The Important Keyword Research Question That’s Often Ignored By Bloggers

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Note: This is not parroted post about the importance of keyword research nor the ways to do keyword research. It’s simply a look back at one key element in keyword research that fails to get the attention it deserves.
(Just wanted to set the right expectation at the start of the post. I don’t want you swearing at the end of the post )

What are the common research questions you start out when you see a keyword?
If you are like most people, you wonder,

• How can I rank for this keyword or
• How do I get on the first page of Google for this keyword

You continue with the routine of keyword research

• How many people are searching for this keyword
• What’s the competition for the chosen keyword

Next, comes the mathematical mambo jumbo where you calculate,

• Will I ever rank on the first page of Google for this keyword, in this life time?!

All this is good, and what the keyword research gurus want you to do as well. However, you still haven’t asked one important keyword research question.

You write a blog post based on the awesome keyword you just found. You hit publish, after a while it ends up in Google’s index.

We’ve all seen the ripple effects of the Panda update. Needless to say, Google is tweaking their algorithms; trying to be way smarter than the average SEO.
Back then, all you had to do was to put together a few meta tags, H1 tags and boom! effortless ranking. These days, you can put in all the fancy SEO tweaks, but it’s becoming really difficult(near impossible) to rank with mediocre content.

when someone types a query into Google, the search engine asks a different set of questions! What do you think Google is asking behind closed doors?

Can you step into Google’s mindset and come up with what questions they must be asking? (leave a comment, let’s have some fun!)

Based on the blog Google webmaster central’s guidance on building high quality sites, here’s a peak at what Google is asking,

• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

Phew! That’s a big ask and there’s ever more which I didn’t include. You just might fall out of your chair reading all that!

It’s definitely a tough act to follow with each blog post. But there is one question which summarizes the above, which I think you should ask to increase your keyword research throughput.
drum-roll….

Keyword research question that’s often overlooked by blogger

If I searched for this keyword in Google, What would I WANT to see?

Put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s searching for the keyword (you just selected) in Google.

What would YOU be looking for? Would it be to buy a product, read some useful information or solve a problem?