keyword-gemsKeyword research is still an integral part of content creation, mostly because search engine rankings are unarguably (and possibly sadly) the best source of free traffic… but also because it’s a huge source of inspiration showing you what people in your niche are interested in and what hasn’t been covered well enough yet.

Speaking of the latter criteria (topic demand versus topic coverage), it’s the ultimate goal of any keyword research process to find terms and phrases that have a high search volume but a low competition.

And while you would think there are no longer keywords that meet that criteria (thanks to the flood of smart SEOs helping website owners in all verticals), it’s still can be done. The key is to use good tools.

My Recently Favorite Tool

I have had various favorite keyword research tools at different periods of my content marketing career. Honestly, simply tapping into a new tool can give you loads of new content ideas. Just because every tool processes, organizes and displays information differently. My usual advice for being stuck, is read a new site or use a new tool.

So here’s a tool that may turn out to be new for you:

Serpstat is a cool all-in-one SEO platform that has one of the most powerful keyword research tool sets out there.

I love the filters they let you play with.

To illustrate how easy and powerful the tool is, here’s a quick exercise…

Keyword Research Exercise

So you need to find terms that many people search for but little publishers compete for.

1. Search your core term in Serpstat (This step is somewhat obvious) and click to “Keyword Research” inside “SEO Research” section:

Search your core term in Serpstat
Search your core term in Serpstat

2. Open filters and set the competition level from 1 to 5%

SERPstat
Use filters to get rid of terms with high competition

3. Sort the keyword suggestions by search volume in Google

Sort
Sort to see more popular results on top

4. Scroll down while paying attention to various icons next to each phrase. These are various rich elements in Google search results (like videos, images, knowledge graph, shopping results, answer boxes, etc.) that could distract users from top results or push top organic search results down below the fold.

icons
Pay attention to icons that represent various special SERPs elements

In many cases, these may be an indicator that this particular keyword phrase is not worth too much effort because there will be too much of something else above (or in the middle of) organic search in SERPs:

Invisible organic search results
Some terms may be not worth your effort because organic results are almost invisible

These can also be a good indicator of intent (e.g. “answer box” or “people also ask” icons can signal of informational intent, so these keywords should be good for content ideas).

You can use filters to limit keywords to those triggering a particular SERPs element.

You can also see which SERPs contain domains from social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) in top 100.

Serpstat
See how many social media platforms rank in top 100

Now, armed with all the information you get at a glance, you can quickly and efficiently pick your keywords to base your next awesome article on:

Ideas
Use some cool ideas to create content!

Have fun playing around!

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I am the owner of this blog as well as Brand and Community Manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas and Founder of MyBlogGuest, MyBlogU and ViralContentBee.com

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7 Comments

  1. Hi Ann,

    Looks like a powerful tool. Pulling back from SEO these days – Google seems to change rules daily – but this is a helpful strategy nonetheless to find attractive keywords. It always helps to target your traffic. Even if you aren’t necessarily trying to rank on the Big G. Thanks for the review here.

    Ryan

  2. Thanks for stopping by! I do share your frustration but the Internet exists with or without Google!

  3. Hi Ann

    Thanks for share and review the serpstat looks like a great tools for newbie like me 🙂

  4. Thanks for sharing this tool.It is great tool to find keyword easily that are highly searched in search engine.

  5. Amazing!!! This is awesome checklist. I have saved it offline. I think, it’s time to implement this secret strategies before it went viral.

  6. Such a great tutorial about how to find most valuable keywords to create content. Your Serpstat keyword research tool is amazing. I also use this tool and good result show me. Thanks for share this blog.

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