.
You have very well explained all that I need to know about keyword research on this post here. I like the way that you have demonstrated this and also adding pictures so i can understand all that it is i need to know about making keyword research. I want to ask that if after typing in my search keywords in the search box and I really use the keyword, I will get the estimated traffic that the tool as shown when i get to the first page?
Thank you and glad to hear the post was helpful.
Great question about how much traffic you will actually get after using the keyword phrase you have chosen. To be honest, I have not compared the data myself but will be an interesting one to look into.
Now being a wealthy affiliate member I am familiar with jaxxy and I also think it’s a great tool to have. But being a beginner to affiliate marketing as a whole, can jaaxy get a person to the next level by itself? What I’m asking is if I were to purchase jaaxy can I make my first commission with just this tool alone?
As a beginner, I don’t think by just using Jaaxy will get you to the next level. While Jaaxy is a very important tool in the tool box, there are a few others that are essential. For someone who are starting out, I strongly recommend Wealthy Affiliate, as it provides so many useful tools including Jaaxy. In combination, it will help you get make your first commission.
This is really step by step because it has really explicated on the rudiments of doing a proper keyword research. That is really awesome. I like the way you have written this because it is very easy. I will like to add that the tool used is a very effective one. I also make use of jaxxy for my website and it works fantastically. Nice post you have put up here. Thank you very much for sharing it.
Thanks for stopping by! Glad to hear that you found Jaaxy as beneficial as I do when it comes to keyword research for a blog.
All the best, Chloe
I love your detailed guide to keyword research. I know you mentioned Jaaxy is the best tool in the market. Have you tried other tools? Is the cost of Jaaxy justified? How long is the free version for? I like the breakdown of the articles searched. You mentioned 3 to 5 appearances of the keyword. What happens if you have more than that?
Glad to like the step by step guide.
I have tried a couple of free keyword searching tools beyond Jaaxy. They all have their pros and cons.
In terms of the cost, Jaaxy is in the middle of the road comparing with other tools. I think it is a really good value for money if this was combined with Wealthy Affiliate membership.
As for trying Jaaxy for free, there’s no time limit for the free version, but you are limited to 30 keyword searches, 20 site lookups, 1 website analyser, and 2 keyword lists. I will be writing a Jaaxy review next to unveil all the details. Stay tuned…
3-5 appearances of the keyword phrases are the recommended, but if you can use more and the blog more than 3,000 word count then that’s great. For the shorter blogs, it might come across bit too repetitive if you go over the 5 appearances on the keyword phrase. Hope that make sense.
Hi Chloe,
I understood that it is crucial to find a keyword phrase which is grammatically correct, which you called a long tail keyword phrase. Following the training on Wealthy Affiliate, I know you’re right, could you also tell me if there is a certain recommendation on the length of each article, i.e. how many words should a good article have? I have heard it should be not less than 1500 words per article…Thank you for answering!
Hi Fabi,
In terms of how long the article should be, I think it depends on the specific keyword phrase that you are writing about.
I understand WA gave a rule of thumb around 1500 words, but in my personal experience, it also depend on what your competitions are doing as well. You can find out by using Search Analysis feature in Jaaxy. By typing the keyword phrase, it will tell you how many word counts your competitions wrote on the blog to get ranked on the first page for the exact keyword phrase.
Hope that helps.
Chloe