How to develop a keyword seed list for a new website?

Hello.

I'd welcome a little advice...

I'm starting out on this whole keyword research malarkey

I'm having a bit of trouble developing my initial seed keyword list.

For example, I'm wanting to research a not-yet-created blog under the broad heading of "Personal Development".

I know it's very general to start with but I thought the point of keyword research is to identify an angle or niche.

Would initial seed keywords be e.g. personal development plans/ personal development goals/ personal development skills or is that already digging too deep too early?

or are they more along the lines of motivation/ self improvement/ positive thinking?

I'm confused as to what keywords make a good seed list.

I'm an amateur but keen to learn.

Thank you all in advance.

BG

Try to use a tool that can suggest the best keyword like wordtracker. Select the best keyword that fits your site content. Select first the keywords that are not highly competitive for new site.

Thank you for the advice.

i guess i need to be more specific- that's the difficulty

BG

Search engine ranking algorithms change all the time. It is important at the moment to make sure that for keywords used they are contained in the text on that page and that text is relevant to the page (not some hidden or obscured text).

For the topic you mention it is very broad, it you have a particular vertical market you are addressing or target customer try and tailer keywords around them.

First spend time on wordtracker or keyworddiscovery just exploring and making notes.

Then go to sniff competitor sites, making more notes.

Then talk to people who face customers and ask them.... "what do your customers call this?"

Now, back to the keyword tools above and spend one full day developing a tree-like structure. A heirarchy of keywords from the root (widgets) to secondary (wooden widgets) to tertiary (red wooden widgets) and so on. Then don't ignore alteratives to "wooden" such as "oak" or "maple".

The tree-like structure is very important, as it will become the navigation structure for your entire website.

Some sites will depart from this and some sites will have a variety of roots. But in general this concept is similar across all sites.

EGOL has summed it up perfectly.

In case you do not have access to paid keyword research tools; you still create a large initial pool by using Google Adwords keyword suggestion tool and SEObook keyword tool.

You can compare the search trends by using Google trends and check out the real competition using Advanced search feature.

Tip: you may want to set your default Google page to Google Suggest ( it's a labs product and gives you suggestions on popular results as you type )

My two cents. Hope they help

Egol & AbilityDesigns et al.

What fantastic advice!!! I'm new but very keen to learn ;-)

I guess my main focus should be on identifying a clear popular niche within the huge area of "Personal Development/ Self improvement".

BG

Those terms are actually quite difficult to research. Because there are so many ways that people think of them and search for them. The number of search variants is enormous and almost unpredictable. If I was going after them I would have lots of Long Copy pages with lots of the terms people might use to find them.

Also, in this situation, I would go to a library or a bookstore. There I would go to the shelves and look at the many titles in this theme. A brick and mortar store or library would be preferable - because the put all of the books together by topic in an easy way to prospect. I'd also talk to a librarian or someone who has worked in the bookstore for a long time. Ask that person the words that people use to request for those books. Long term employees who have talked to thousands of people know the language of search better than any SEO.

Thank you so much again.

I'm very taken by the idea of researching in the library or bookstore.

I've heard it said that there is ultimately no difference in doing keyword research for an information site than how one would research a product based site (then subsequently SEOing).

I want to enter into the same blog arena as zenhabits, dumblittle man as that's where my interests, skills and experiences lie. I am under no illusions as to how crowded the area is. That said, most popular topics are busy.

That is why I want to give myself a "twist" (angle) by finding either a niche within the topic and/ or a niche audience. I'm optimistic keyword research will help discover it.

What you mention about the area being so difficult to research is spot on- I'd suggest that most competing blogs don't SEO to a great degree because of this.

Therein lies both the challenge and the opportunity...

I may be at a huge disadvantage being in SEO pre-school, but every expert was once a learner and I'm not put off ;-)

(now, back to Wordtracker!!)

BG

Good advice

This tool might help with the seed words task. www dot seedkeywords dot com.

d

Hello BG..

even i am an amateur in SRO.

I am just suggesting few things.

the keywords are personal development and self development

The "personal development" KW shows up 160 search volume on word tracker and allintitle:"personal development" 240,000. U have a huge competition.

then "self development" KW has 23 search volume and allintitle:"self development" is 46,900. The competition is less.

May be u can check this too to get an estimate of your competitors. May be need to look for keywords which falls between those two keywords.

Thank you Sally 3 ;-)

I have much to learn!

BG