Are you using Google Suggest to supplement your keyword research? I was talking to one of our clients the other day about keyword research and which keywords we both felt were best for his site and business.  I would love to mention his site here and drop a link but because we are considered our clients "secret weapon" they typically do not want to reveal their search engine marketing secrets to their competitors.

As we were talking he mentioned something about “this keyword shows up in the drop down menu” whereas “this keyword does not”.  I had no idea what he was talking about so I asked him for clarification.  He was referring to “Google Suggest”.  Google suggest is what you see when you start typing a query in to Google.com.  Google is trying to guess at what they think you want to find and it can give you some great insight in to what potential searchers may be using to find your products, service or information. After doing some research I realized this is not exactly a new concept but certainly one worth visiting.

My clients rationale was when someone starts typing his keyword in to Google what comes up first in the suggest list MUST be a “good” keyword.  Is his rationale right? I think it’s pretty safe to say it is.

After our conversation I went to Google.com and started typing in “link building service” which is one of our primary keywords here at Vertical Measures. By time I got to “link bu” I immediately spotted a new keyword we had not been focusing on.  See illustration below:

Here is Google’s explanation of Google suggest: "As you type, Google Suggest communicates with Google and comes back with the suggestions we show. If you’re signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled, suggestions are drawn from searches you’ve done, searches done by users all over the world, sites in our search index, and ads in our advertising network. If you’re not signed in to your Google Account, no history-based suggestions are displayed. Data you send to Google is protected by Google’s privacy policy".

The fine folks over at SEOmoz had a post on their YOUmoz blog about this same concept recently if you want to read their take.  Tony Soric also did a nice piece on it last year you can read here as well.

Here are some quick tips if you want to use Google Suggest for supplementing your keyword research:

1. Open notepad or your favorite text editor
2. Be sure to sign out of your Google account
3. Type one letter at a time and watch carefully! As you type each keystroke can reveal some valuable keywords.
4. The words that show up first in the suggestions with the fewest keystrokes are the most competitive which means they may not necessarily be the best.
5. Watch carefully as some words disappear as you type
6. As you see possible keywords add them to the list in notepad each on a new line
7. Repeat with other variations of your keywords
8. When done use the free Google adwords keyword research tool and check the search volume of the keywords.  The reason I had you create the list in notepad and one per line is because now you can just copy and paste the whole list in at once.  Be sure to click the link that says “filter my results” and check the box that says “Don’t show ideas for new keywords. I only want to see data about the keywords I entered.” Since these keywords did show in Google suggest it’s safe to assume they have search volume but this tool will allow you to quickly see which have the highest. 
9. Sort by either global or local search volume and export
10. Because you may have chosen keywords that are trending now but may not have solid long term search interest you may want to consider checking them in Google Insights before you bet the whole farm on them.

We would love to hear more about your experiences using Google Suggest for keyword research or any other keyword research “secret weapons” you would care to share with us and our visitors below in the comments.

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Keyword research is the cornerstone of your SEO plan.  Many website owners dream up an idea for a site, build it, and never truly consider the proper usage of keywords.  It’s critical, as that is how you are found by the search engines and the searchers themselves.

People often start searching with broad results in mind. However as they get closer to making a decision, they narrow the results by adding more keyword to their search.  The "long tail" in search can be anything from three words to as many as ten.  It is very important to create content that shows up when your potential customer enters that longer keyword phrase in the box.  This means that you most likely will need a detailed keyword analysis to find out what your customers are really searching for with their keywords.

There are a few fee-based tools you can take a look at: Keyword Discovery, Keyword Country, Keyword Elite and Wordtracker.  However, one of our favorites is actually free.  Take a look at SEO Book’s free keyword tool.  One last recommendation is IBP4 from Axandra, which is primarily an SEO tool but also includes a keyword research feature.  We will be recommending IBP4 in the coming days, so you might consider purchasing it now.

Today’s Task: Choose a keyword research tool or two for you to use and get it!  Tomorrow we will begin the actual research.

[tags] keyword research, keyword discovery, keyword country, keyword elite, wordtracker, seo book, IBP4 [/tags]

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