keyword research | The Blog Pros

May 2, 2024

How to Create an Effective Content Plan in WordPress (9 Expert Tips)

Are you hitting a brick wall trying to plan upcoming content for your blog or business website?

A WordPress website is a powerful tool. But so many business owners waste their potential by not being intentional about the content they create.

The right content will attract the right visitors. It will answer their questions and provide the information they are searching for. Plus, it can help you grow a community of people who appreciate the types of products or services you provide.

So, here are my top tips on how to create an effective content plan in WordPress.

Note: This is a guest post by Chris Christoff, the Awesome Motive partner in charge of MonsterInsights, the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. This is an expert column that we publish every Thursday, where we invite a WordPress expert to share their experiences with our readers.

I will cover quite a few topics in this post. Here’s a handy list so you can jump to the section you are most interested in:

What Are Users Searching For?
Which Search Terms Are Bringing Visitors to My Website?
Who Is Visiting My Website?
What Is Working on My Site?
What Is Declining in Traffic on My Site?
What Is Missing From My Site?
What Are My Competitors Doing Well?
Use AI Tools to Discover More Content Ideas
Schedule Your Content Plan on a Content Calendar

1. What Are Users Searching For?

Internet users perform 5.9 million Google searches per minute. Wouldn’t it be great to know what they are looking for so you can provide the answers? That’s what keyword research is all about.

Keywords are the specific words and phrases that users type into Google and other search engines to find the content they are looking for.

You can explore the top keywords related to your blog’s niche using free and paid keyword research tools. Throughout this article, I’ll touch on how to use a number of these tools.

Let’s start with Semrush. This is one of my favorite keyword research tools because it makes it easy to discover keywords related to your WordPress blog.

You simply type in any word or phrase related to your business, and Semrush will give you a list of keyword variations, questions, and related keywords.

A list of related keywords in the Semrush platform

These will reveal topics you should plan to write about. Make sure you include these keywords in a natural way within the content of your blog posts.

Alternative: The WPBeginner Keyword Generator is another great and free option.

Another useful tool is Google Trends, which shows you how the popularity of a keyword varies over time. This can show you whether a specific keyword is becoming more or less popular, or if it is searched for more often at certain times of the year.

This will help you spot topics that are quickly growing in importance and topics that are best written about at certain times of the year.

For example, you will want to schedule some topics for summer or winter or during certain holidays, like Christmas or Thanksgiving.

2. Which Search Terms Are Bringing Visitors to My Website?

Now you have a useful list of the relevant keywords that users are generally searching for, you should spend some time learning about the phrases people are using to find your WordPress site right now. This will be a list of search terms you are already ranking for.

One of the best tools to uncover this information is Google Search Console. It’s a free tool that lets you monitor your site’s presence in Google search results.

However, like many online tools, Google Search Console is quite technical and can be difficult for beginners to use.

That’s the problem MonsterInsights intends to solve. It connects with Google Search Console and Google Analytics to let you view easy-to-understand reports right from your WordPress dashboard.

For example, MonsterInsights offers a Search Console report that lists the top 50 Google search terms that bring visitors to your site.

Viewing Google Search Console Report in MonsterInsights

This data shows you which topics your current visitors are interested in. Since you are already getting traffic on those keywords, you can improve your search performance by creating new content on those topics.

Next, I recommend asking yourself whether your WordPress blog posts are ranking for the right keywords. If you have already written content that targets specific keywords but are not getting much traffic for them, then you will need to concentrate on creating better content.

3. Who Is Visiting My Website?

I always suggest that business owners plan their content around their target audience. This is the group of people you want to reach with your products and services.

They are likely to have similar demographics, needs, and interests, and understanding what they are will help you write more engaging content.

The best tool for understanding your website visitors is Google Analytics. It’s a free tool that collects all sorts of information about your website visitors, including the country they live in, the operating system and browser they use, and even their screen resolution.

You can view this information right from your WordPress dashboard using the MonsterInsights Demographics report. It displays visitor information from Google Analytics in a friendly and helpful way.

You can see your visitors’ ages and genders at a glance. This information will help you plan more compelling content.

For example, you will probably want to write with a different style and voice for young female visitors compared to a website that attracts mainly middle-aged men.

This report also lists your visitors’ interests, revealing the topics your target audience is most interested in. This data is also very helpful when planning content.

For more details, just see this article on how to track website visitors in WordPress.

You may be surprised by this demographic data because you are trying to target a completely different audience. In that case, something has gone wrong with your content, and you should keep these insights in mind when planning new content and updates.

4. What Is Working on My Site?

Another important consideration when creating an effective content plan is looking at the website content that is already working well. These are the posts that are receiving the most traffic and that your visitors spend the most time on.

For example, it’s always a good idea to look for your most important pages and posts.

Once you know which posts are performing the best, you can plan to create more content on similar topics and grow your traffic.

I also recommend checking keyword rankings for your top articles. You may be able to improve their rankings by scheduling updates and optimizations.

You can uncover more detailed insights by installing the MonsterInsights Custom Dimensions addon. This will let you create reports of your most popular authors, top categories, top focus keywords, and most popular post types.

In turn, this information will help you build a data-driven content strategy that works.

For example, if one author’s posts are performing well, then you can train the rest of your team to follow their techniques. Or discovering your top categories will show you popular topics on your website that you should plan more content for.

5. What Is Declining in Traffic on My Site?

Content planning isn’t just about deciding on new articles to write. It’s also about regularly updating existing content to stay relevant and accurate.

Content decay is where your posts decline in traffic and search rankings over time. They will continue to lose traffic unless you update that content.

This can happen when your content becomes old or outdated, or your competitors write better content targeting the same keywords. It may also be that those keywords are no longer being searched for as often, or that Google has changed their algorithm.

In my opinion, content decay is one of the biggest problems faced by website owners and online businesses.

That’s why it’s a good idea to monitor how individual posts are ranking using a WordPress SEO plugin. All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is one of the best options, and it helps you easily optimize your website for search engines.

It has a Content Performance report that displays your best-performing posts and pages and shows whether their search engine rankings are rising or falling.

You can quickly see which posts have lost the most rankings in the ‘Top Losing’ tab.

AIOSEO also offers a more detailed Content Rankings report. This displays the date you last updated all of your website content, the change in ranking, and a helpful graph of how each post has performed over the last year.

Once you identify the posts on your website that are declining, you can schedule updates so they will start to rank well again.

You should update any information that has changed since the post was written and optimize it for SEO. For example, you might update the images, embed a video, or add a table of contents or FAQ section.

6. What Is Missing From My Site?

Your WordPress blog is a work in progress. That means there will be lots of topics that users are searching for that you haven’t written about yet.

One of the best things you can do when planning new content is to perform a content gap analysis. This process involves comparing the keywords your audience is looking for against your website content and planning to write new posts to fill the gaps you haven’t covered yet.

I showed you earlier how Semrush can help you discover important keywords that you should cover in your articles.

It also offers a Keyword Gap report that can automatically show you which keywords are missing from your website or not performing well.

You simply enter the URLs of your top competitors to discover the keywords they are ranking for but you are not.

Then, you can easily filter the list to find keywords that are missing or weak on your blog.

Once you identify which topics are missing, you can plan to create helpful content to fill those gaps and improve your website’s search performance.

Now, I want to show you some other ways you can get content ideas from your competitors.

7. What Are My Competitors Doing Well?

I’ve been working in the content marketing space for a long time, and it’s more competitive than ever. You can only stay ahead of the game if you keep your eye on what others are doing in your industry.

Chances are, some of your competitors’ content is outperforming yours. Performing a competitor analysis lets you study what they are doing well so you can improve your own website and ultimately outrank them on search.

You’ve just seen how the Semrush Keyword Gap report shows you the keywords your competitors outrank you on. You can also use their Domain Overview report to discover a more complete analysis of competing websites.

Once you enter your competitor’s URL, you’ll be able to see its authority score, organic search traffic, paid search traffic, backlinks, and a whole lot more.

You’ll also see the countries that provide the most traffic and a graph of their traffic over time.

Besides that, you can discover their top-performing pages and tons of other useful data that you can use to improve your content strategy.

I appreciate how Semrush lets you dig in and explore each aspect of the report to give you fresh insights into your competitor’s SEO strategies.

Now, you can use that information to set goals for your website and identify areas for improvement.

8. Use AI Tools to Discover More Content Ideas

Marketers who use AI (artificial intelligence) see an average of 70% increase in ROI (return on investment). When brainstorming new content ideas, artificial intelligence tools can help by identifying relevant trends, topics, and keywords.

This can spark new content ideas and help you stay on top of current industry discussions.

It can be as simple as typing the right prompt into ChatGPT.

With practice, you’ll start using longer and more precise prompts to get the exact help you are looking for. Here are a few of my own examples that you can use when creating a content plan.

This prompt simply asks for 10 blog post ideas on certain topics, along with a title for each post:

Create a list of at least 10 blog post ideas on the topics of stress management and mental health. Suggest an SEO-friendly title for each post, and use an emotional and persuasive tone in post titles.

Below, you can see the ideas that ChatGPT gave me in response:

ChatGPT Prompt to Generate Content Ideas

If you are planning to write product reviews, then you can ask the AI for the most popular products used in a particular area, and a brief explanation of how they can help, like this:

Create a list of the most popular equipment needed in a home office, along with the pros and cons of each one.

In the same way, you might ask for a list of problems people typically have when trying to accomplish a particular task:

Create a list of problems people typically experience when performing a content gap analysis. Provide three tips on how to overcome each problem.

Specific questions like this will provide a more helpful list of suggestions than generic prompts.

Once you have generated a list of new content ideas, artificial intelligence can help you write powerful headlines for each post. For example, I recommend starting by using a free headline analyzer tool on websites like WPBeginner and MonsterInsights.

After that, you can use tools such as All in One SEO to optimize your headlines. With the click of your mouse, you will be offered 5 optimized post titles that are designed to capture your audience’s interest using up-to-date best practices.

For more details, just see this tutorial on how to write powerful headlines with AI.

9. Schedule Your Content Plan on a Content Calendar

If you followed all my tips above, then you should now have a very long list of ideas. This will include new blog post topics, optimized titles and keywords, and articles that need to be updated.

It’s now time to make a plan. The problem is that a large list of keywords can overwhelm beginners, so they simply give up.

You can make sure those posts actually get written or updated by scheduling them on your content calendar. This will act like a roadmap, giving you a clear overview of your content strategy and keeping you on track.

You can use popular online task management tools like Asana or Trello. You may already be familiar with these web apps, and they come with powerful features that help you stay on track.

Additionally, if you have a multi-author blog, then solutions like PublishPress Pro can improve your editorial workflow. This WordPress plugin lets you create a content calendar with custom post statuses, editorial comments, and email notifications.

Just make sure that your publishing schedule is consistent and achievable. Your goal is to create a bird’s eye view of your content strategy that keeps you organized and productive.

I hope these practical tips help you create an effective content plan for your WordPress blog. You may also want to see these guides on how to increase your blog traffic and the best analytics solutions for WordPress users.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create an Effective Content Plan in WordPress (9 Expert Tips) first appeared on WPBeginner.

January 11, 2024

How to Double Your SEO Traffic in 6 Months (With Case Studies)

Do you want to increase your website traffic?

Who doesn’t?

Over the years, I have seen a lot of websites driving tons of additional traffic to their content with the right SEO plan.

I’ve also seen other websites struggling to drive traffic while wondering what they did wrong.

In this article, I will share some successful SEO case studies with you and explain how having the right SEO approach can make a big impact in driving organic traffic.

Note: This is a guest post by Benjamin Rojas, the president of All in One SEO, the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. This is an expert column that we publish every other Thursday, where we invite a WordPress expert to share their experiences with our readers.

Practical tips to grow your SEO traffic and double it in 6 months

I will cover quite a few topics in this post. Here’s a handy list so you can jump to the section you are most interested in:

Lay a Solid SEO Foundation
Don’t Forget About Keyword Research
Content is Still King
Using Schema Markup
The Power of Link Building
Measure Your SEO Performance
Summary of Tips to Double Your SEO Traffic

1. Lay a Solid SEO Foundation

SEO is not complex. It is comprehensive. You need to keep SEO in mind even when you start building your site.

Unfortunately, many businesses think of SEO as a patchwork on top of whatever they are already doing.

By building a solid foundation with a clear-cut SEO strategy, we’ve seen several new websites grow their organic traffic exponentially.

Let’s take a look at Sporked.com, a food review website that grew traffic by 1,036% YoY, for example.

This website built a solid SEO foundation by applying Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) principles from the very beginning.

Here is how their website’s traffic exploded.

Sporked is a very focused niche website. Google loves niche websites as it is easier for those sites to demonstrate their E-E-A-T.

The solid SEO foundation alone wasn’t the only reason for Sporked’s traffic growth. High-quality content, consistency, and backlinks also gave them an SEO boost.

Here is what you need to do to ensure that you are building an SEO-friendly business from the start.

1. Equip Yourself with the Right SEO Tools

Make sure you have the tools that help you easily implement SEO recommendations on your site. Below are a few:

A WordPress SEO plugin: An SEO plugin like All in One SEO (AIOSEO) makes it easy to optimize your site for search engines, even if you’re an absolute newbie.
Google Search Console: It helps you identify how your site performs on Google for free.
Google Analytics: It gives you insights into how every website visitor interacts with your site. Using a plugin like MonsterInsights is the easiest way to install Google Analytics on your site.
A professional SEO tool: With an SEO tool like Semrush, you can analyze competitor content and make informed decisions to boost rankings.

2. Configure Essential SEO Settings

There are some essential SEO settings you’ll need to enable on your site.

These include your permalink structure, categories and tags, and WordPress sitemaps.

I highly recommend checking out the essential WordPress site settings that are critical for SEO success.

For more details, check out the ultimate WordPress SEO guide for beginners.

2. Don’t Forget About Keyword Research

Keywords are the search terms that users type into Google and other search engines to find information. Understanding which keywords your users may be looking for gives you a tremendous advantage in optimizing your website.

This means that you will want to focus on keyword research.

Ideally, you will want to rank for keywords that have the most search volume. However, those keywords may be difficult to rank for, especially for a new website.

In my experience, targeting keywords with the right balance of search volume and lower difficulty level helps you gain the traffic boost you need at the start.

Here’s how Content Authority, a content services provider, uses Keyword Research to grow its traffic by almost 300%.

Content Authority is a content services provider. They grew their website traffic by almost 300%, mainly due to the clever use of keyword research in their strategy.

They are in a highly competitive industry of content creation. Most of their competitors are equally good at creating high-quality content and the latest SEO trends.

To stand out among the competition and capture an untapped traffic source, Content Authority targeted misspelled keywords. They wrote articles targeting those keywords in articles like:

Cruncy vs Crunchy: Decoding Common Word Mix-Ups
Excel Vs. Accel: What’s The Correct Spelling Of This Word?
Adress Vs. Address: What’s The Correct Spelling Of This Word?

Did it work? Yes, it did. Most of their top-ranked content is in this format, targeting misspelled words.

Why did it work? Content Authority writes exclusively about creating content and writing. Writing articles about correct spelling usage falls right into their area of expertise.

Lesson learned: In a competitive industry, clever keyword research can help you bring traffic from untapped sources that your competitors may have ignored entirely.

Here’s how you can implement the same strategy on your site.

1. Understand the Keywords Your Website Ranks For

Google Search Console is a handy tool that helps you identify the keywords your website ranks for. If you want, you can also use an SEO plugin like AIOSEO that helps you view keyword data in your WordPress dashboard.

Here’s how to check if your blog posts are ranking for the right keywords.

2. Unveil More Keyword Insights

You can use a premium SEO tool like Semrush to clearly understand everything you need to know about a particular keyword. It offers detailed insights into search volume, keyword trends, similar keywords, user intent, and more.

3. Generate Keyword Ideas

If you want to use a free tool to generate keyword ideas, you can use WPBeginner’s free Keyword Generator tool. Simply enter your main keyword, and the keyword generator tool will fetch hundreds of related keywords that people are using.

For more details, take a look at this guide on how to do keyword research.

3. Content is Still King

Many small businesses create a simple website with a few pages of content and hope for traffic to appear magically.

Unfortunately, it does not work that way anymore.

In fact, one of the best ways to drive traffic is to publish great content on a regular basis.

Let’s take a look at how Golfer Geeks, a website all about golf, grew its traffic by 190% through content marketing.

Golf is a highly competitive industry where websites are competing not just with other golf enthusiasts but big-name brands and media companies.

Golfer Geeks applied a very disciplined approach towards content. Each piece of content is highly structured, with multiple headings and sections, making it a pleasure to read.

They also use a proactive approach towards content decay. All their content gets regular updates with new information, keeping the content fresh and search engines happy.

They also actively used schema markup, particularly for FAQs.

This helped their content rank for many untapped keywords that their big-name brand competitors completely ignored.

Lesson learned: Excellent content, when combined with the latest SEO best practices, can help smaller websites compete with much larger publications.

If you want to grow your traffic by publishing content, as Golfer Geeks did, then here are a few things you need to take care of:

Create a plan to regularly update all your blog articles on a regular basis to fight content decay. Learn more: What content decay is and how to fix it.
Implement FAQ schema for People Also Ask results.
Optimize images to increase the clickthrough rate on Google.

4. Using Schema Markup

Schema markup is a special type of HTML code that you can add to your WordPress website to tell search engines more about your content.

For instance, you can tell the search engines that a particular page is a blog post, a recipe, FAQs, a news article, or a product page in your online store. Search engines can then use this data to display rich results.

Schema markup displayed in search results

1. Implement Proper Schema Markup

Some types of content benefit more from schema markup than others. For instance, if you write product reviews, then adding the Review markup to your post will make it extremely useful for your users as well as search engines.

Learn how to properly add schema markup in WordPress and WooCommerce.

2. Create User-Centric Content

Schema markup gives you an advantage in search results, but this doesn’t mean that you need to start creating content for search engines alone.

Make sure that your schema markup actually helps users find the information they need. It supplements your actual content and makes it more discoverable.

Case Study: How a Food Blog Grew Traffic by 508%

For this part, I would like you to look at Iowa Girl Eats. It is a food blog specializing in gluten-free food.

It is an older blog that has been publishing content for a while, but recently, it has exploded in traffic.

So what changed?

They started optimizing heavily for user-centric content using schema markup. The blog now ranks for 316.2K keywords with review schema markup.

After the success of the review snippets, the blog has now started focusing on recipe schema markup as well.

Lesson learned: Implement schema markup to make your content more user-centric and search engine-friendly.

5. The Power of Link Building

Links play a crucial role in SEO. Search engines treat links as authority signals. Generally speaking, the more links pointing towards a website, the more trustworthy that website becomes.

Now, there are two types of links you need to focus on:

Internal links
Backlinks from third-party domains

1. Building Internal Linking

Internal linking refers to the practice of linking to your existing content. This helps you achieve two things.

First, it lets your users discover more content when reading your articles.

Secondly, it helps search engines crawl more content and understand the context and subject authority of your website.

For more details, look at this internal linking guide for SEO.

2. Get Backlinks From Third-Party Sites

These backlinks are hard to get. Site owners try to avoid linking to external sources too much to ensure that more sites are pointing to their own domain names.

However, there are several ways to get backlinks. For instance, you can get reciprocal links from third parties by mentioning them on your website.

Reach out to other blogs in your industry that you believe you can partner with and pitch them your content.

3. Creating Link Magnets

Link magnets are the kind of posts that websites generally like to link to. These include:

Industry research: This is one of the best backlink magnets, as every publisher looks for proof to validate a point they make in their content. Unique industry research does just that. As a result, people will link to it.

Stats posts: Like industry research, statistics posts attract a lot of backlinks as they help validate content. Example: 60+ Affiliate Marketing Statistics You Need to Know.
Case studies: Because they help readers see how a product or principle works in real life, case studies are another linkable asset you should create.
Tools and cheat sheets: Creating resources that people can use to solve a problem is another excellent way of attracting backlinks. Example: WPBeginner’s Free Business Tools.
Infographics: This content type is popular for presenting content simply and visually. Example: How WordPress Actually Works Behind the Scenes (Infographic)

These link magnets attract a lot of attention from other website owners in the industry and will help you gain a ton of backlinks.

Case Study: How Explore.com Quadrupled Their Traffic with Backlinks

Explore.com is a travel website, which is a highly competitive industry. This makes it difficult to remain at the top of search rankings.

Explore.com witnessed a very slow growth for 5 years straight, then they suddenly grew their traffic by 305%. What changed?

Looking closely, it’s clear that their traffic growth is directly proportional to an increase in backlinks.

Here is the graph.

Obviously, backlinks alone were not the only reason for their organic growth.

They also implemented schema markup and started targeting a wide range of long-tail keywords that their competitors had ignored.

Lesson: Just a few backlinks from authoritative websites in your industry can have a huge impact on SERPs when combined with other SEO best practices.

6. Measure Your SEO Performance

One question that I have been asked a lot is, how do I measure SEO performance to see if something has worked or not?

As you apply SEO best practices and publish content regularly, you will want to see how they impact your website’s SEO.

Again, I’d recommend using all the SEO tools I mentioned in tip #1 of this article.

Case Study: How Meshki UK Grew Traffic by 589%

Meshki is a popular fashion brand in Australia, UK, and the US. They use country-based TLDs for their websites in each region.

This gives them a competitive advantage in local searches. But the real value they achieved is by adding review schema markup and monitoring branded keywords.

However, to get such a result, a website owner has to regularly monitor their SEO performance and measure the impact of changes they’re making.

Conclusion: Summary of Tips to Double Your SEO Traffic

These are just some of the ways that you can step up your SEO game and better compete with established brands.

Implementing all these tips might sound tedious, but you can take one lesson at a time and start testing them on your site.

To summarize, below are the tips we’ve explained so far:

Lay a solid SEO foundation by using an excellent SEO plugin and using the right SEO settings.
Keyword research can help small businesses compete with big-name brands and publishing companies.
Publishing user-centric content is still the most important factor in winning organic traffic.
Schema markup allows you to help search engines show rich results. In return, they send you more traffic and display your site more prominently.
Focus on building both internal and third-party backlinks. Don’t underestimate the power of internal linking.
Measure your SEO performance to view your gains and losses. Change strategies when needed or double down to have a much larger impact.

I hope these practical tips help you increase your SEO traffic. For further reading, I recommend following the WPBeginner SEO guide step by step.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Double Your SEO Traffic in 6 Months (With Case Studies) first appeared on WPBeginner.

December 15, 2023

How to Avoid Keyword Stuffing & Fix Over Optimization in SEO

Are you worried that you’ve stuffed too many keywords into your content?

When it comes to optimizing your site for search engines, many new users have a tendency to stuff their content with keywords. However, this is not a good practice and could lead to over-optimization, which can then lead to being penalized by search engines like Google.

In this article, we will show you how to avoid keyword stuffing and fix over-optimization in SEO.

What is Keyword Stuffing?

Keyword stuffing is filling a web page with keywords to manipulate search engines in the hopes of getting higher rankings.

In the early days of search engine optimization (SEO), it was easy to exploit search engines and use keyword stuffing to boost ranking. However, search engines like Google have become a lot smarter and can penalize sites that use this as an exploit.

There are different ways you can do keyword stuffing in your content. For instance, repeating words and phrases unnecessarily, listing or grouping text together unnaturally, or inserting blocks of keywords that appear out of context.

Here’s an example of how using the same keyphrase repeatedly in a single paragraph can lead to keyword stuffing.

Another way site owners can stuff search terms is by adding hidden text to the source code of the page. Users won’t be able to see this, but search engine crawlers will. Google does not like this practice.

That said, let’s look at how keyword stuffing can impact your site’s SEO.

Why is Keyword Stuffing Bad for SEO?

If you’re starting out with WordPress SEO, then it can be easy to get carried away and add the same keyword lots of times in the content. However, you should know that it goes against the web search policies of Google.

This could lead to a penalty from Google, where your site can be demoted in rankings. In worst cases, Google can also remove your page from its search engine results.

Besides that, keyword stuffing also leads to poor user experience because the content can be come hard to read. People might not find your content useful and exit the website. As a result, your site might look spammy and you won’t be able to build a healthy relationship with your audience.

Having said that, let’s look at different ways you can fix over-optimization and avoid keyword stuffing.

1. Measure Your Content’s Keyword Density

The easiest way of avoiding keyword stuffing is by measuring the keyword density of your content. Keyword density checks how many times a search term is used within the content.

You can use WPBeginner Keyword Density Checker to get started. It is a free tool that doesn’t require signup, registration, or installation.

Simply enter the URL or text of your content into the tool and click the ‘Check’ button.

Next, the tool will analyze your content and show you the results.

You can then see how many times a keyword is being used on the web page. For instance, in the screenshot below, you can see the word ‘parrotfish’ occurs 28 times or has a 13.66% density.

The Free WPBeginner Keyword Density Checker Tool

After finding the density of the search term, you can then edit your content and remove words and phrases that are repeated multiple times.

A best SEO practice suggests that keyword density should be around 2%. You can use this as a guideline and ensure your content isn’t over-optimized.

2. Assign a Primary Keyword to Each Content

Another way you can fix over-optimization for SEO is by assigning a primary keyword or phrase to each blog post and page.

You should conduct keyword research and pick a search term that best represents the main topic of your content. This way, your content will focus on a specific issue and you’ll be better able to fulfill the search intent

If you try to optimize a web page with multiple keywords with different intent, then you’ll leave your site in a big mess. It will confuse search engines from understanding your content and who it is for, which will prevent your page from ranking for the right keyword.

There are different keyword research tools you can use to find the primary search term for your content. We recommend using Semrush, as it is a complete SEO tool that offers powerful features.

You get a detailed overview of the keyword along with other valuable information. For instance, Semrush shows search volume, intent, keyword difficulty, and more for the search term.

Once you’ve found a primary keyword, you can use the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin to optimize your content for the search term. AIOSEO is the best SEO plugin for WordPress that lets you add focus keyphrases to each post and page.

Adding focus keyphrase for your blog post

The plugin analyzes your content for the keyphrase, shows a score, and provides tips to improve keyword optimization. AIOSEO also integrates with Semrush to help you find more related keywords.

To learn more, please see our guide on how to properly use focus keyphrases in WordPress.

3. Use Synonyms and Related Keywords

You can avoid keyword stuffing by using LSI (latent semantic indexing) or related keywords for your content.

These are search terms that are closely related to the primary keyword. Related keywords also help search engines better understand your content.

Using different variations of keywords, synonyms, or long tail phrases can also help avoid keyword stuffing. It gives you more flexibility in incorporating different topics into your article.

You can find related keywords using the WPBeginner’s Keyword Generator tool. Simply enter your main search term or topic in the search bar and click the ‘Analyze’ button.

The tool is 100% free to use and generates over 300 keyword ideas.

You can then use different variations in your article to avoid keyword stuffing.

Besides that, you can also search the primary keyword on Google and then scroll down to see related searches.

This will give you even more keyword variations to use in your content and fix over-optimization issues.

4. Add Value by Extending the Word Count

Next, you can create long-format content to cover the topic in detail and help achieve higher rankings.

Extending the word count gives you the opportunity to cover multiple sub-topics, answer different questions users might have, and easily use keyword variations to avoid stuffing.

This also helps you use different search terms naturally instead of forcing them in every sentence. Plus, it offers a better reading experience for users.

While extending the word count will help avoid keyword stuffing, you should also focus on content quality. Google and other search engines emphasize creating content that’s valuable. So, we recommend writing for your users instead of focusing on keyword placement.

One way of extending the word count and diversifying the use of keywords is by adding a FAQ section at the bottom of the post.

5. Include Keywords in On-Page SEO Optimization

You can also avoid keyword stuffing and fix over optimization by placing the target search term in different places during the on-page SEO process.

On-page SEO is optimizing a webpage for search engines and users. It refers to anything you do on the page itself to boost its rankings in search engine page results (SERP).

By spreading the placement of keywords across different page elements, you can easily fix keyword stuffing issues. For instance, there are different page elements where you can add the main keyword. These include the title, meta description, subheadings, permalink, and more.

With AIOSEO, it is very easy to perform on-page SEO and ensure your content is properly optimized. You can add meta descriptions, focus keyphrases, build internal links, and get suggestions for improvement.

Similarly, adding keywords to image alt text lets you rank for image search and allows you to diversify the use of primary search terms across the content.

It can help show screenshots from your blog post as featured snippets, helping you get more traffic.

Adding alt text, a description, caption, and more to images in WordPress

You can learn more by following our tips to optimize your blog posts for SEO.

We hope this article helped you learn how to avoid keyword stuffing and fix over-optimization in SEO. You may also want to see our guide on a 13-point WordPress SEO checklist for beginners and must-have WordPress plugins for business sites.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Avoid Keyword Stuffing & Fix Over Optimization in SEO first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 9, 2023

How to Quickly Generate 100+ Blog Post Ideas (3 Methods)

Are you wondering how to come up with new blog post ideas without spending too much money, time, and resources?

Many bloggers struggle to find blog post ideas to keep their audience engaged. Even more experienced bloggers face this issue regularly.

In this guide, we will show you quick and easy ways to generate 100+ blog post ideas. This will help you consistently create helpful content that brings you more search traffic.

Generate dozens of blog post ideas easily

What Makes a Good Blog Post Idea?

Whether you are just starting a blog or have been blogging for some time, you will learn that not all blog post ideas are equal. Plus, coming up with new articles requires effort, time, and resources.

Here are some simple rules to consider when choosing a blog post idea.

1. Topical Relevance

The blog post ideas you choose should be relevant to the main topic of your blogging niche or industry. For example, if you run a travel blog, then it wouldn’t make sense to start writing articles about pet care.

Choosing topics relevant to your blog niche helps you build topical authority. This means that search engines consider you an expert within your niche, which can improve your search rankings.

2. Search Volume / Audience Interest

Another important thing to consider when choosing blog ideas is your audience interest.

To do that, you need to first understand your blog’s target audience. Who are they, and what kind of content are they looking for?

Next, you will want to see if there is any search volume for the topic you want to write about. Search volume is the average number of searches for that keyword in top search engines.

3. Competition in Search Rankings

A quick Google search for a blog post idea can show you what your competitors are writing about that topic.

This helps you see what information they have covered in their articles. After that, you can build upon it to create more comprehensive content and outrank your competition.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily find hundreds of blog post ideas within minutes.

Quick and Easy Ways to Generate Blog Post Ideas (Free and Paid)

There are multiple online tools that can help you quickly generate blog post ideas. Some of them are paid, but plenty of them are available for free.

Let’s look at three of our favorite tools to generate blog post ideas.

1. Keyword Generator (Free)

Keyword Generator is a free keyword research tool that we made at WPBeginner. It allows you to perform in-depth keyword research to find dozens of blog post ideas to write about.

Simply enter a topic or keyword that you want to work on and click on the ‘Analyze’ button.

The tool will then generate 300+ new keyword ideas from Google that you can browse or download as a CSV file.

These ideas can be sorted by the following:

Alphabetical – Related keywords that people search for in Google in alphabetical order.
Prepositions – Related keywords that include prepositions like for, near, is, to, and so on.
Questions – Related long-tail topics organized as questions.

To see blog post ideas organized as an SEO topical entity graph, simply click the ‘Show graph’ button in any section.

You can also copy the SVG file of the graph to your clipboard.

You can combine several article ideas in one blog post or create multiple content pieces to build authority around a topic over a period of time.

2. Semrush (Detailed Search Data)

Semrush is one of the best SEO tools on the market. It offers the most comprehensive set of search engine and social media marketing tools.

Note: Semrush also offers a limited free account, which is suitable for beginners on a budget.

Semrush includes two tools that both work great for generating blog post ideas. We will now take a look at both of them.

1. Topic Research Tool

First, there is the Topic Research tool. It allows you to enter a topic or keyword, and Semrush will generate content ideas around that topic.

The results will show you related topics as cards that you can click to expand and view all the content ideas for that topic.

You will also see the subtopic search volume, how easy it is to rank for (the difficulty level), and the topic efficiency. Topic efficiency is calculated by considering both the search volume and the difficulty level.

For each subtopic, you will see results as article headlines. You can click on each headline to view the article on a competitor’s website. This gives you a good idea of the information you will need to cover in your blog post.

Next to headlines, you will see questions commonly asked by users about that subtopic. You can pick a question to answer in your article or combine several to make a more comprehensive blog post.

2. Keyword Magic Tool

The Keyword Magic tool is a powerful keyword research tool built into the Semrush toolkit. It allows you to simply enter a keyword or topic to find related keywords with a ton of useful data.

From here, you can sort the results by questions, broad, phrase, exact, or related matches.

Next to each keyword, Semrush will show you search volume, keyword difficulty, cost per click or CPC (for pay-per click ads), and more.

You can also click on a keyword to view more detailed information about it, including the intent of visitors who search for this keyword. For example, users might only be looking for informational content, or they may be looking to buy a product (transactional intent).

If you are using a paid Semrush account, then you will also see Keyword Clusters. These are semantically related keywords, which are different phrases related to a single topic. You can use them to create more authoritative content on any topic.

3. Blog Post Idea Generator (Free)

Blog Post Idea Generator is a free tool that we created at WPBeginner to help our readers generate blog post ideas.

Simply enter your main topic or a related noun in the search field and click on the ‘Get Ideas’ button. The generator will then create a list of blog post ideas that you can write about.

You can copy the ideas you want to work on and create your own list.

Then, you can customize the blog headlines and refine the ideas on your own. You can also use this list together with the WPBeginner Keyword Generator tool to further explore a topic idea.

Bonus Tips to Find Blog Post Ideas

The three tools we talked about in this article can help you very quickly generate hundreds of blog post ideas. However, there are a few other things you can do to refine these ideas and find more related topics to write about.

First, you can put your blog post idea in a Google search to see the competition.

As you type in your keyword or blog post idea, Google will start suggesting relevant topics that other users searched for.

You can include those topics in your blog post or save them to check later.

On the search results page, you will see your top competitors. Visiting these results will give you an idea of how your competitors have covered this topic.

You may also see the ‘People also ask’ section. This shows related questions people are looking for about a particular topic.

These questions can be separate blog post ideas, or you can include them in your topic and make it more comprehensive. You might even include them in a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section to target the specific phrases within your content.

Finally, you will find related searches at the bottom of the page. These are relevant keywords and search terms that can be used as separate blog post ideas.

Optimizing Your Blog Post Ideas

The tools we have talked about usually just show you raw data. You may still need to come up with your own blog post title, content outline, and more. You will also need to optimize your blog post to outrank the competition and get more search traffic.

The easiest way to do all this is by using the All in One SEO for WordPress plugin.

It is the best WordPress plugin on the market that allows you to easily optimize your blog posts for SEO.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the All in One SEO for WordPress plugin. For more details, see our article on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: There is also a free version called All in One SEO Lite that you can use. However, we recommend upgrading to a pro plan to unlock the plugin’s full potential.

Upon activation, you can edit the blog post that you are working on.

Then, just go to the All in One SEO panel at the bottom of the WordPress content editor and enter a focus keyword for your blog post.

All in One SEO will now show you an SEO score for your blog post based on your main focus kephrase. A higher score tells you that your content is well optimized for your main keyword.

The plugin will also show you practical recommendations to improve the SEO score.

All in One SEO showing SEO score for blog post

You can also refine your blog post title by switching to the headline analyzer panel.

This free tool helps you optimize your blog post title to improve your organic click-through rate in the search results.

We hope this article helped you generate blog post ideas to fill up your editorial calendar for weeks. You may also want to see our complete WordPress SEO guide or take a look at the best blog examples to follow for inspiration.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Quickly Generate 100+ Blog Post Ideas (3 Methods) first appeared on WPBeginner.

May 24, 2023

10 Best Long Tail Keyword Generators (Compared)

Are you looking for the best long-tail keyword generators?

Long tail keywords are more specific search terms that users may try to narrow down their search results. Using them in your content can help you bring more traffic to your website.

In this article, we’ll show you the best long-tail keyword generators to find content ideas for driving traffic and conversions to your website.

The best long tail keyword generators for beginners

What Are Long Tail Keyword Generators?

Long tail keyword generators are online tools that help you find specific search terms or keywords related to a topic or phrase.

If you are starting a blog or making a website, then creating content around long-tail keywords can help you bring traffic to your site.

Long-tail keywords often show the user’s intent to make a purchasing decision and can help bring more targeted traffic and sales.

The easiest way to understand long-tail keywords is by using Google search itself. The search box will start suggesting long tail keywords as soon as you start typing.

long tail keyword suggestions in Google Search

You’ll also find more long-tail keyword ideas in the search results.

For instance, you’ll see the ‘People also ask’ section. This shows questions people are asking that are relevant to the search term you entered.

At the bottom of search results, you may also see a Related Searches section.

This will show further topics and related keywords which may not necessarily be long-term keywords but could further expand a search.

Google Search will give you a general idea of commonly used long-tail keywords related to a given search.

However, there are other third-party tools that can help you dig deeper and find more useful keyword ideas.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best long tail keyword generators on the market.

1. All in One SEO for WordPress

All in One SEO for WordPress is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It allows you to easily optimize your WordPress website to get more search traffic.

You’ll need All in One SEO to optimize your content for focus keywords as well as any long tail keywords you find.

The best part about using it is that you can generate long-tail keywords right inside the WordPress admin area.

First, you need to install and activate the All in One SEO for WordPress plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: You can also use the free version of All in one SEO. It does allow you to generate keyword ideas but you’ll need pro version to add and analyze your content.

Simply edit the post or page you want to optimize and scroll down to AIOSEO Settings.

From here, look for the Focus Keyphrase section and enter your main keyword as the Focus keyphrase. After that, you need to click on the Get Additional Keyphrases button.

All in One SEO will then bring up a popup and ask you to connect with your Semrush account.

Don’t worry, you can sign up for a free Semrush account and use that as well.

Once you are connected, All in One SEO will fetch and display long tail keyword ideas that you can use.

Simply click on Add Keyphrase button to include one.

You can now start optimizing your content to cover new long-tail keywords you added.

All in One SEO is the most comprehensive SEO toolkit for WordPress. It has powerful custom sitemaps, advanced redirects, SEO titles and descriptions, multiple keyphrases, and full Schema support.

Pricing: Free version. The premium plans start at $49.60 per year.

2. Semrush

Semrush is the most powerful search marketing platform on the market. It comes with powerful keyword research tools that allow you to easily find long-tail keywords.

When looking for long-tail keywords, you can sort them by search volume, keyword difficulty, cost per click, and other matrices.

Semrush helps you easily track SERPs and your site’s performance for different keywords. You can also see do the SEO competitor analysis and find which keywords are generating the most traffic for your rivals.

Semrush also has a free plan which is good for finding long-tail keywords. However, the paid plans give you access to incredibly powerful tools and are totally worth the premium price tag.

Pricing: Limited free plan. Paid plans start at $119.95 per month.

3. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another popular search marketing platform with a powerful set of tools to help you grow search traffic.

It comes with a powerful Keywords Explorer tool that helps you find long-tail keyword ideas. It shows keyword difficulty, search volume, estimated clicks, and more.

You can also see top-ranking pages for a keyword and see what other keywords that particular page rank for. This gives you a more in-depth list of long-tail keywords to target.

Apart from keyword explorer, Ahrefs comes with keyword monitoring, site audit, technical SEO analysis, and detailed competitor analysis.

They also have a free Ahrefs Search Console tool, which is similar to Google Search Console with a few extra features.

Pricing: Starting from $99 per month.

4. Answer The Public

Answer The Public is a search insights tool popular among SEO professionals and marketers. It allows you to enter a keyword and see the questions users are looking for on search engines.

This gives you long-tail keyword suggestions with practical ideas on how to make your content more comprehensive for a wider audience.

Simply enter your main keyword or topic in the search field and it will generate a chart of questions. You can mouse over a question to highlight it.

Less popular questions have a lighter background color and more popular questions will be highlighted with a slightly darker color.

Charts are organized in questions, prepositions, and comparison queries. Below the charts, you will also see the questions in list format.

Answering some of these questions in proper FAQ schema can help your content appear in Google rich snippet results.

Pricing: Free for over 500K searches per month. Paid plans start at $99

5. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a keyword research tool provided by Google for advertisers to find keywords. It is an immense resource for marketers even if you don’t want to run paid advertisements.

Simply click on ‘Discover new keyword ideas’ and enter your main keyword. Keyword Planner will then fetch a list of keyword ideas related to your main keyphrase.

You can see average monthly searches, changes in search volume over recent months, advertiser competition, and more.

The keyword planner data does not provide keyword difficulty range like Semrush or Ahrefs.

However, you can assume that keywords with higher search volume and advertisement costs would have tougher competition.

Pricing: Free

6. Question DB

Question DB is another free and simple search insights tool. Similar to Answer The Public, it allows you to see the questions users are asking for a keyword.

You can view the results in questions or keywords format. The results are not formatted in any specific order and there are no other metrics to compare them with.

For instance, you wouldn’t know how many people are looking for a long tail keyword or question. You’ll have to use other tools to find this information.

Pricing: Free

7. KWFinder

KWFinder is another excellent tool for generating long-tail keyword ideas. Unlike Semrush and Ahrefs, KWFinder focuses on keyword research.

It offers comprehensive keyword analysis with search volume, historical data, keyword difficulty, and visits.

You can search for specific geographic locations and languages. You can also track keywords and monitor your SERPs.

Pricing: $29.90 per month

8. Keyword Tool

Keyword Tool is another useful tool for keyword research and finding long-tail keyword ideas for your business.

It sources keyword data from autocomplete feature in Google, YouTube, Bing, and more. You can narrow your search with location and language filters.

The basic keyword tool is free but only provides a keyword list. You will need to subscribe to the pro plan to see search volume, competition, and CPC cost.

Pricing: Free. Paid plans start from $69 per month.

9. Google Trends

Google Trends helps you compare search trends over time. It is not exactly a long-tail keyword generator but can help you see user interest in search terms over time.

You can also compare multiple keywords to see which one has more searches. It can also be used to compare brands, products, people, and more.

Below that you can also get a list of related queries and clickable maps to see interest in different regions.

Pricing: Free

10. LSIGraph

LSIGraph is another highly useful content planning and keyword research tool on the market.

It helps you easily find low-hanging long-tail keywords with opportunity scores. This helps new websites quickly find keywords that are easy to rank for.

Each keyword also shows user intent, this allows you to sort your keywords by user intent when planning your content strategy.

Pricing: Starting from $29 per month.

We hope this article helped you find the best long tail keyword generators. You may also want to see our article on how to improve your organic click through rate or check out these Google Search Console tips to drive more search traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 10 Best Long Tail Keyword Generators (Compared) first appeared on WPBeginner.

July 6, 2022

How to Do Keyword Research for Your WordPress Blog

Do you want to do keyword research for your WordPress blog?

Keyword research helps you find betters content ideas so you can grow your traffic and create highly engaging content that users will love.

In this article, we will show you how to do keyword research for your WordPress site.

How to do keyword research for your WordPress blog

What is Keyword Research and Why Do You Need it?

Keyword research is a technique used by content creators and search engine optimization (SEO) experts. It helps you discover the words that people search for when looking for content just like yours.

Once you know the words that people are entering into the search engines, you can use these keywords to optimize your blog posts for SEO. This can help you get more traffic from search engines such as Google.

Some website owners fall into the trap of assuming they already know what their audience are searching for. However, you don’t need to make guesses when there are powerful tools that can help you make decisions based on real data.

By doing keyword research as part of your WordPress SEO strategy, you can:

Find the words and phrases that your audience are actually entering into the search engines
Increase the traffic you get from search engines
Find content ideas that are easy to rank for and have decent search volume
Find out what your competitors are doing – and do better!

That being said, let’s take a look at how to do keyword research for your WordPress blog.

In this post we have hand-picked the best keyword research tools that we have personally used for our own projects. We will explore each tool and how it can help you perform keyword research like a pro.

1. Semrush (Recommended)

Semrush is one of the best SEO Tools on the market. It is a complete SEO suite with tools that can help you do organic research, paid advertising research, keyword research, and in-depth competition analysis.

To get started, simply go to the Semrush website. Then type a keyword into the ‘Enter domain, keyword or URL’ field.

If you don’t already have some keywords in mind, then you can use any word or phrase related to your business. For example, if you run an eCommerce site that sells headphones, then the word ‘headphones’ might be a solid starting point.

Click on the ‘Start now’ button and Semrush will display lots of information about the keyword you just entered.

This include the CPC for paid advertising, the number of search results, and search volume.

Scroll down a little and you will see a list of related keywords. Related keywords are search terms that are related to the keyword you typed into the Semrush homepage.

Some websites are guilty of stuffing the same keyword into their content over and over again, in an attempt to rank for that keyword. This makes your content more difficult to read.

In fact, Google may even give your website a penalty if they suspect you’re using these tactics. This can lower your position in the search engine rankings.

By adding lots of related keywords to your content, you can show the search engines that you’re writing about your chosen topic in a genuine, detailed way. For this reason, it’s smart to add related keywords to your content wherever possible.

To see the full list of related keywords, click on the ‘View all…’ button.

How to view all keywords, in the Semrush tool

Next, scroll down to the SERP Analysis section. SERP stands for search engine results page. This is the page that the search engines display after a user searches for a word or phrase.

The SERP Analysis section displays the list of top search results for the keyword that you originally entered.

If you want to rank for this keyword, then these sites are your biggest competition.

To view a detailed Organic Report for each result, simply click on its URL.

By analyzing this report, you can better understand why this page ranks so highly for this particular keyword.

Organic Research, as seen in the Semrush tool

If you want to learn more about the related keywords, then Semrush has a Keyword Magic Tool. This gives you fast access to information about a wider range of related keywords.

To see this tool in action, click on Keyword Magic Tool in the Semrush sidebar.

When you spot a promising keyword, you can click on its add (+) icon. This will add this word or phrase to Semrush’s keyword analyzer where you can learn even more about it.

Once you have figured out the best keywords with the highest search volume, the next step is analyzing competition for those words or phrases. If a keyword has a huge search volume but very high competition, then you may struggle to earn a cut of that traffic.

To see a detailed analysis, click on the links that are already ranking for your chosen keyword. You can also see the backlinks for that URL, other keywords that page ranks for, and an estimate of how much search traffic this link gets.

Overall, Semrush is the best keyword research tool on the market. It not only gives you keyword ideas, it also helps you find out how you can rank for those keywords.

Even better, Semrush integrates with All in One SEO (AIOSEO) to help you find and research related keywords directly in your WordPress dashboard.

AIOSEO is the best SEO plugin for WordPress and has all the tools you need to get more traffic from the search engines without editing code or hiring a developer. For more details, you can see our guide on how to setup AIOSEO for WordPress correctly.

When you’re creating a page or post in WordPress, simply scroll down the page to AIOSEO’s Focus Keyphrase section. You can then enter the keyword that you want to target with this content.

Adding a focus keyphrase in the AIOSEO tool

Then, click on the Add Focus Keyphrase button. AIOSEO will now scan your content and give you an SEO score. This is an easy way to make sure it’s optimized for the phrase that you want to rank for.

AIOSEO will also suggest ways to improve your score.

Performing keyword research using the All in One SEO plugin

These tips can help you rank for your focus keyphrase.

The Semrush integration also makes it easy to discover related words and phrases.

To start, simply click on the Get Additional Keyphrases button. This launches a popup where you can log into your Semrush account.

AIOSEO's Get Additional Keyphrase button

After connecting your Semrush account to AIOSEO, you can explore the related keywords inside your WordPress dashboard.

AIOSEO will even display the search volume and trends for each related keyphrase. This can help you pinpoint the terms that could deliver the most visitors to your website.

Exploring related keywords, using AIOSEO

If you have AIOSEO Pro, you’ll also see an Add Keyphrase button. This makes it easy to add any keyphrase to your post.

After adding a related keyword, AIOSEO will check all of your content for this new phrase. It will then give you a score, which reflects how well you’re targeting the related keyword.

The All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin user interface

AIOSEO will even give you feedback and suggestions on how to improve your content. By following these recommendations, you’ll stand the best possible chance of ranking for this additional keyphrase.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the most powerful keyword research tools on the market. It helps you learn why your competitors are ranking so high, and what you need to do to outrank them in search results.

Ahrefs crawls more than 6 billion pages every day, with over 22 trillion links in their index from over 170 domain names. That’s a lot of data, but the real beauty is how the Ahrefs platform helps you use this data to perform keyword research.

Ahrefs has a user-friendly interface that breaks this data into different sections. Simply type a domain into the search field and Ahrefs will display a wealth of information in an easy to understand format.

Ahfres will start by showing you an overview of the information for this domain. This includes the total number of backlinks, referring domains, organic keywords, and content review. You can click on any of these sections to learn more.

There is lots to explore. You can see one of the most useful reports by clicking on ‘Organic Keywords.’ This will display a list of keywords for the domain name along with search volume, search rank, URL, and more.

Organic Keyword data, in the Ahfres dashboard

If you want to generate some keyword ideas, then start entering phrases or words into the search box. This can be anything from the name of your top-selling product, to a new buzzword in your industry.

Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool will then generate a list of keyword suggestions, along with their search volume, difficulty score, and clicks. We recommend looking for keywords that have a high search volume, and a lower difficulty score.

Ahrefs also comes with powerful tools for content analysis, rank tracking, web monitoring, and more. You can export all reports in CSV or PDF format and then work on them in your favorite spreadsheet software.

3. AnswerThePublic

The AnswerThe Public keyword research tool

AnswerThePublic is a free visual keyword research and content ideas tool. It uses Google and Bing’s auto-suggest features, and presents this data in a format that’s easier to understand.

To get started, simply visit the AnswerThePublic website and enter a keyword or phrase. The tool will then load related keywords and present them as a visual map.

Exploring related keywords, in the AnswerThePeople tool

You can click on any keyword and AnswerThePublic will show this word’s Google search results in a new browser tab. This is an easy way to explore the questions that people are searching for, so you can create content that answers those questions.

AnswerThePublic presents all its keyword research on a single page. You can also download this data as images.

Another option is exporting AnswerThePublic’s data to a CSV file. You can then explore this data using your preferred spreadsheet software.

How to download the AnswerThePeople keyword research data

More Keyword Research Tips

All the above tools will provide you with a wealth of data.

If you’re unsure where to start, then here’s some tips on how to find the keywords that will deliver lots of traffic to your website.

1. Start With Broader Search Terms

Keyword research isn’t about finding the perfect search terms on your first try.

After all, there’s a reason why it’s called research!

It often makes sense to start with more general, vague search terms. This could be the name of your products, company, or important topics within your industry.

You can then explore the results, and refine your potential keywords. If you’re using AIOSEO, then you can use the Additional Keyphrases feature to easily find related keywords.

You can then view the search volume and trends for these related words and phrases. This can help you find new keywords that could potentially bring lots of high-converting, highly-focused traffic to your website.

2. Do Competitor Research

Competitor research is where you use a tool to analyze your own keyword performance and then compare it with your competitors. For more details, please see our guide on how to do an SEO competitor analysis in WordPress.

Some tools can even help you spot opportunities to outperform your competitors. For example, the Semrush sidebar has an entire section dedicated to competitor research.

3. Focus on Search Intent

Search intent is what the user hoped to achieve by searching for this particular keyword.

Some keywords have a very clear search intent. Others are a bit more vague.

Imagine someone types ‘burrito’ into a search engine. This person may want to order takeout, or they might be searching for a burrito recipe. They may even be looking for the definition of the word ‘burrito.’

The search intent is unclear. Even if you manage to rank for this keyword, you may struggle to create content that matches the visitor’s search intent. This is simply because there are lots of different possible search intents for the word ‘burrito.’

Now, think about the search term ‘best vegetarian burrito recipe.’ Here, the search intent is much more clear.

There may be less people searching for this keyphrase, but it’s easier to create content that perfectly matches the search intent.

When it comes to keyword research, there’s always the temptation to use generic search terms that have a huge search volume.

However, it’s important to keep the search intent in mind.

Here, a tool such as AIOSEO can help you find related keywords that have a lower search volume, but a very clear search intent.

How to Apply Keyword Research in Your Business or Blog?

The main goal of keyword research is to find out what your customers are searching for, and then rank for those words in the search results. There are different ways to do that depending on your content strategy.

To start, plan a proper content marketing strategy around the keywords that you want to target. This might involve creating useful content articles, blog posts, infographics, and videos about this keyword.

Business websites can create landing pages, documentation, FAQs and other content targeting their new keywords.

When writing your content, you can enter your target keyword into a tool such as AIOSEO. AIOSEO will then help you optimize your content for this focus keyword.

If you run an online store, then you can also use those keywords in your product titles, descriptions, and product categories. If you’re using WooCommerce for your online store, then please see our step-by-step guide to ranking #1 in Google.

Need help creating engaging content? Check out our expert pick of the best content marketing tools and plugins.

How Do I Track the Performance of My Keyword Research?

Was your keyword research a success? Are you getting more traffic from the search engines, or do you still have work to do?

If you’re going to answer these questions, you’ll need to track your performance.

First, you need to sign up for Google Search Console. This tool provides insights into how Google views your website. You can also use Google Search Console to track the keywords that you rank for and your average position in the search results.

To properly track the performance of your content, you’ll need to add Google Analytics to your WordPress website.

The best way to do that is by using MonsterInsights, the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It’s used by over 3 million businesses, including Microsoft, Bloomberg, PlayStation, and Subway. For more details, please see our guide on how to install Google Analytics to a WordPress website.

We hope this article helped you learn how to do keyword research for your WordPress blog. You may also want to see our guide on how to create an email newsletter the right way, or check out our expert comparison of the best business phone services for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Do Keyword Research for Your WordPress Blog first appeared on WPBeginner.

January 14, 2021January 15, 2021

SEO Writing 101 Guide

“SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results” per Moz, which is the very first company that started an online-based subscription service for the SEO community. 

Google and other search engines have millions of factors to determine which webpage is suitable for your query; however, the most important aspect of SEO writing is that you create content for your audience, and search engines make algorithm updates to provide the best search engine result pages (SERPs) to users. Do you see the keyword here? SEO is all about people. You do not want to create content for search engines.

January 22, 2020

8 Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO in 2020 (Compared)

Are you looking for the best keyword research tools for SEO?

Keyword research is vital for growing traffic to your site. It helps you write the perfect content to increase your organic search traffic.

The challenge is that finding the right keyword research tool can be tricky, especially if you’re fairly new to SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

In this article, we’ll share the very best keyword research tools that experts use to grow their website traffic.

What is a Keyword Research Tool?

A keyword research tool helps you find topic ideas that people are searching for on search engines like Google.

This helps you find content ideas that your customers are looking for. You can then plan your content strategy to cover those topics in your blog posts and landing pages.

Keyword research tools also help you unlock the keywords where your competitors are ranking on the top. You can then improve your content to target those keywords and steal their traffic.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best keyword research tools for SEO that you can use.

1. SEMrush

SEMrush is a complete SEO suite with all the tools you need to carry out keyword research.

Using the Keyword Overview tool, you can type in a keyword and get a full picture of everything you need to know. This includes how many people search for the keyword, whether it’s growing in popularity or becoming less popular (the Trend), and much more.

After scrolling down, you can also see a handy list of other similar keywords you might want to use, along with a list of organic search results, so you can find out where your competitors rank for the keyword. You can also check out Google Ads that use that keyword.

2. AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic works a bit differently from most other keyword research tools, presenting results in a nice visual format (though you can also see them in a list and download a .csv file of results).

If you’re just getting started with SEO and keyword research, then this is a great tool to try, because you don’t even need to create an account to use it. Just type in your keyword and take a look at what comes up.

The keyword results from AnswerThePublic are based on Google and Bing’s auto-suggest features. You can click on any of these keywords to search for it in Google, and it’ll open up in a new tab.

This will show what content is ranking for those terms and whether there’s a featured snippet on it.

3. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a free tool from Neil Patel that offers search volume data, keyword suggestions, an idea of how difficult your keyword will be to rank for, and more.

As well as seeing lots of suggestions for related keywords, you can view a table of the top 100 Google results for that keyword, with estimated visits, number of backlinks, a domain score, and a total number of social shares.

Under Content Ideas, it also shows content related to your keyword, listing estimated monthly visits, backlinks, and number of shares on Facebook and Pinterest.

If you sign into Ubersuggest with your Google account, then you’ll be able to get more keyword suggestions, daily rank tracking, and personalized SEO suggestions.

4. Ahrefs

Ahrefs offers similar features to SEMrush, and makes a great alternative to it. Using Ahrefs, you can come up with keyword ideas simply by typing a keyword into the search box. You’ll then see a whole list of keyword suggestions.

You can also use Ahrefs to see content your competitors are ranking for (but that you’re not), so you can create new pieces targeting keywords related to those subjects.

Both SEMrush and Ahrefs offer a bunch of other useful tools too, like reports that find broken links on your site.

5. Google Keyword Planner

Google’s Keyword Planner is really designed for use by advertisers who want to run their ads on Google. However it’s still a useful tool for SEO, and it’s free to use.

To access it, you’ll need a Google Ads account. If you don’t already have one, then you’ll need to create one and enter your payment details, but you don’t need to run an active campaign or pay for anything.

Once you’ve got access to the Keyword Planner through your Google Ads account, you can type in any keyword and view data for (very approximately) how many monthly searches it has. You’ll also see a long list of related keywords ideas, which you scroll through or download.

6. Long Tail Pro

Like most premium keyword tools, Long Tail Pro shows an overview of data about your keyword, with a particular focus on how you rank against your competitors.

You can use it to take a look at the top results in search engines for your keyword, so you can figure out where you rank against your competition.

You can also enter specific keywords that you want to track, so you can see how your content is ranking for those keywords changes over time.

7. Serpstat

Serpstat is another excellent keyword research tool.

With Serpstat, you can easily view the top Google results for your keyword. These results include the site that appears in the featured snippet (if any) as the first result, which is why the post from IsItWP is featured in both first and second place in the screenshot below.

You can also view lots of details about your competitors for that keyword, with an indication of how visible they are (the higher the number here, the more visitors they likely receive).

8. SpyFu

SpyFu is designed to let you learn from your competitors by digging into their most profitable keywords (and their ads too).

You can try it out for free, without even logging in. Just type the URL of the site you want to check into the search bar and you’ll see the results straight away. If you want to take a look at more than one site, then you’ll need to create a free account and log in.

SpyFu collects past data, so you can see how your own site or your competitor’s site has fallen or risen in the rankings for particular keywords. You can also compare your site against other sites in your industry. Here’s a look at Moz’s website versus some other sites on similar topics.

We hope this article helped you find the best keyword research tools for SEO. You may also want to check out our guide on doing keyword research for tips on how best to carry out your research and put the results into practice.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 8 Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO in 2020 (Compared) appeared first on WPBeginner.

December 19, 2019

How to See the Keywords People Use to Find Your WordPress Site

Do you want to see the keywords people use to find your WordPress website?

Keywords are the phrases users type in search engines to find the content they are looking for. You would want your website to rank for the right keywords that describe what you are offering.

In this guide, we will show you how to easily see the keywords people use to find your WordPress site.

What is Keyword Tracking and Why is it Important?

Keyword tracking is basically the activity of monitoring the position of your website for specific keywords in search engines like Google, Bing, etc.

Keyword tracking helps you see important metrics such as which specific keywords people use to find your website, so you can focus on what’s working and stop spending time on what’s not.

When it comes to WordPress SEO optimization, we often recommend users to do keyword research and add proper meta description / keywords to their website. This helps your website rank higher in search engines.

But what many beginners don’t know is that search rankings change quite often. If a new competitor enters the market or your previous competitor further improves their SEO, then you can lose the rankings that you previously had and thus the traffic along with it.

Sometimes Google algorithm updates can also cause your website to increase or decrease in rankings for your top keywords.

At WPBeginner, we believe that its easier to double your website traffic and sales when you know exactly how people find and use your website.

With that said, let’s take a look at how to see the keywords people use to find your website.

Tracking Keywords People Use to Find Your Site

The best way to track keywords people use and the keywords where your website ranks is by using Google Search Console.

Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google to help website owners monitor and maintain their site’s presence in Google search results.

We’ll show you how to connect search console to your Google Analytics along with how to bring those reports right inside your WordPress dashboard.

Finally, we’ll cover how to track not just your own keywords, but also the keywords your competitors are ranking for.

Sounds good? Let’s get started.

Tracking Your Website Keywords in Google Search Console

If you have not already done so, then you need to add your website to Google Search Console. We have a detailed tutorial on how to add your WordPress site to Google Search Console.

You can simply visit the Google Search Console website and follow the instructions in our tutorial.

Once you have added your website to Google Search Console, you’ll be able to use it to monitor your search rankings.

To view your keyword positions, click on the Performance report and then click on the average position score.

Search Console will now load your reports with the average position column included.

Next, you need to scroll down a bit to see the full list of keywords your website ranks for.

You will see a list of keywords with number of clicks, impressions, and position of that keyword in search results.

You can sort the data by clicks, impressions, and position columns. You can see your top ranking keywords by sorting the data by position.

As you scroll down, you will be able to see keywords where your site appears deeper in search results. You can optimize your content to rank higher for those keywords as well.

Method 2. Track Your Keywords Inside WordPress with MonsterInsights

For this method, we’ll be using MonsterInsights to fetch our Google Search Console data inside the WordPress dashboard.

This method has two advantages.

You get to see your keywords right inside WordPress admin area
You’ll see it along with your other MonsterInsights reports which will help you plan more effeciently

MonsterInsights is the #1 Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily install Google Analytics in WordPress and shows you human-readable reports right inside your WordPress dashboard.

First, you need to do is install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin on your website. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

For step by step instructions, see our complete guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

Once you have installed and set up MonsterInsights, the next step is to connect your Google Analytics account to your Goole Search Console account.

Simply, login to your Google Analytics account and then click on the Admin button from the bottom left corner of the screen.

Next, you need to click on ‘All products’ under the property column and then click on the ‘Link Search Console’ button.

This will take you to the Search Console settings page where you need to click on the Add button. After that, you’ll see a list of websites added to your Google Search Console account.

Click on the OK button to continue and your Analytics and Search Console accounts will now be linked.

You can now view the keywords your website ranks for inside the WordPress admin area.

Simply go to Insights » Reports and then switch to the Search Console tab.

You’ll see a list of keywords where your website appears in the search result. Next, to each keyword you’ll also see the following parameters:

Clicks – How often your site is clicked when it appears for this keyword
Impressions – How often it appears in search results for that keyword
CTR – Click through rate for this keyword
Average position – Your site’s average position in search results for that particular keyword

Method 3. Tracking Your Keyword Rankings in Google Analytics

In the previous method, we showed you how to connect Google Search Console to your Google Analytics account and view the reports inside your WordPress dashboard.

However, you can also view your keyword rankings inside Google Analytics.

Simply, login to your Google Analytics dashboard and go to Acquisitions » Search Console » Queries report.

Your search keywords will be listed under the Search Query column. For each keyword, you’ll also see its CTR, impressions, and average position.

Method 4. Tracking Competitor Keywords using SEMRush

Do you want to track not just yours but also the keywords your competitors are ranking for? This method allows you to do that with actual tips on how to outrank your competition.

We’ll be using SEMRush for this method. It is one of the top SEO tools on the market because it helps you get more search traffic to your website.

We use it on our many websites to gather competitive intelligence.

First, you need to sign up for an SEMRush account. Note: You can use our SEMRush coupon to get a better deal.

After you have created an account, you can enter your domain name at the top search bar under SEMRush dashboard.

Next, SEMRush will show you full keyword report with a list of your top ranking keywords.

Click on the View Full Report button to get the full list of keywords.

Next to each keyword, you’ll see its position, volume of search, cost (for paid advertisement), and the percentage of traffic it sends to your website.

You can also enter your competitor’s domain name to download a full list of all the keywords where they rank.

Tips on Improving The Keywords Where Your Website Ranks

As you go through the list of keywords, you’ll notice some of your results rank quite well (under top 10) with significant impressions but very low CTR.

This means that users didn’t find your article interesting enough to click on. You can change that by improving your article’s title and meta descriptions. See our guide on how to improve blog post SEO to rank higher.

You’ll also see keywords where your website can easily rank higher. You can then edit those articles and improve them by adding more helpful content, adding a video, and making it easier to read.

If you are using SEMRush, then you can use their Writing Assistant Tool which helps you improve your content by making it more SEO friendly for that particular keyword. See our guide on using the SEO writing assistant for more details.

We hope this article helped you learn how to see the keywords people use to find your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guide on how to easily increase website traffic with practical tips for beginners.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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