How to Find and Use SEO Keywords

SEO keywords are words and phrases suggested by search engines that you put in your online blog meta tag, article body, and article label to make it possibly easier for search engines to rank and show your blog article to SERP for people who are searching for it. Based on this definition, keywords are one of the most essential components of your blog SEO. While it is also popular that people use Keyword Golden Ratio to find SEO keywords, here is another sophisticated way to do that.

This article discusses how to find and use SEO keywords for your blog so that people can find your article easier because the search engines pick it up and display it on page one of the SERP. The discussion covers (1) SEO keyword planning without paid keyword planner tools, (2) developing the SEO keywords in your article, and (3) how to add keywords to a blog for SEO.

Most people do more than what we will be doing just to be ranked on SERP, to be shown on page one of the search engine result page. They do sophisticated keyword research by using paid keyword planner tools, they research the SEO keywords used by their competitors, and so on. Nevertheless, we will be going to show you that the meaning and function of the SEO keywords is to show the search engines that your content is relevant to what people are searching for.

SEO Keywords Planning

SEO Keywords Planning means planning keywords for your blog article based on the search engines' suggestions. Planning the keywords that you want to use in your blog article is similar to planning the content of your article itself. Before writing your article, you need to consider what you are going to write. A good writer does not only write what he knows but also writes what the readers need to read. In this case, if you want to write an SEO article, make sure that your article provides or contains information that your readers need.

Read also: Jannify Best Responsive Blogger Template

SEO keywords function to show the degree of relevance between your article content and the information needed by your readers. Using SEO keywords appropriately enables the search engines to catch the relevance, to measure the relevance (rank), and to show it in the SERP. So, SEO keywords planning really means planning your article content; making your article content relevant to the readers' needs.

Of course, you should write content based on your expertise. For example, if you are a doctor (which means you are a health expert), you would write about health covering diseases, their syndromes, treatments, and medicines. You would not write about photography or fashion.

However, you might be aware that you are not the only writers who write on those health topics. You then thought about how to compete with the other doctor writers out there. Well, if your article is indexed by search engines, it is possible to be shown on the 1st or 2nd page of SERP if you follow these steps:

Use Google Trends

Google says that its mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google Trends is one of the Google products that enable you to explore what people in the world are searching for. You can use Google Trends to plan what you are going to write based on the suggestions provided by it.

Different people search for different things by using Google. If you don't give a keyword to the Google Trends search box, it will show you a general recently trending search that can be irrelevant to your need. For example, assume that you are a photographer and you want to know what people in the world lately want to know about photography, type photography in the search box and press enter.

Google Trends will show you related topics and related queries that are trending. You can specify the location (if you write in English, choose Worldwide) and you can set the time too. Of course, you may want to specify your keyword because a one-word keyword is too wide and the competition level is too high. In short, that is how you use Google Trends to find some ideas to write on your blog and ensure that what you are writing is on demand.

Another Google product that will help you to plan your keywords is Google Keyword Planner. This product is mainly designed for advertisers. You need to make an account to use Google Keyword Planner. Novice bloggers can find it very technical so we will pass this tool.

Use Google Search Box

Google Search Box has an autocomplete feature that will help you to find related keywords for your article. Assume that you are a doctor and you just have an idea of how to cure coronavirus, you may need to know whether other people have written that topic before. Try "how to cure coronavirus" in the Google search box and you will see a list of long-tail keywords suggested by Google.

This list shows what people are searching for recently and it may inspire you in one or another way.

Use Google LSI

Google LSI is a section in the SERP that shows related results. You might ever see this snippet when you use Google to find something. There are two snippets that you need to look for in the Google SERP, the first one is located in the second row of the SERP and the second one is located at the end of the SERP.

The first snippet shows what people also ask. The information that the snippet show can give you some ideas to write in your article.

The second snippet shows related searches. The information that the second snippet show can inspire you to discuss those topics in your article.

All of the words that these snippets show you are SEO keywords if you are observant enough.

Conclusion #1

You can use all of them to find the SEO keywords for your blog article. They are called SEO keywords because those keywords are suggested by search engines. Take notes of the most relevant keywords that you will not only mention but discuss in your article. If you follow the three stages in writing, you will include these keywords in the prewriting stage.

Developing the SEO Keywords in your Article

Developing the SEO keywords does not mean adding more keywords to the list. It means that you discuss the keywords in the heading, subheadings, and paragraphs of your blog article.

When you start writing your article, what you do actually is developing the keywords by bringing them into useful and meaningful discussion. Most web pages are stored in the 10th SERP up because they don't discuss the keywords they mention. Search engines like Google have been developed to be more "human" than a machine. The quality of your article can be measured by search engines by measuring its relevance with the keywords. If you just mention the keywords without properly explaining them, your article is flagged irrelevance by the search engines.

By developing the SEO keywords in your blog article, you are creating a unique article that search engines cannot ignore. To do that, you may need to look at the articles (related to the keywords you plan) and see what they are discussing. Please go in this direction:

1. Take three to four articles shown on page one of the SERP and see what keywords they are discussing;
2. Match the keywords in the articles and the ones you picked from the SEO keywords planning above;
3. Add some unique keywords from each article into your keywords plan;
4. Remove some duplicate keywords from your keyword plan;
5. List the keywords like a table of contents of your article; this way, the keywords turn into article sections;
6. Start developing your article by mentioning and discussing each keyword properly.

By following the steps above, you are enabled to write a unique article. There will be a certain discussion that the other articles don't cover and this strengthens the relevance between your article content and the readers' need. It also enables the search engines to recommend your article to the readers based on the strong relevance that it picks from your article.

We should also warn you that duplicating content from the other articles is not wise. No article spinners can help you from being flagged by search engines as fake. What the article spinners do is just replacing words with their synonyms. Search engines are good enough to detect a spun article because the structure of the sentences, paragraphs, and sections, is beyond the article spinners’ capability. You are warned!

Conclusion #2

Take three or four articles from the SERP and look at the keywords that they use or discuss. Match the keywords with the ones you picked from the SEO keyword planning. Add necessary keywords and remove unnecessary ones from the list. Write unique and informative article content.

Read also: 6 Ways to Improve BlogSpot Domain Authority

Adding Keywords to your blog for SEO

There are three places where the SEO keywords can be placed in your blog (a), meta keywords tag, article label, and article body.

Meta Keywords Tag

As discussed in all important meta tags for blogger SEO, meta keywords are one of the meta tags that tell search engines what your blog is about. Google does not value meta keywords tag very much but it is still useful for other search engines like Yahoo, Bing, Baidu, and/or Yandex.

Many novice bloggers just pick and put keywords inside the meta keywords tag. Based on our experience, it is very important to keep the consistency of the keywords in all the places. Please understand that the meta keywords tag is the “keyword bank”. All of the keywords used in your blog article body and label (or category) should be placed in the meta keywords tag. Unused keywords should not be placed in the meta keywords tag, please.

As a bank, the content of the meta keywords tag can come from the keywords used in the article body without having duplicate keywords inserted, of course. In another way, you can put keywords as many as possible into the meta keywords tag but make sure that those keywords will be used in your articles now and in the future.

Whenever you update your keywords in the article body, you should update the keyword in the meta keywords tag. This will help you to avoid keyword inconsistency in your blog. Nevertheless, only seed keywords are important in the meta keywords tag (and article label).

Keywords in Article Label

In Blogger, you can add labels to your article. The labels should be picked up NOT from your article body but the meta keywords tag. If you find new keywords which you didn't put in the meta keywords tag and you put in the article label, you must store it in the meta keywords tag.

There is no need to put too many keywords in the article label. Just pick some 1 or 2-words keywords and put them in the label because you don't want to play your visitors (or search engines). The rest of the keywords are placed and developed in your article body.

Keywords in the Article Body

Using SEO keywords in the article body is the most important factor that improves your blog SEO. As you already read in the previous section that your keywords become the section in your article, you have passed the first step. Here are how to add SEO keywords to your blog article.

1. Use one or two keywords in the title (heading) and subtitle (subheadings);
2. Mention and briefly discuss or define the respective keywords in the first two paragraphs in each section of your article;
3. Do NOT inappropriately repeat the keywords in the article body;
4. Use one or two respective keywords at the end of each section in the article body.

By putting the keywords in their places, you tell the search engines that your article is relevant to the keywords you mention and the keywords that people type in the search box.

Please be advised that long-tail keywords are placed in the article body and not in the meta keywords tag and article label.

Conclusion #3

Use the keywords in meta keywords tag, article labels, and article body. Only short-tail keywords are placed in the meta keywords tag and article label. Use the keywords consistently and appropriately. Do not do keyword stuffing unless you want to be red-flagged by search engines.

Those are how to find and use SEO keywords for your blog article. By knowing how to find and use SEO keywords, your blog article has a chance to be found by search engines and displayed on page one of the SERP.