Before we can begin obtaining any useful data at all, first we must understand what a Seed Keyword is, and how to select a good one.
What is a Seed Keyword?
A seed keyword, is essentially a keyword we would like to know more about. It will be used to generate a list of other related keywords.
If you are running a blog that has a subject matter of dieting or weight loss for instance, you may want to know what other keywords to write articles about. In that case both "diets" or "weight loss" would be good examples of possible seed keywords.
For each seed keyword I process you can expect up to 700+ related keywords to be generated.
How a Seed Keyword Turns into More Keywords
To make the most of my services, it will help you to understand exactly where these other related terms come from. This can help you make a decision regarding what you want to explore.
Seed Keyword expansion takes place in the standard way: Google Keyword Planner.
Remember the Magic: SEO Ranking Difficulty
Before we get too deep into the guts of quality keyword selection, let me remind you of something. Even though my Expansion occurs using a tool that is free for everyone, it is the fact that all of those keywords we find using it will be analyzed for Ranking Difficulty by me!
That is the valuable part! No guess work.
Google Keyword Planner "Competition" Value
You may notice in Google Keyword Planner that there is a column titled "Competition". This value is not to be confused with SEO Ranking Difficulty!
I see people get confused over this an awful lot still. Google's Competition Value actually refers to the paid competition you can expect. How many people are bidding on the keyword?
If you are building an AdSense for instance, you would actually WANT to see a high Competition Value! That means you are more likely to get paid for the term when people visit your site.
However, if you are trying to do PPC (Pay Per Click) on Google AdWords yourself, you would desire the opposite; a Low Competition Value.
Whereas my Rank 1-10 metric is specific to ranking in the Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).
Selecting a Good Seed Keyword
So we know what a seed keyword is now, but how do we know which ones to explore?
Generally speaking, it is a good idea to mine a large number of keywords to work with. A nice healthy list of keywords can last a publisher or author a whole year! Creating that content takes time and effort after all. But you don't want to spin your wheels.
What I recommend most people do here, is to work from the general down to the specific.
After running those more general keywords, I may find a number of other keywords that I am also interested in knowing more about. Then I would run those, and expand my database of keywords.
Going From the General to the Specific
Let's continue with the dieting example shall we?
Assuming I am going to be starting a brand new site that is going to cover diets of various types, I am going to look for seed keywords that are very general first.
For example, I may go to Google Keyword Planner and search for: "diet".
After running the keyword, I would then go through the results and look for terms that are related, but different enough to return unique results that "diet" alone missed out on.
Running "diet" through GKP returns results that I would then use as inspiration for more exploration. Then I write down any terms that inspire me to look more closely. Modifying them as appropriate to try and be general again if at all possible.
I see "weight loss diets" returned. Which I then turn into a new Seed Keyword "weight loss".
Or "detox diet", which may turn into a seed "Detox" or "Detoxing".
"Healthy diet plan" might give me the idea to try out "healthy eating" as a seed keyword!
Each of these terms will return a large number of unique results. If you take the time to develop a solid list of seed keywords in this fashion, and then process them for Ranking Difficulty, you will find TONS of gold!
Even in 'saturated' markets, there are always, always, low hanging fruit that are easy to rank for. It just takes a little digging!
Final is Example Keyword Project
