How to Find Awesome Content Ideas In Just A Few Minutes

Short on content ideas?

It happens to pretty much everyone who creates content.

When your list of topics starts running dry, one way to drum up some fresh ideas is to use keyword research.

Keyword research is about more than just SEO.

Even if you're not particularly concerned about optimizing for organic search traffic, keyword research tools and strategies can inform your content marketing tactics.

It gives you a peek at what your audience is thinking, and how they go about finding a product or service like yours.

You can find questions and concerns that are commonly searched, and use your content to provide the answers that people are looking for.

There are quite a few ways to perform keyword research.

Agencies and consultants who offer SEO services generally use paid tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs.

But there are also free tools and techniques that can produce a list of useful keywords that can serve as topics for your blog posts.

A recent blog post from Moz walks you through the process of using several tools to create a keyword list.

Each of these things only takes a few minutes, and you can find what you need in as little as half an hour.

Evaluate top industry websites (10 mins)

Identify the most common navigation items and blog categories on leading industry sites.

[image source: Moz]
Advanced search operators (3 mins)

While exploring top websites, you can use advanced Google operators to dig deeper.

Example: Bride.com has topic pages like /topic/wedding-beauty. To view all of Bride.com’s topics search this: site:brides.com/topic

[image source: Moz]
Google Suggest (10 mins)

Google “wedding” and don’t hit enter!

Instead, make note of the drop-down search suggestions. You can also search “wedding a” [don’t hit enter], “wedding b” [don’t hit enter], all the way through to z to get the most popular and/or trending wedding-related searches.

[image source: Moz]
Now that we have aggregated keywords from the above tactics, we have a solid list:

wedding venues, wedding photographers, wedding dj, wedding beauty, wedding videographers, wedding bands, wedding budget, wedding invitations, wedding registry, wedding colors, wedding decorations, wedding party, wedding ideas, wedding cakes, wedding centerpieces, wedding hairstyles, wedding bouquets, engagement rings, wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, mother of the bride dresses, wedding rings, flower girl dresses, wedding accessories, wedding jewelry, wedding tuxedos, wedding registry, wedding ceremony, wedding reception, wedding cake, wedding food, wedding favors, wedding flowers

Keep up the pace — we can’t stop here!

Next, let’s determine which categories are most popular by average monthly Google searches.

There are two primary tools to view average monthly search volume (AKA to know how many times a query like “wedding flowers” are searched per month): Google Keyword Planner and Moz Keyword Explorer. (Check out GKP vs. MKE to learn more.)

Google Keyword Planner (5 mins)

Step 1: Paste your saved keyword list into the box under “Enter one or more of the following” and click “Get Ideas”:

[image source: Moz]
Step 2: Evaluate and save search volume data while being mindful of the large search data ranges and limited data:

[image source: Moz]
Note: Google will occasionally change your keywords to something different; “wedding videographers” was changed to “wedding videos” in this case. It’s important to be mindful of this as you’re deciding on the exact category names.

You should also explore the keywords below your immediate keyword search section. Sort by average monthly searches (highest to lowest) to make sure you aren’t missing any other big category items.

FAQ keyword research

Answering the most commonly searched-for questions about your product/service will provide value to your readers and solidify you as an industry expert.

Here’s how to gather the most commonly asked questions on a topic:

AnswerThePublic.com (10 mins)

Search for your product/service.

[image source: Moz]

[image source: Moz]
How cool is this snazzy question wheel?! While the visuals are fun, it’s easier to gather the questions by clicking the top-right yellow “export to csv” button and deleting non-relevant questions in a .csv or Google Sheet.