Google Keywords Part 3: Ideas

Continuing our series on Google Keywords, today we’ll start assembling our list of potential targets.

Note: most information you’ll find on these techniques is about making money. The idea is to target Google keywords and then build a site around them, with the purpose of gaining traffic and raking in money. But I’m going to explain the reverse – taking the site you have, finding the right keywords to target, and optimizing your site so that people organically find your content. However, these techniques can be adapted to either goal. Perhaps in the pdf version I’ll explain the money-making aspect as well, but for now let’s just get an audience for your site.

Note for linguists: in this arena, the term “keyword” can apply to a word or phrase, although it is singular. For example, we refer to “Italian sports cars” as a “keyword”.

Now, having assembled the tools described in part two of this series, you’re ready to do your research. First, brainstorming:

1. Open up a fresh spreadsheet (pen and paper will do if necessary, but we’ll want to sort the results later).
    
2. Place your cursor in the first cell on the second row (leaving the top row open to place headings later).
    
3. Imagine you are asked the question by a stranger: “What is your web site about?” Answer this question in a short phrase. For example, “victorian furniture”, “1970s punk rock”, or “the meaning of life”. Type it in the box and hit return to move down one cell. If you think of several answers, repeat this as many times as necessary.
    
4. Imagine this stranger asks you to be more specific. Enter your answers, for example, “late victorian furniture”, “1970s New York punk rock”, or “the meaning of life in Greek philosophy”. Get creative with phrasing, and think of terms you mention frequently.
    
5. Now try to get even more specific, like “pseudo-oriental Victorian”, “1970’s Greenwich Village punk”, or “Aristotlean Nicomachean ethics”. Try to keep these phrases as short as possible. Do this for a few minutes, but don’t spend too much time. This is just the beginning, and we’ll refine our choices later.
    
6. Save your spreadsheet as “Google keywords” or the title of your choice.
    
7. Open up your site and look around. Were your answers accurate? Are you really writing about what you thought you were? Add more entries to your spreadsheet if more answers strike you.
   Now we’re ready to start using our toolbox.
    
8. Open Firefox. In the toolbar, look for the “Google keywords” folder you created in part two of this series. Click this once, scroll down and click “Open All in Tabs”. Numerous tabs will load, containing all of your research tools.
    
9. Go to the first tab, the Google Search-based Keyword Tool. This is actually a tool for advertisers, but it suits our purposes very well. Copy the first keyword from your spreadsheet, and paste in the “word or phrase” text field. Click “Find keywords”.

You may only get one or two results. If so, try removing a word from your query and clicking again. For example “late victorian furniture” returns one result, but “victorian furniture” returns 69.

Look down the list and see if any of the results might be reasonable answers to the question “What is your web site about?” If so, these are possible Google keywords.

10. Leave everything right where it is, and go to part four of this series, when published. There, we’ll talk about which of these are worth targeting and why.

Again please note this post is 600 words long, and mentions “Google keywords” six times.