A Basic Solopreneur's Guide to Keyword Research

If you are writing content for your solopreneur blog (which you obviously need to do), one of the basic steps you take is keyword research. Keyword research is the foundation for a successful piece of content.

It helps you understand what your audience wants, puts your topic in the right direction, and boosts your SEO.

A lot of new solopreneurs don't research keywords. Because of that, they struggle to attract not just many people, but the right people. Some bloggers, when targeting keywords, aim for the most popular ones without considering the competition.

Successful keyword research starts with core terms or "seed keywords"

The first step in keyword research is to identify core terms. Core terms, also known as seed keywords, are words that commonly describe your business. These words will be the ones you enter into a keyword research tool in order to get additional keyword suggestions with exact search volumes.

Don't think hard in this step. Just take out a piece of paper and write down phrases that come to mind that relate to your niche.

For example, if you own a website that focuses on blogging, your possible seed keywords are:

• blogging for beginners
• blogging courses
• blogging platforms
• blogging tips 2018

Another means of finding seed keywords is to use Google's autocomplete feature. Here's how it works: Head over to Google's search box. Type in any term. See the search queries that Google proposes.

Find valuable keywords to include in your content using a keyword research tool.

Now that you've compiled a list of seed keywords, you're ready to enter any of those terms into a keyword research tool. This is to find keyword suggestions with measurable search volumes. A keyword's search volume refers to the number of searches conducted within a certain period of time. The higher the search volume, the higher the demand for that keyword you want your content to rank for.

Search volume isn't the only aspect of keywords you should focus on. You'll want to go for keywords that have a good search volume and have a low difficulty score. Low competition keywords are easier to target and get you better results especially if you are in a competitive niche.

For the purpose of finding high-volume keywords and low-competition keywords, we're going to use any keyword research tool. You have many options - Google Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, etc.

But what I'd like to show here is KWFinder (by Mangools). Why do I love KWFinder for keyword research?

• It's newbie-friendly
• Gives exact search volumes
• Hit the sweet spot between a good search volume and low competition

See the screenshot below:

As you can see, my seed keyword is "blogging tips beginners." KWFinder gave me several suggestions. I chose the result "create a blog" because of its good monthly search volume of 40,527 searches and difficulty score of 53/100 which the tool indicates as possible.

Where to put those keywords? What about keyword density?

In the past, marketers could simply trick search engines into ranking their blog post by stuffing their content with many keywords. Search engines have already evolved. No longer should you obsess about keyword density.

Instead, you need to be strategic about where to put your keywords and write your post in a way that reads naturally and caters to your audience's interests.

Include your keywords in the following areas:

• Blog post headline
• Slug
• Meta description (write this using Yoast plugin)
• Blog post subheadings
• First paragrah of your post

To help search engines better understand your content and rank it higher, consider integrating variations of your researched keywords. These are similar or related phrases called LSI keywords. With them, you avoid overoptimizing for the same keywords and attract more searchers who type in LSI terms.

You'll be able to discover LSI terms to include in your content through any of these methods:

• Type your researched keyword into Google's search box. Once the results show, scroll to the bottom of your search results. Choose any terms under "Searches related to"

• Enter your keyword into a tool called LSI Graph and pick any of the results.

Conclusion

These are all the basic steps to put your keyword research strategy in motion. Remember to start by brainstorming an initial list and working from there using a simple tool. Be strategic about the process of incorporating keywords into your post. Last but not the least, write with your ideal audience in mind.