Keyword research is important to any website, blog included. In this post, I’ll discuss how keyword research has a number of benefits that can create an edge over competition.

● The benefits of keyword-targeted posts
● Examples of keyword-targeted blog posts
● Three steps to target keywords with your blog

Why keyword-targeted blog posts?

Because keyword-optimized blog posts can help you both now and later:

• Blog posts allow you to create content around whatever the latest trending topics are. The post will gain traffic while the phrase is still popular, then you can archive it once it has died out.
• One of the best ways to generate more organic search traffic is by focusing on evergreen content, such as how-to articles. Blog posts continue to receive a lot of organic search traffic for months and years.

Examples of keyword-targeted blog posts

Here are just a few examples of keyword-targeted blog posts:

Recipes:

For those who would like to focus on one or two topics, make sure they’re appropriate before uploading the content. Search through google and pick out a relevant title. For example, I recently looked for a recipe of a tomato sauce with onions and butter, but found only one result that was made by the blogger Smitten Kitchen.

Evergreen how-to:

For any blog post, our 2009 article on how to find someone’s personal email address can pull in lots of traffic. Ken does a great job of applying the techniques used for this article to infinite niches and making them applicable for many other purposes as well.

Timely hot topic:

During the World Cup, searches for “vuvuzelas” spiked, beating out topics like soccer. To take advantage of this interest, you can create timely content by monitoring the keywords that are trending on search engines and incorporating them into your blog.

How to target keywords with blog posts

Here’s an easy three-step process for targeting keywords with blog content.

Step 1: Identify keyword opportunities

Before you write content, it is important to figure out what phrases are likely to bring in an audience. The kind of research you do will depend on your goals for the blog post.

If you’re after a timely topic, use Google Trends or Google Suggest. Both can provide useful keyword phrases for research.

Strategy to find keywords that drive conversion and traffic relevant to your blog is by consulting your analytics data. Look for keyword spread frequently searched with a person’s “avocado” search related. A post title with this phrase will rank higher as well, increasing click-through as it appears more relevant.

Step 2: Narrow down your topic

You need to find a topic that will appeal to a large portion of your audience. You can do this using keyword grouping software or using keyword tools. If you use WordStream for SEO, (guacamole is the keyword), you will easily find a phrase that’s specific.

With a Flip camera and a video editing software such as Camtasia, you could create a guacamole tutorial video by selecting the topic of your choice. This option is more specific than “Create guacamole with avocados.”

Step 3: Write and optimize your post

Blogging can often be challenging when trying to figure out what you want to write about, but once you know that, the actual writing can be straightforward.

Here are some tips to help you write a successful blog post.

• You should use your keywords in the title tag, as it’s a key signal for search engines.

• If you’re going with a video post, you still want some text on the page to work in keyword variations of your base keyword.
• The keyword is used in the end of your video, as well as in the meta description/file name and alt text of your images.
• Using internal links in your website, such as linking to videos from the video tab and to dip recipes from the dip tab, will result in High Quality Link Building that can potentially boost your site’s SEO.
• Make sure you share your posts on your social media accounts.

Instead of spending days prepping your blog posts for a promotion, you can start writing them in minutes. Keyword research is another method to generate blog ideas.