Keyword Inspiration - Aaron Wall Of SEOBook.com Shares His Secrets by Aaron Wall, 31 August 2007
Keyword research often starts with a seed list - a quick brainstorm of keywords that might be important. The better your keyword seed list, the greater your opportunity to generate a comprehensive keyword portfolio. Aaron Wall, author of SEOBook.com shares his secrets for generating a fantastic seed list every time.
Key points
- Keyword research starts with a seed list. The better your seed list, the better will be the results of your keyword research.
- There are numerous sources of keyword inspiration both online and offline. Use them to build a good seed list before you start.
- Once you’ve got your seed list, follow a clear methodology to get detailed keyword research from Wordtracker. That way you’ll build a keyword portfolio that will keep you ahead of your competition.
The process of keyword research usually starts off with a seed list - words that send you down interesting paths and trigger deeper research. The better your seed list, the better your ability to generate a comprehensive keyword portfolio.
Here are the general steps in keyword research:
- Create a seed list
- Use Wordtracker to find the most popular terms in your seed list and reject low volume keywords
- Dig deeper into the long tail - e.g. chocolate, chocolate gifts, corporate chocolate gifts
- Broaden your search to related terms and dig deep again
- Organize and prioritize what you find. But many people give scant attention to developing a really great seed list. If you just do the obvious, you'll end up with pretty obvious results - just like everyone else. To get outstanding results from your keyword research, you've got to apply creativity and hard work to the very first step, generating your keyword seed list. Aaron Wall, author of SEOBook.com is a prolific writer on all things SEO. In this article he shares his top 10 secrets for generating a fantastic seed list every time.
1. Junk Mail
To sell something, your advertising offline or online must relate to things that people understand - you have to know and use the words that people are familiar with. So the junk mail that drops through your letterbox is a rich source of the words that people use - in other words, keywords.
I recently picked up a credit card application envelope and wondered about the words they used. I saw the words 'introductory 0% APR for cash advance checks and balance transfers until April 2008'. On the back side it said "no annual fee". Take some of those words, search on Wordtracker and you'll trigger lots of keyword phrases. Here's a sample of related keywords from hundreds on the envelope:
Once I opened the envelope there were thousands of additional keywords to be discovered. The fake credit card had the words instant, platinum, and points on it. In some spots they went out of their way to even put the keyword ideas in a bulleted list!
So scan your junk mail, subscribe to direct mail marketing, catalogs, and magazines that target your industry or consumer base.
2. Television programs
Some of the most popular online keywords come from popular cultural experiences. Anything that makes the Oprah Winfrey show is going to get serious search traffic and reality TV is amazingly popular. The Yahoo! Buzz Index tracks popular search queries, and has a category devoted just to American Idol.
3. News articles
Some things make the news because public relations firms pitched them, but those that are there outside of public relations pitches are typically there because of significant public interest.
I was recently interviewed by Forbes about Google's Supplemental Index. When I checked my server logs I found that hundreds of people searched for related keywords to find my site. Now that the issue made Forbes there will be even more people talking about it and even more search volume. Headlines, sub headings, and key points in news articles are great keyword sources.
4. News tracking
There are a near infinite number of ways to track news online.
- Many top news sources, like the Wall Street Journal, provide email updates of key stories.
- Google allows you to subscribe to keyword based news search results and blog search results. Their news product also lets you search archived news to view old news stories, and recommends new stories to you.
- Google mixes popular news articles in their organic search results for broad related keywords.
- Social news sites and social bookmarking sites like Digg and Del.icio.us surface new and interesting stories. You can also search their archives to find information that was bookmarked in the past.
- Topix.net aggregates news from a variety of sources and makes it searchable by location, source, or keyword.
5. Blogs and Buzz
Individual blogs are stealing market share from larger news outlets.
- You can subscribe via RSS to popular or trustworthy related or competing editorial channels. Some ideas become important, viral, and newsworthy because a well read person talked about them.
- Some services like Techmeme automatically track current popular stories.
- Technorati shows what bloggers are searching for.
6. What's Hot Right Now?
Most major search engines give searchers a glimpse into what is popular. Yahoo offers their Buzz Index, Google provides their Zeitgeist, and AOL offers Hot Searches. Google also offers Google Trends, which estimates seasonal search volumes, and allows you to filter by Geographic regions.
7. Hot Commercial Keywords
Amazon allows you to search through their current best sellers by category, and eBay offers a paid Marketplace Research service which allows you to see what items are frequently searched for on eBay, and at what price points the related auctions closed at. Amazon customers review products and eBay also offers a reviews section. Reading through their guides and reviews can help you uncover patterns to how people compare and classify things.
8. Question answering services
Many search engines and other large internet companies offer question answering services. You can search through sites like Yahoo! Answers to see what types of questions consumers in your marketplace have. Start with broad keywords and they will lead you to more specific keywords.
Most topics also have related community forums where people ask questions and keep up with industry related news. You can search through Google Groups, use BoardTracker to search through forums, or use your favorite general search engine to search for keyword + forums.
9. Directory link structures
If you know a particular page or section of your site is doing well but do not know how to expand on the topic leverage someone else's research. Look at the internal link structure and page content of competing sites, the structure of major directories like the Yahoo! Directory, DMOZ, or Business.com, and the table of contents of related books.
10. Other Fun Keyword Tools
- Visualize it: Quintura and Visuwords create graphical representations of related keywords.
- Competitive Keywords: KeyCompete lets you view what keywords competing sites are bidding on. Spyfu shows keywords they are bidding on and organic search rankings. Also, check out SEODigger.com
- Read Ad Copy: Read the ad copy of competing sites and read the ad copy of the ads that Google AdSense would target to your page.
- Related Searches: Many search engines and meta search engines show related keyword clusters. Google Suggest auto completes searches based on popular related searches. Google also offers the Google Sets tool to help you come up with keyword sets, and Microsoft offers a search funnel tool, which shows the keywords that were searched for before or after a particular keyword.
And don't forget your analytics and server logs. If you already rank for something then search engines already trust your market position for that keyword. Use keyword research to expand the areas where you are already trusted.
About Aaron Wall
Aaron Wall is a blogger and author of his popular SEO Book. In addition he offers free search engine optimization tools, publishes numerous websites, does client work, and loves learning about search and marketing.
63 comments
You’ve given us lots of ideas on how to find keywords and there are lots of keywords that I’ve found and keywords that I would use to find something myself, however; what if Wordtracker doesn’t return a count for the keyword, is that a good enough reason not to use it or bid on it in PPC search engines?
You can still bid on the word to see if it is valuable even if you don’t see much volume for it. It doesn’t cost you anything to bid on a keyword if nobody clicks on it, and as time passes the ways people use language changes. A small keyword one day can become a bigger one months or years later.
You can try some other very helpful tools to find keywords…
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
http://www.webconfs.com/website-keyword-suggestions.php
http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/
http://www.iwebtool.com/keyword_suggestion
http://www.seokeywordtools.com/
Reading aarons blog, and now this article, I’m always so impressed with the information he provides. its useful and clear. thanks. adam
This carpet-bombing technique is fine and dandy for low traffic sites, but what if a site is established and already does extremely well in the big 3? If there are only a few phrases that a site doesn’t show up well in the SERPS, should the site admin still carpet-bomb in a PPC campaign?
i do try all that tips but still didnt get how be a best EO :( it would be areciated if any body can help me.
ps: is SEO will bring a good trafic???
Great article, useful ideas, but I would like to see more information about researching for less common business. For instance, how does tnis apply to creating a seed list for the visual arts?
neysyah, you know, search engines rank pages according to relevance (keywords and backlinks). They are machines. Keywords research is a part of optimization. This will bring you a targeted traffic from search engines, of course. And the article explaines the keyword research very well. It’s really good. I’ll translate it into Russian for Russian SEOs :)
Another great keyword building tip is to read up on different forms of Taxonomy - a directory structure based on topic isn’t the only way to organize information.
Great tips.
I specially like the idea of pulling KWs from junk mail. Two other’s I find useful are store signage – not just the store names but special offers they post below them.
My other favorite is almost too simple; listening to what you’re client’s say. Since they’re not deep rooted into the tech/design speak they tend to use interesting, if not sometimes bizarre, phrases to explain things.
If you’re so inclined, you can read my Discovering Niche Keywords article.
This carpet-bombing technique is fine and dandy for low traffic sites, but what if a site is established and already does extremely well in the big 3?
I typically do not carpet bomb on SEO…I try to organize the keywords into baskets of logical related words that belong on specific pages, organized in a logical hierarchy. If there are more words than I can put on a page then I might create a second page for that topic (faqs, news, tips, etc.), which targets versions I didn’t get on the first page.
You can still test and track…adding in the valuable keywords and pulling out the ones that didn’t work as well as you hoped they would.
For instance, how does tnis apply to creating a seed list for the visual arts?
If you can’t find keywords in your niche try to find the common modifiers in a broader related niche and then apply them to your keyword strategy where they make sense.
I have a few blogs. Do I need to do keyword research to write my posts? Or are these research mainly to find the main keywords to build a site/blog on?
44,000,000 English Keywords
Wordsfinder.com has launced a new smart tagging API which provides a new way to generate Search friendly keywords and tags for CMS. The new service itself is designed to automate the painful process of find the right keywords once a new article, news is produced via any CMS. While anyone can use these APIs, the primary audience will be web agencies, web masters, ad tool developers, and search marketers.
Wordsfinder API is a mash up of Yahoo!, Google Adwords, Wikipedia and Wordtracker. In more details it uses the power of Yahoo Term Extractor and Google get Keywords From Site to extract keywords and feed them to Wikipedia and wordtracker engine to get better and more search friendly results. You could then pass those tags to any number of tag-based services, like Flickr, Del.icio.us, or Technorati.
Once again I am amazed with the valuable information you provide Aaron.
Thank you for giving us all the opportunity to learn from you.
Thank you for this wonderful, helpfull way of gathering knowledge. I’ve been for yonks , working without proper knowledge of Key word importanceof a different tack Thank you .Anne
WOW, what a great article. I found many ideas that I can implement right away!
Toni Shrader
Why do the articles’ links not open in a separate window? Its very anoying to end up on a site (e.g. quintura) and have to back track to the article but you can’t leave the site’s landing page so you have to go back to the email re-open it and then re-open the article - hmmm not rocket science how this one could be solved
i am interested to read about how to do quick effective keyword research via ppc and log mining, thanks.
Fantastic article on SEO and kewords. Comprehensive, detailed with real world advice and tools you can use to improve results. Thanks Aaron for one bloody good article. I know I’ve picked up heaps and learnt a lot from this.
Shannon
Great advice! Looks like I’m going to have to refine the way I look at keywords. Sometimes, I do think that knitting fog would easier.
Hi Aaron.
I’m going to add the Google Trends to my weekly “to do”; list - I like to keep ahead with articles, so that would be a great idea to check out what seasonal things people are looking for beyond the obvious - I’ve done quite well up to now with traditional seasonal topics, Christmas, Easter, St Patrick’s etc, but I’ve run out of ideas two years down the line with my websites.
Thanks for those tips and some brilliant information on your websites.
Regards
Liz
Excellent article from Aaron. I specially like the point 7 (Hot Commercial Keywords).
It’s an innovative way to perform keyword research!
Aaron,
What an amazing article! The breadth and insight you offer here is just what I have been looking for. Anyone involved in Keyword research,SEO, PPC or indeed research and writing of any sort, will find this article to be of immense benefit.
As seed keyword research is so critical, in that it provides the foundations for the search in its entirety, anyone who misses reading the advice of this very talented man is doing themselves a grave dis-service!
Thank you Aaron
Paul
Outstanding! Very powerful, yet refreshing concept of coming up with effective keywords. This will keep me busy for a long time!
Excellent ideas on generating an extensive seed list. I think #11 should be “use your brain”! Many people form a seed list based on their current content and marketing materials, log files, and competitor sites and then move right into using keyword tools. I find it extremely valuable to simply go through all of the words and use my own brain for a change and manually expand the seed list in any direction I can think of - keyword brainstorming. Who knows, you might just surprise yourself on how well your own keyword tool up top performs!
Complete, concise advise - Aaron, thank you.
hey, Aaron, it’s going to take me over a week to research and follow up on all that advice!
Thanks for saving me months of headscratching.
John
A masterful article! We have a global B2B business that manufactures and sells emissions control technology to reduce air pollution. Not an easy niche to optimize for! Your article offered many great pointers and resources that I’m sure will help me dig further for long tail keyword phrases. Thank you!
Louise R. - Marketing Manager CleanAIR Systems www.cleanairsys.com
Great Article! Thank You Aaron! Also thank you for all the fine SEO tools on your site at SEOBook.com They are all excellent and useful in SEO and internet marketing in general. Keep up the great work!
Rickb www.tlcIT.com
Aaron,
I would appreciate your help to understand what you mean by seed list. I have checked out your glossary and am not able to find it.
I understand your article about reading the junk mail and finding out what words are used in the mail. But, i am not able to make the mental leap as to where the words in the junk mail can be related to your business of Seo or my business.
Perhaps, i am just being plain dumb. Whatever your help would be much appreciated in helping me understand the concept that you are trying to explain because i just do not get it. Thanks Marm
wow finally i found what i seek. thanks mate..
keep on the good writing up
Very helpful info, Aaron. It is a great help to be reminded of more familiar ideas and introduced to new thoughts in your article.
Phil
very interisting Article! Thank You very much Aaron! Also thank you for all the fine SEO tools on your site at SEOBook.com They are all excellent and useful in SEO and internet marketing in general. Keep up the great work!
Complete, concise advise - Aaron, thank you.
[url]http://computer-data-recovery.blogspot.com/
Mark,
A seed keyword list is simply a list of keywords that starts off a detailed keyword research project. To begin any research project, I might draw up a seed list of say 100 keywords, simply by brainstorming, using the methods Aaron has outlined, or even by guessing. The idea is to get as broad a range of keywords as possible.
Once I’ve got my seed list, I’ll go on to check the search counts and predictions of each keyword and then explore specific keyword phrases of 3, 4, 5 or more words, that I’ll use in optimization.
What a powerful article. It will be very helful to me since I didn’t where to start the process of keyword research. Thanks also Ken McGaffin for explaning what a seed keyword list is… I learnt something new today!
Excellent article! I specially like Hot Commercial Keywords!
//P
Very good article, I got the SEO book a while ago, good tips inside, I have years of SEO traning and now I’m writing my own SEO book too, I have so many things to add, SEO is changing everyday. I will use a Press Release to announce my SEO book.
Good luck to everyone! Robert Zimnicaru
Well said Aaron!
I was just surprised to have the same idea of using seed keywords to expand the key phrases to target our site before I happen to read this article.
Good Job! :)
Aaron, thanks so much for your input. I’ve been using your advice for my trademark registration website, and your advice has greatly helped me out. Thanks again!
Thanks. I like the idea of using Google’s related search phrases. I typically start by just brainstorming, use software to omit low quality phrases and come up with new ideas, edit the list by hand, and then repeat the process.
Love reading your stuff Aaron. That’s the best collection of keyword ideas I’ve seen anywhere.
I’m halfway through your book at the moment and really enjoying that too.
Thanks Matt
It’s always good to look for new keywords, new trends or not amusing niches, for example targeting to related but not exact keywords can be cheaper and almost so effective as an expensive exact keyword.
It is so refreshing to read excellent advice without being getting locked into paid solutions. After reading your article the ideas appear so obvious I wonder why we had not all done this before. I will have to get out of my thinking box a bit more often.
thank you
i’m Love reading your stuff Aaron
that is great information.
Tahnks Aaron.
Hi AAron
This is informative i will use your tricks.
Thnaks.
Great article. Especially found the trends section Zeitgeist ... useful.
Hi Aaron
Thanks for the valuable information, will endeavour to try your strategies.
Very interesting. I didn't know that this process was called a 'seed list', and am surprised to see it mentioned. When I first started looking at web design (from a copwriting perspective) I very naturally developed this sort of process of a seed list. Generally, I do it slowly. Think of it one day. Then leave it alone a little, and come back the next day. You'll be surprised by what you can find by just 'giving it some time' and allowing the first bunch of words to really just be mulled over in your brain. Really interesting stuff!
Tahnks Aaron
personally i do not think the hottest keyword is the most important,the most of important is the one which can bring you more deal/successful conversion.So it is very important to find a correct keyword!not the hottest,of course,not the cold one.
That's the most in depth article on seed keyword generation I've read and it's packed with loads of useful resources. Thanks - Ewan Kennedy.
Thanks a lot Aaron -;)
so nice Aaron
Hi AAron
This is informative i will use your tricks.
Thnaks.
I like the old school approach you take to keyword research. Too many articles on keyword phrase focus on Wordtracker and similar resources. Direct mail copywriters from thirty years ago built their reputation by keeping all forms of junk mail they received and then incorporating what worked into a new campaign.
Your post is just in time. We have been leveraging and optimizing our sites by using the right keywords to exact the correct backlink juice for us. Since we’re not as excellent as Aaron we’re still in the dark. Thanks to this post. We’ve just seen light.
Great ideas here, its actuallly quite difficut to think outside of what one normally does to generate keywords. I will probably try all of them to a degree.
Hi Aaron
Thanks for the valuable information
This tool might help with finding seed keywords.
www dot seedkeywords dot com
d
yea!!Thanks for the valuable post!!