Some time back I started a blog to show my family overseas a bit about my life in Sydney. It includes snippets of life such as local events and festivals, local wildlife, trips we've made, things that are uniquely Australian. I'd like to develop it and get a bigger readership but have no idea what sort of keywords to use, given how general the posts are. Any ideas?
Creating successful (you define what this means) content online, no matter the topic or audience, is dependent upon research. Use online tools such as Google Trends, Google Suggested Search, Keyword Planner, etc., to discover what people are searching for. You can then use this data to create "buyer personas" - which allow you to build profiles of the different types of people that you want to consume your content. Once your buyer personas are accomplished, you can assign specific keywords and phrases to each and begin writing. If you're interested in learning the details of each, along with the next steps, I'd be happy to help! Good luck!
The audience outside Australia for a blog about life in Sydney will be very small. So if you're looking for a large audience, you might want to blog about something else or else address people in Australia primarily.
For attracting an Australian audience, try this:
Carry pen and paper around with you for a week or two. Every time you see, hear, or remember something distinctively Australian or unique to Australia, jot it down. Even if it's just a turn of phrase, a scrap of local news, or a business establishment, these are elements that you could weave into your blog posts – keywords that might attract passers by who have searched for similar phrases.
For attracting a non-Australian audience, such keywords will be too obscure to magnetize search traffic. You'd have to research what search queries are commonly entered by tourists planning an Australian vacation.
2 very different approaches for 2 utterly unrelated audiences.
Coming up with the right keywords is an art and a science. I have employed a few different tactics to identify key words and it is possible to limit those to the words in specific locations.
Looking for trending topics in Sydney would help you to narrow down the keywords for a lifestyle blog.
I would be happy to discuss how to find the best key words if you would like to schedule a call for follow up questions.
To get the keywords for general' lifestyle blog about life, follow these steps.
1. Get suggestions from the source: Obviously, Google has more data on search activity than anyone. Ever noticed as you type a phrase into the Google search field it begins guessing what you are looking for? The system is anticipating your needs based on the popularity of past searches and attempting to save you time by offering suggestions. Aptly, this is called “Google Suggest.” KeywordTool.io is Google Suggest on steroids. The tool helps you discover thousands of long-tail keywords related to any topic by automatically scraping every phrase from Google Suggest.
2. Use Google AdWords Keyword Planner: The Google AdWords Keyword Planner tool was created to serve the needs of companies using their popular pay-per-click ad program. However, you can create an account whether you plan to pay for search ads. The data offered via the tool is vast. Most importantly, it will serve your blog planning needs by delivering (1) approximations of the search volume for the keywords you enter, and (2) related keywords. Enter an idea, or several, and the tool will return up to 800 suggestions pulled from Google’s massive database.
3. Dig into related searches: We covered the suggestions Google offers as you type. Their suggestions do not stop there. At the bottom of your SERP, you will find “searches related to” (whatever you entered). You might use these related phrases a variety of ways:
1. Select one as your focus keyword.
2. Use one or more of the phrases in your post for semantic search purposes (more to come on this).
3. Take a related search and start your keyword research over again.
4. Go question shopping: Whether users pose their search as a question or use a question mark, the most successful business bloggers think of every search as a question. If you’d like some shortcuts for discovering the questions people ask relative to your topic, check out these two keyword research tools:
1. AnswerThePublic.com—Enter a phrase and the tool returns a visualization of potential questions you may want to answer. The results can be sorted, saved and shared in a variety of ways.
2. Bloomberry.com—Another free service, in beta, gathers questions being asked across the web on forums, e-commerce sites, Quora, Reddit and many more sites. The questions are intelligently grouped by topic to show you which keywords and topics are used the most.
5. Mine the world’s largest wiki: Wikipedia can be more than the dominant force you find nearly half the time you conduct a search; it can be a powerful library of SEO resources and ideas. As Brian points out, it is based on human knowledge and therefore uses language the way humans do. The bottom line: it will give you great ideas.
6. Hack books and courses: Want fast access to keyword ideas related to your subject? Borrow them from authors and instructors. Amazon (or any book e-tailer) is prime pickings for this tactic as is Udemy (or any online course resource). The “Look Inside” feature on Amazon almost always reveals a table of contents chock full of ideas and the same goes for course outlines on Udemy, Skill share, Lynda and other online learning websites.
7. Hack reviews: Continuing our theme of website hacking and mining the human mind, I recommend you examine reviews of books, courses, and products for additional ideas. The review above, about a book on the art of making records, is loaded with potential keyword ideas, including some you are unlikely to find elsewhere.
8. Do some pay-per-click advertising: Obviously, pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is not free. However, you have complete control over your investment level and so the “spend money to make money” idea applies. A small investment in PPC can bring you valuable insights for organic search that pay for themselves many times over. Your PPC campaigns will reveal the keywords that deliver not only the highest levels of traffic, but the highest quality as well. You will have actual data to process to understand which words generate leads and sales and which copy compels people to click and buy.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
