How many people are interested in what you have to say?

KJude, don’t dare feel lost

This is where you star-ar-ar-art.

Getting tired of my Beatles knock-offs yet?

Last week I mentioned finding a tool to identify where your interest and passion that you want to blog about overlaps with what people want to hear about.  What’s the easiest way to do that?

Use free tools created by Google, like Adwords or Insights for Search.

• Sign up for a free account at Google Adwords.  Ignore the prompts to create an ad campaign.
• From the Adwords dashboard, click on the Tools menu, then Keyword Tool.
• In the box that says, “How would you like to generate keyword ideas?”, select “Descriptive words or phrases”.
• Type in your possible keywords in the box to the right, and select “Get keyword ideas.”
• Google will then display lots of data related to your keywords, as well as additional keywords to consider.  Use the monthly search volume column to analyze whether there is demand for the information that you can supply.  Use Google’s addtional keyword suggestions to refine your blog’s niche, if necessary, or to provide direction on info that people are looking for.
• Google Insights for Search shows search volume trends for specific keywords.  Are you interested in stamp collecting?  Insights for Search will give you the sad data that searches for stamp collecting have gradually decreased since 2006.  On the other hand, searches for “WordPress Blog” have increased steadily over the same time period.  Furthermore, Google suggests related searches that are currently rising in volume.  “WordPress Video Blog” has increased 70% over the time period, as people become aware of the ability to ad videos to their blogs.  So Video blogging might be a blogging niche with high demand for good information.

What does all this tell you about creating a blog?

• At it’s most basic level, it tells you that people are searching for terms that you are interested in writing about and that you might have found a topic about which people need or want information.
• It also gives you a framework on which to build your blog title, tagline, post title and post itself.  In order to climb higher in the search results, you need to use those keywords frequently.  Without being unnatural, which turns readers off and alerts search engines to fakers, you should use keywords in as many of those locations as possible.  And, it’s good to repeat those keywords at the beginning of a post, the end, and somewhere in between.  But you’ve got to be natural or no one will enjoy reading your blog!
• You might also find ideas for new posts if you’re suffering from writer’s block.
• Keep in mind that you can’t rely only on the terms that have the absolute highest volume of searches.  There will always be someone who can out-SEO you on the broad terms like “digital photography.”   Find a conquerable niche somewhere within the broad category of searches.

How to make a blog if no one is searching for any of your possible keywords?

Don’t give up (right away), although you might have to change topics at some point.  Resign yourself to not getting much traffic from search engines, and search for other options for generating traffic to your blog.  Do you have a big enough network of family, friends, associates and contacts that you can drive to your blog?  Do you participate in online forums or other groups where people might be interested in your subject matter?  You could draw traffic from those areas.

Keyword Analysis Example

KJude is my friend who has just started out with her blog Take Some Old Skin (and Make It Better Better Better!).  She and I talked about natural beauty products, health and skin care, so I plugged those terms into Google’s Keyword tool.  Google confirmed that there are hundreds of thousands of searches on these terms monthly.  That’s a good place to start, don’t you think? And Google suggested some related keywords that would be helpful for KJude to consider blogging about, like natural medicine, supplements and even acne care (for the kids of those of us with old skin!).

As you are composing your pillars of information that will bring people to your blog, consider what these keyword tools tell you about people’s needs and wants, and how many people have those needs and wants.

Ready to Read More?