Today we are going to have a look at three free tools for finding SEO WordPress keywords. These are sites that do have some level of paid subscription. They do however offer functions which you can use in order to perform keyword research without having to pay. Hence you won’t have to enter your credit card information. Hence, we are going to have a look at:
- Keyword Sheeter
- Google Keyword Planner
- Ahrefs Keyword Difficulty Tool
By combining these three we will be able to both get a list of long tail WordPress keywords. These will furthermore be related to our desired search term. We can also get information about the search volume for said keywords as well as their keyword difficulty.
Getting SEO WordPress Keywords From Keyword Sheeter
The first tool is called Keyword Sheeter. You pretty much just enter a topic that you would like to use in order to get related long tail keywords. It is worth noting the following:
- These are not just random words or phrases put together, but actual search queries that people enter on Google. Keyword Sheeter utilizes Google’s auto suggest feature.
- Works with any niche.
- You can select the keyword output based on country.
- There is also the possibility choose based on your desired language so that you for example don’t get Spanish keywords for Swedish or English search terms and so on.
In this example we are going to look at what kind of WordPress keywords we can get from our term. And the term that we are going to use will be “how to stocks”. Hence the industry in this particular case will be finance related. We enter that particular term in the dedicated search box and then click on “Sheet Keywords”.
Long Tail Results for WordPress Keywords
We will now get a huge amount of keywords very quickly and it is just going to keep going. Hence with this tool we will be able to get thousands of related keywords that people actually search for. Now, stop the tool by clicking on the Stop button in the upper right corner of the text box.
As you can see we get quite a lot of suggestion from its database. But even though these keywords are interesting we don’t yet have any information about the search volume for these keywords. That is something we can not get from this Keyword Sheeter tool. Hence, this brings us to our second tool which is Google Keyword Planner.
Working With the Selected WordPress Keywords in Google Ads Keyword Planner
We are going to insert the previously generated keywords into Google Ads Keyword Planner, in order to get the estimated search volume for each one. Now, if you are going to use the Google Keyword Planner the default thing is to also create a campaign with the setup of your account Google Ads account.
But there is also a way to setup your account without setting up an actual campaign. By doing so you won’t have to enter your credit card in order to use the Google Keyword Planner.
The “workaround” is shown below. If you already have an account then you can go directly to the next section about analyzing your keywords with the planner.
Using Google Keyword Planner Without a Credit Card
If you haven’t set up an account then you are going to see the following screen. But instead of filling out the text box you are going to click further down on the page where it says “Switch to Expert Mode”.
You will then arrive at the next screen below where will be able to “Create your first campaign”. But on this page we also need to look further down and click on “Create an account without a campaign”.
On the next page you will be prompted to “Confirm your business information”. This is where you will fill in your billing country and time zone. You will also enter the desired currency.
Below those text boxes it will be optional to accept send-outs of performance tips, promotional offers, surveys and invitations to try new features. However we are going to select “no” in this case. After that you click on “Submit”.
You have now created an account without having to create a campaign and without having to enter your credit card information. And we shall now use the finished account in order to analyze our previously generated keywords.
Analyzing Your Keywords With Google Keyword Planner
At this point you will see the Google Ads main window shown below. In the upper right corner you will see “Tools and Settings” in the menu. Click on that one.
That will open up the menu that you see below. Now, click on the Keyword Planner in the menu.
You will be presented with two options:
- Discover new keywords.
- Get search volume and forecasts.
Click on the latter one, i.e. “Get search volume and forecasts”.
As you can see Google Ads also has its own keyword generator (“Discover New Keywords”), but Keyword Sheeter is better at generating the long tail keywords that we want to use in this case.
Now, after having clicked on “Get search volume and forecasts” you will see the following screen where you paste the earlier copied keywords. Click on “Get started”. There might be a limit to how many keywords you can analyze at once, so you might have to work with some at a time.
The Keyword Planner will now generate the average monthly searches for each keyword. When it creates this data for you then it will by default give you the numbers for your specific location. In my case that location is Sweden, but since we want to have the world wide data and not only data for a specific country, then we are going to open the location section below and remove the default country.
Remove the location as indicated.
Now we will have the estimated keyword search data worldwide. The next step is to order the keywords in the list by average monthly searches, which you do by clicking on the indicated table header.
When it comes to these results you should be aware of the fact that the competition section does not indicate competition for organic traffic, but instead competition in regards to Google Ads. Hence, those indicators are not relevant for that which we are doing right now.
We are now going to copy the ones with the highest search volume to an excel sheet. In this example we are, for the sake of simplicity, only copying the keywords that have got a search volume of 1K and above.
“You will not only rank for the specified keyword
in the list but also a bunch of other variations.”
However, it should be noted that if you have a new site you could also use the ones that have 100+ estimated average monthly searches. If you are able to rank for those ones you will not only rank for the specified keyword in the list but also a bunch of other variations.
In that sense it should in general not be regarded as a “loss” to rank for the lower keywords as well. As mentioned we will nevertheless stick with only the high ranking ones for the sake of simplicity.
Working With the Selected Keywords in Libreoffice
In my keyword analysis I have opted for LibreOffice Calc, but any spreadsheet program will do such as Microsoft Excel or Google Docs etc. There is a possibility to export the keyword data from Google Keyword Planner, but due to the format that it gives us I found it easier to just copy and paste it myself, for now.
In the spreadsheet below you see the keywords with the highest search volume. I have highlighted the ones that I deemed relevant. In the next section we are going to get the competition level for those keywords by using the Keyword Difficulty Checker at the Ahrefs website.
Finding Keyword Difficulty Levels With Ahrefs
As you might be aware Ahrefs generally charge for their tools, but they do provide some free SEO tools that you can use such as the Keyword Difficulty Checker.
The Keyword Difficulty Checker is found at the bottom of the main site.
Now we just enter each of the highlighted WordPress keywords from the spreadsheet and click on “Check keyword difficulty” for each one. That will give us a score for each keyword as can be seen below. Do this for all of the chosen keywords.
Color Coding the Competition Level for the WordPress Keywords
In the spreadsheet we now have the keywords, their estimated average monthly search volume as well as a metric regarding how difficult it is to rank for each keyword. The lower the number, the easier it is to rank for that particular keyword. It would be a lot easier to see if the competition level was color coded though. A proper visualization is always helpful regardless of what kind of numbers you are working with.
In LibreOffice Calc we select the following in order to color code the numbers:
- Format -> Conditional -> Color Scale…
As you can see we now have the competition levels indicated by a color scale. Keep in mind that you will have to change that in the Color Scale settings.
This brings us to the question about which keyword difficulty we should be aiming for. If your site is pretty new and not yet very established then a keyword difficulty level of 8 should be the highest number.
As you can see in our spreadsheet our lowest levels are 19 and 24. So if it is a new site with a low level of authority then we need to bring in more keywords in order to try to find keywords with a more suitable competition level. Then you just repeat that process until you have a keyword with a competition level that is satisfactory.
Final Tips About Outranking Your Competition
There is also a final thing that you could do in order to outrank your competitors for the chosen keyword(s). Perform a Google search with your chosen keyword and take a look at the top ten ranking sites. Then go into each one and count how many words they’ve got on their sites. The rule of thumb is to have around the same or higher word count than your competitors.
“Websites that don’t offer a lot of value but instead a
bunch of fluff is more and more being penalized by Google.”
Around 2000 words is generally a good word count. Just keep in mind that quality has become more important than quantity and websites that don’t offer a lot of value but instead a bunch of fluff is more and more being penalized by Google.
If you would like to see more of my SEO content writing work, please take a look at my dedicated page.
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