Once you have a blog post idea, the very first thing you have to do is Keyword Research.

Keyword Research is the process of finding words and phrases that people use on search engines to find a particular thing. It’s the first step of On-Page SEO.

Keyword Research helps you to understand the searchers’ intents in varied ways. This way you will be able to write the best blog post that covers the needs of your audience. It also helps you to get new blog post ideas.

Finding the right keywords is very crucial to get high ranks on Google. Here I’ll be sharing how to do Keyword Research for your next blog post in 5 easy steps.

Step #1: Check If People Are Searching For The Keywords

At first, you need to check if people are searching for the keywords for which you want to write a blog post.

Just go to Google and start typing the keyword. If Google automatically suggests the keywords, it means people are searching for this keyword.

Now let’s see an example. I will find out if people are searching for the keyword “Adsense alternatives.” So what I’ll be doing is, type “ Adsense” on Google and wait for Google Auto-Suggestion.

If Google doesn’t suggest the keyword in the first place, type the first letter of the next keyword. In this case, it will be ‘a.’

As you can see, Google is suggesting the keyword; it means people are searching for this keyword. We are good to go.

If Google is not suggesting anything, move to the step #3.

Step #2: Check The Search Volume & Keyword Difficulty

Now we will check the Search Volume and Keyword Difficulty. If these terms are unknown to you, here’s what these terms mean.

Search Volume is the average number of times people have searched for the keyword per month (based on last 12 months). Keyword Difficulty is an estimation of how difficult it would be to rank for a particular keyword in the organic search.

Several SEO tools can help you to find out Search Volume and Keyword Difficulty. Here I’ll be using SEMrush. It’s an all-in-one SEO tool which has both free and premium version. If you want to unlock the full potential of SEMrush, try SEMrush Pro for free by using the following trial link.

Now go to SEMrush.com , enter the keyword and hit “Start now” button.

On the next page, you will find a keyword overview. Just check the Search Volume from Organic Search.

If SEMrush doesn’t show any data, that means this keyword has too low search volume. Try to pick keywords from Phrase Match or Related Keywords.

The search volume for this keyword is 1.0K which is pretty good.

Now we will check the Keyword Difficulty. Just click on the “Keyword Difficulty” from the left-hand sidebar.

It shows the Keyword Difficulty is 64.25%. Now click on the percentage number, it will show the first 20 websites which are ranking for this keyword.

If the authority sites of your niche are ranking for the keywords, it would be tough for you outrank them.

It seems the competition for this keyword is pretty high.

However, don’t determine keyword difficulty only by checking the percentage. Also, check the sites that are ranking for the keywords.

Now we will check for other keywords that drive traffic to the competitors.

Step #3: See What Keywords Your Competitors Are Ranking For 

You might not come up with the right keywords in the first place. The best way to find what people are searching for is, check what keywords your competitors are ranking for.

You can easily do it from SEMrush. Just check the “ORGANIC SEARCH RESULTS” section in SEMrush. It shows top 20 organic search results for the keywords. You don’t need to have check all the results. Just check first few results.

Once you’ve clicked on a result, you will see the top organic keywords. Click on “View full report” to see more keywords.

Then check the organic keywords for other results. This way you will have a good idea of what people are searching for.

Now, what if SEMrush doesn’t show any data for the keywords?

On that case, you need to check the posts (which are ranking for your desired keywords) on SEMrush individually.

Just copy the URL.

And paste it into SEMrush search box and hit enter. It will show the organic keywords for which the post is ranking for.

You can also check the other posts to get more keyword ideas.

Step #4. Find Focus, Long Tail & LSI Keywords

Now you need to choose a Focus Keyword. It is the main keyword for which you want your post to rank for.

In this case, our main keyword is “Adsense alternatives”. We will consider it as the focus keyword.

But it’s not easy to get rank with this keyword. To make things easier, we need to find Long Tail Keywords.

If you aren’t sure what I am talking about, here’s an example of a Long Tail Keyword.

Short Tail Keyword (STK): AdSense Alternatives
Long Tail Keywords (LTK): Google AdSense alternatives
                                           Best AdSense Alternatives
                                           High Paying AdSense Alternatives
                                           AdSense Alternatives for Bloggers

(If we combine all of these Long Tail Keywords, we can come up with a post like “Best High Paying AdSense Alternatives For Bloggers.”)

Though the search volume of Long Tail Keywords is lesser than the Short Tail Keyword, it will be easier for you to rank for the Long Tail Keyword. And the great thing is, LTK is profitable and drives targeted traffic.

You can find Long Tail Keywords in SEMrush. Check the “Phrase Match Keywords” section.

Then find long tail keywords with high search volume. And don’t focus on KD. It doesn’t show the right estimation all the time.

However, you can also use Ubersuggest to check Long Tail Keywords. It’s one of my favorite SEO tools which is owned by Neil Patel.

Just go to Ubersuggest. Then enter the keywords and click on “LOOK UP.”

And uncheck the box “Google Keyword Planner” from left-hand side to get more accurate Long Tail Keywords.

Another great helpful tool is, AnswerThePublic. This free tool will help you to find the long-tail keywords based on questions, prepositions, comparisons, alphabetical, and related.

Now let’s move to another kind of keywords – LSI Keywords.

LSI means Latent Semantic Indexing. LSI Keywords are those keywords which are frequently found together. Those keywords can be related, similar, or synonyms words.

Google bots check LSI Keywords to understand the relevancy of a page.

For example, the keyword “Apple” can be used on different occasions.

• Apple – The Fruit.
• Apple – The Brand. 

Google will check for other related keywords like phones, fruit, juice, watch, company, etc. to understand which Apple you are talking about.

LSI Keywords are essential to rank higher in Google for the targeted keywords. You can easily find LSI Keywords from Google Search.

Just search for your main keywords. And check the bold keywords in Google Search Results.

Here we can see that Google bolds the keywords like Amazon, Yahoo/Bing, even if it’s not in our main keywords. Check few more results to get more LSI Keywords.

Another gold mine for LSI Keywords is the “Searches related to” section at the bottom of the Google’s search results.

The bolded keywords are the LSI Keywords.

Another great tool to find LSI Keywords is, LSIGraph​.

Now make a list of those LSI Keywords. And move to the next step.

5. Find Keywords That Are Closely Related

Now we will check for other keywords that are closely related, and people are searching for those keywords in different places.

1. Quora

Quora is the most popular Q&A site where anyone can ask a question and get answers. And the best thing is, it’s a goldmine for long-tail keywords. You can find a lot of untapped keywords there.

Now let’s see how to do keyword research on Quora. At first, go to Quora.com and enter your keywords on the Search box and search for the keywords.

On the next page, you will find a lot of questions related to your Keywords.

Make a list of those keywords that you haven’t thought about so that you can add those keywords on your blog post.

2. Amazon

eCommerce giant Amazon is another best place for keyword research. It’s mainly helpful for product related keywords.

For example, let’s say you are going to write a post on home office desks.

Now type the keyword ‘home office desk’ on Amazon search box and wait. Amazon will show you a bunch of related long tail keywords.

You can pick less competitive long-tail keywords from here. And write a post on it.

But if you want to write an in-depth on ‘Home Office Desks’, you can make a list of these keywords and sprinkle those keywords on your blog post.

3. Udemy

Udemy is an online learning platform that has over 65000 online courses. You can find any type of course there. That makes it a good place for keywords research.

When it comes to keywords researching on Udemy, it’s only helpful for in-depth blog posts. That’s why the keyword ‘AdSense Alternatives’ is not a good fit here.

Now let’s see how to do keyword research with Udemy. First, go to Udemy.com and enter your keyword.

For example, let’s say you are going to write a post on Affiliate Marketing. Type ‘affiliate marketing’ on the search box and hit enter.

Udemy will show all the popular courses on affiliate marketing. Just select a course that fits your topic most.

Then check the course outline. You will get a bunch keywords that people are searching.

And make a list of those keywords.

Conclusion

As Keyword Research varies from keyword to keyword and post to post, I found it a bit difficult to show it on step by step guide.

However, I hope that this post helped you to get a good idea of Keyword Research.

If you have any question regarding this, feel free to ask me via comment.

And if you’ve found this post useful, please help me by sharing this post on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.