You know you should be blogging. It helps drive traffic to your website, demonstrates your expertise and gives you free market research (blog comments are golden nuggets of information).
The problem is you’re already doing EVERYTHING—coaching, marketing, social media, networking, accounting. It takes a while to write blog posts and you never know what to write about anyways.
You pour a fresh cup of coffee and sit down at your computer with good intentions, ready to kick some blog ass. Two hours later, you’re still staring at the computer screen with no idea what to write about. Argh!
Say hello to my little friend: keyword research.
Most people only think of keyword research in terms of search engine optimization (SEO), but it’s also a hidden gold mine for blog post ideas. Plus, blog posts based on keyword research often get more visitors because you’re writing about topics that you know people are searching for. Double win!
How to Get Blog Post Ideas from Keyword Research
1. Sign up for Google Adwords
Google’s Keyword Planner is a free tool you can use to do keyword research. You need to sign up for Google AdWords to use it.
Tip: Click the ‘Skip the guided set-up’ link at the very beginning of the signup process. Otherwise, Google will require you to enter a credit card number and create a campaign. You DO NOT need to buy any ads or run the campaign to use the Keyword Planner.
Once you’re logged into AdWords, click ‘Tools’ and select ‘Keyword Planner’.
2. Enter Basic Keywords
Click ‘Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category’. Enter a keyword related to your services and click the ‘Get Ideas’ button. For example, if you’re a life coach, you could search for life coach or a common problem you help your clients solve (build confidence, strengthen relationships, change careers, etc).
3. Find Ideas for Blog Posts
Click the ‘Keyword Ideas’ tab at the top of the page to see your list of suggested keywords.
Look for keywords that could be turned into ideas for blog posts. Here are some examples:
- ‘What is a life coach’ could be a blog post explaining what a life coach is, the types of problems you help people solve and how you help them solve those problems.
- ‘Finding a life coach’ could be a list of things people should look and/or questions they should ask when looking for a life coach.
4. Save Blog Post Keywords
For each keyword you want to use, click the arrow in the far right column to add it to ‘Your plan’. Once you’ve added all your keywords, click the download arrow. Choose your spreadsheet options and click ‘Download’. Now you have a spreadsheet with all your blog post ideas for easy reference.
Simple and clever! Thanks for the tip 🙂
Glad you found it helpful. 🙂
This is fantastic, Julia. Thank you so much.
Warm thoughts and smile Annette
Glad it was helpful, Annette!