Related Searches Only Go so Far: How to Find More Niche Keywords

related searches

There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Haven’t heard that old saying in a while, have you?

And you’ve definitely never heard it related to finding new SEO niche keywords. But it’s more relevant than you’d think.

If you’re tired of trying to come up with keywords and using the same old related searches, you’re beating a dead horse. You need to change your tune and try something new.

Luckily for you, we’re out of old idioms, but we have four tips for finding fresh keywords and niche audiences below.

1. Know Your Audience

Yes, you’re reading the right article. We’re still talking about how to find the right keywords for your niche.

Nothing in SEO is independent of anything else. Including keywords and audiences.

So to find the right keywords for your niche, you need to ask yourself who is searching for the product or service you provide.

If you’re an already established business, this should be easy. Just grab your customer personas and put yourself in their shoes. If you’re marketing toward the wrong demographic though, you have more work to do.

Take a good look at the stats from your sales and your web pixel. Who is really converting on your site? Audiences, like businesses, grow and change over time.

Now ask yourself where your intersection is in this person’s life. If you’re a takeout restaurant, for example, what kind of searches do you need to come up with?

Probably “quick pick up food”, “healthy takeout near me”, and “order online” along with more localized terms, right? All we did to come up with those keywords was think about a potential customer.

In that case, it was a mom who was picking up kids after their activities and needed to grab food on the way home. We thought about her values (healthy, quick, and close to me) and made it relevant to this example business.

Now that could differ from the late night crowd, say, if that restaurant stayed open late. People looking for late night food would probably search something like “what’s still open” or “late night restaurants”. ‘

They’re not going to worry about healthy or super close in this instance, they’re just looking for the most basic thing from that business: the ability to buy food when other places are closed.

See how easy that is? It takes some work, but the concept is simple. Figure out who your people are and what questions would bring them to you.

2. Use Voice Search Terms

Now that we know who your audience is, let’s think about how they’d search with Siri, Google voice, or Alexa. This is a big gap in the SEO market right now—not enough marketers are including spoken-type keywords in their marketing.

They’re not a different type of keyword, per se, but they’re worded differently. For example, soccer mom isn’t going to speak “healthy food near me” into her phone.

She’s going to say “find healthy takeout restaurants nearby”. Or she might be more specific than that, citing a local term or neighborhood.

What if she’s already thinking about your restaurant but wants to know if you do online ordering? She’s going to ask her phone to search “does ABC restaurant have online ordering?” instead of just barking “online ordering ABC” into her phone.

Phrasing your keywords into more speakable terms is the best thing you can do for your SEO this year. Studies show that by 2020, over 75% of households will regularly use some sort of speech AI like Google Home or Alexa.

Now you have a chance to get more customers if you know how to (literally) speak their language.

3. Think About Solutions – Not Descriptions

Let’s change examples here, for the sake of diversity. Let’s say you’re marketing sunglasses that are super durable.

You know your customer is willing to spend a little more money so they don’t have to keep buying new pairs. What are your current keywords?

Probably something like “break-free sunglasses”, “indestructible sunglasses”, etc. Right?

And that’s great, but you’re only targeting people who know what the solution to their problem is. You’re not targeting the people who search for things like “why do my sunglasses keep breaking?” or “how to repair sunglasses”.

We’d venture to guess that at least a third of the people who search for “fix it” solutions would be willing to try your product. But they’ll never find it unless you use solution based keywords.

And, “how to stop sunglasses from breaking” probably has a low CPC as an added bonus.

4. Be a Spy

You need to know what keywords your competition is using. They may have a hold on niche keywords you haven’t even thought of yet.

But to figure out what keywords they target, you’re going to need a tool. And yes, it’s probably going to need to be paid. Most free keyword research tools (the kind that allows you to search other websites) will only give you a glimpse of the results for free.

Hunker down and pay the fee to get into the keyword-head of your competitors. You don’t have to do this every month—just at least once a quarter. You can decide if paying for a yearly membership or paying as you go works better for your budget.

Or, if you’re doing a less in-depth search, use this tool. It’s free up to the first 100 keywords!

Once you have the results, you can see where your gaps are and where theirs are. Instead of trying to outspend them for a hard-to-rank keyword, why not put your money into one that they’re not targeting correctly?

Leave Related Searches Brainstorming in the Dust

With these four tips, you can stop trying to think of new ways to type the same keywords. Related searches don’t necessarily get you a new audience—just a more frustrated one that isn’t finding what they want.

When you take the time to personalize your keywords and update your SEO strategy for 2019, you can expect some new site traffic.

Want to get some base SEO numbers so you can compare after you utilize our tips? Get a free SEO audit here