Create your keywords

Now you have a foundational understanding of what makes a good keyword, it is time to choose your own.

This task might seem a little daunting, especially if you have no SEO experience. Read on though, as we are going to guide you through a free method you can confidently use to obtain good keywords. While free, the work involved may take you 1-2 days to properly complete.

To save yourself some time, we offer detailed keyword ranking reports with expert recommendations. These reports are free for up to 3 keyphrases, which can be useful and provide a good sample of what you can expect.

Brainstorming keyphrases

Time to put on your thinking cap and exercise your mind with some brainstorming. First, you need to make a list of every keyword you can think of which people could use to find your website. Some methods we recommend include:

• starting with single words, then combining your words into phrases
• adding words that best describe your product or service
• asking those around you such as family, friends and colleagues
• surveying existing customers or people who comprise your target audience.

Now open an Excel spreadsheet or similar, and enter your keyphrases as separate records.

Refine your keyphrases further taking into consideration variations in terminology that could be determined by different age groups, professions, cultures and so on. There are often several ways of saying the same thing. Consider for example headphones, headsets and earphones.

Use online tools

Once you have a good list of 20–40 keyphrases we recommend making use of two keyword tools:

1. SEMRush
   Enter your keyphrase and click the 'Search' button. Amongst other reports, SEMRush will provide a report of related keywords, and organic (non-paid) ranking domains for the searched keyphrase.
2. Google AdWords Keyword Tool
   Enter your keyword/s and click the 'Search' button and Google will provide you more ideas along with important information like keyword competitiveness and amount of searches per month.

Want to know what keywords and phrases your competition is targeting? Silly question—of course you do! To keep ahead of your competitors you need to keep an eye on what they are doing.

Google's Keyword Tool use to be the way to analyse competitor websites, but it now loves also throwing its own suggestions into the mix. SEMRush is a good alternative. After performing your keyphrase search at SEMRush, click on the top ranking domain under 'Organic Results.'

Wait a few seconds, and SEMRush should provide you with a list of keywords from your competition (you will need to register to see all the results). How about budgie care, or budgie health? These might bring you more visitors too!

Now repeat the process and "spy" on more of your competitors the same way. Your list of keyphrases will grow before your eyes with more ideas than you could have ever thought of!

Make use of human mistakes

It can sometimes be a good idea to target misspelt keywords.

Keep any keywords you misspell on your list. If you misspell them, then it is likely many others will do the same when searching for terms and find your website. Just ensure you research any misspelt keywords to ensure they do receive traffic.

Like supporting local businesses?

Many others like to as well. From a practical perspective it is often more convenient dealing with local businesses.

So it is often very useful to localise your keywords. For example, if you are after a plumber, chances are you will won't search for plumbers. You are more likely plumbers brisbane, plumbers logan or plumbers [your city name].

If business location matters to your product or service, optimise your keywords with a localised term. You will better target your market, and in doing so, receive visitors more likely to buy from you.

Tiny variations make a difference

Most search engines make a distinction between singular and plural forms, as well as tense variations like "-ing" and "-ed" forms. So it is a good idea to also target different forms of the same words.

For example, if your main term is christmas cards (plural), then consider also targeting christmas card (singular). Think we are pulling your leg? We are not kidding, but dead serious. Don't believe us? Type each of these terms in Google and look at the results. As of writing this sentence, christmas cards has 176 billion results and christmas card has 128 billion result.

Optimise for both terms and you are definitely smarter than someone who doesn't.