How to use google for keyword research [Not keyword planner] in 2020.

Hi there, I am Praneeth.

In this blog, you will learn,

Exactly 7 ways on how to use google for keyword research.

The ways you find keywords are totally on google not using any tool like keyword planner or any other keyword tools.

So without further ado, let’s get started.

Here is a 30000-foot view of the blog.

7 Ways on how to use google for keyword research?

Here is a quick overview of 10 ways you can use google for a list of organic keywords and queries which you can include or target in your blog posts and rank high on google.

1. Google autosuggestions.
2. People also aks and search for features.
3. Searches related to.
4. Google QnA feature.
5. Google images.
6. Google videos.
7. Google search operators.

Let’s understand each way of finding keywords in detail.

#Google’s autosuggestions.

Here when you use google, you are actually searching for keywords and topics that people are actually searching for right from google rather than using some SEO or keyword tool which scrapes data from google keyword planner and other sources.

When it comes to using google not keyword planner for keyword research and finding some amazing keyword ideas for your blog topic,

The first wonderful opportunity you have to find awesome keyword ideas is Google autosuggest.

Here is an example,

For example, your blogging niche is a podcast.

Let’s search for podcasts on google.

You have a list of suggestions below when I type word A after the podcast.

These suggestions make incredible keyword opportunities for your blog.

Let’s search for different ideas,

Like this, you can search for all the alphabets before and after your target keyword like podcast a, podcast b, podcast c, …. podcast z.

You can keep the alphabets before the keyword like a podcast, b podcast…..z podcast.

These give you an incredible number of keyword ideas.

You have a new list of keyword ideas for your blog.

Here is a step by step thing to find amazing keyword ideas for your blog.

Step 0: Go to google.

Step 1: Search your target keyword for example if you are blogging on podcasts, search for podcast word.

Step 2: After typing word podcast on google, type word A and you can see you have a list of keyword ideas as suggestions below in google.

Step 3: Use alphabets before the keyword you place to get another awesome list of keyword ideas for your blog.

Step 4: You can use this way or you can add these words before or after your keyword in google which are,

1. Does.
2. Will.
3. Why.
4. How.
5. Where.
6. Which.
7. Who.
8. Is.
9. Have.
10. Prevent.
11. Fix.
12. Help.
13. Could.
14. Easy.
15. With.

Here is how you do it.?

Let’s say you want does and your target keyword.

Similar to this you can place all the words I mentioned earlier before and after your target keyword in google and find amazing keyword ideas for your blog.

If you are wondering if people are searching for it or not,

Then you should know that google calls these suggestions but these are not suggestions as they are predictions.

Read the below image carefully,

Google’s autosuggestions you get are not suggestions they are predictions which google does.

And google predicts your phrase and suggests it to you to save your time by observing and keeping the data of what people have searched for in the past.

Though you cannot get the exact search volume of the data of the keyword because people are searching for it on google and google has the search volume of each data and they won’t share with us.

If you think using a keyword tool like Ahrefs and SEMrush will sort out the keyword search volume, then read my detailed blog on why keyword tools are bad.

• Read my blog on why keyword tools are wrong and misleading.

When you think about it for a second it is very awesome that you have google itself suggesting different keyword ideas for your blog as a content creator which people are actually searching for.

It is awesome.

With that said, let’s see another method of finding amazing keyword opportunities.

#Google’s people also ask and search for features.

If you noticed in SERP results on google, you have this section called the people also ask section.

It is a place on SERP feature which google introduced long back ago.

The title of the feature is called people also aks and when you visit that feature,

You can find tons of keyword opportunities for your blog,

Here is an example,

This gives you amazing keyword ideas and opportunities for your blog which you can target by including those keywords in your blog or targeting those specific keywords in your posts.

Most of the keywords have some decent search volume because google is suggesting that keywords under the feature which says people also ask which means there are people who are searching for that thing.

You know it has some volume in it.

Most of the keyword ideas you get in this feature are long-tail keywords and long-tail keywords are great for SEO because they boost conversions for your blog.

• Read my guide on why long-tail keywords are important for your blogs.

#Searches related to.

It is all SERP.

You can get amazing keyword ideas for your blog in SERP itself.

This is another place in SERP where you can get amazing keyword ideas and opportunities for your blog.

After performing some search in google, scroll down to the bottom and you have searches related to the feature.

These are once again amazing keyword ideas and opportunities for your blog post,

These give you some perspective and ideas for your target keyword if you are just running out of keyword ideas and topics fr your blogs.

#Google QnA box.

This is another feature that Google recently launched mostly appearing in mobile searches.

It is a community that googles built on search engines where people on SERPs can answer people’s questions and ask questions for answers which are not clearly answered in blog posts.

First, do some search on your mobile phone in google.

You have this QnA part feature in SERP.

Using this feature you can find amazing keyword ideas and long-tail keyword topics for your blog post.

This is just like a forum like quora and Reddit but it appears right on SERP.

So this is another great way to find amazing keyword ideas for your blog posts.

#Google images.

If you are running out of keywords and ideas for your blog posts, you have google images where you can find amazing keyword opportunities in google images search.

First, click on images in google and search for your target keyword in google images.

Here is an example,

You have autosuggestions as keyword ideas for your blog and enter in search,

You have keywords in a vertical row,

When you click on any one of the images, you can get new ideas and keyword topics through the title and description of the image, like this.

This makes amazing keyword ideas and topics for your blog which you can get inspiration for your keyword research and dig deep and target keywords in your blog posts.

This feature of Google is similar to Pinterest but you know using this feature you can generate another wonderful list of keyword topics and keywords for your blog.

#Google Videos.

This is another cool feature on google which you can use on google.

After searching for anything like your target keyword in Google you can use this feature to find amazing videos as new topics that you haven’t covered as blog posts in your blog.

You can take inspiration and new perspectives from these suggestions and lists as new posts and topics for your blog.

When you scroll to the bottom of the results, You again have these searches related to the section which you can use to dig deep into finding amazing videos and keywords for your blog posts.

It is just awesome as to what you can do and find amazing keywords right from using google.

#Google’s search operators.

This is another big thing that you can use in your google search to find amazing keyword opportunities for your blog.

Obviously, you can find amazing keyword ideas and opportunities for your blog posts using google suggestions, and people also aks for section,

But you just don’t need to have keywords you need to do and check the competition of the keywords which we will find in this blog later but first use these 2 search operators which can help you immensely in your keyword research process.

It is using these 2 search operators.

1. Allintitle;keyword.
2. Site:domain and allintitle:keyword.

If you have not got an idea of what I am talking about.

It is allintitle:keyword means,

Search for allintitle:your keyword without a gap between colon and keyword.

Using these search operators in google helps you find total pages in google search at that location which are ranking in Google for that keyword.

This helps you analyze how many posts are targeting the keyword in google in their titles.

Here is an example,

Here is a keyword called podcast benefits,

Let’s search for it on google to find how many blog posts are targeting this keyword ranking on google.

Without using this feature if you type in the keyword you have,

Without using the search operator you have some millions of pages but using the search filter to allintitle helps you blogs that are targeting the keyword in title and ranking in google.

Another cool feature is using,

Site:Domain name.

Before that watch this video,

You can find amazing keyword opportunities using this operator.

Using these search operators.

You can use,

This search operator, to find other sites which are ranking for this keyword in their titles and blogs.

You can find amazing keywords from forum sites like Quora and Reddit because,

Most of the people who search for things will spend most of the time on forums and you can use that advantage and look for things that people are discussing on forums using this filter.

Search for,

Site:quora.com allintitle;your keyword.

In my case, I will search for,

Site:quora.com allintitle:blogging.

This is what I got.

Using this method you can find all the threads in quora where the keyword blogging is present from google which is ranking on google.

Of course, you can find this through searching in quora directly but you don’t know whether it is ranking in google or not.

So if you find any keyword in these forums by searching on google which doesn’t have much competition, you can target them and rank them.

It is not just limited to forums,

You can use any other sites and forums,

Read more about these search operators here.

With that said,

Let’s see how you should refine keywords and do competition analysis on google itself not using any SEO tool.

How to do a competition analysis of the keywords you get?

Even for this, we use google SERP to find the competition of the keyword.

Here is a list of things you should look for in the competition analysis of the keyword you get.

1. Firstly search for any forum results ranking in the top 10 like Quora, Reddit because it is user-generated content which can be easily outranked by your blog with a good article.
2. Search for blogs that are ranking in the SERP for the keyword you targeted but are very low quality like 500 words article or not answering the question or keyword completely.
3. Look for articles that are not exactly on point like you searched for reasons to build backlinks and google shows how to build backlinks results, you know it is not what you searched for and if you see many results in google top 10 which are not on point to what you searched for, it is another good sign.
4. Find keywords if they have lots of AdWords ads in SERP in google then it is another good sign that people are paying for google for the traffic of that keyword means the keyword has some commercial intent and it is valuable.

These 4 things are very important for you to understand,

Here are other things you should look for like,

• If any or majority of the blog posts are web 2.0s like wordpress.com or blogspot.com websites like free websites, they can be easily beaten with a good article.
• If you find pages that are very old like 5 years or 6 years old, that’s a good sign, google loves fresh content and you can beat content irrespective of how good it is or how many links it has if it is old.
• Search for sites that have high authority like high authority sites and if they are answering the question you searched for in google’s top 10, you should ignore that keyword because it is difficult to beat that site.

These are ways you can find amazing keyword ideas and competition of keywords.

Here is the reason, I don’t want you to use keyword tools like Ahrefs for keyword difficulty because,

Most of the keyword tools find and analyze keyword difficulty through backlinks.

But they don’t consider other factors like,

1. Search intent.
2. Content quality.
3. SERP authority and competition of websites.

Read my guide on SEO tools & whats the problem with them.

Read this article on how to use google keyword planner for keyword research.

Ending remarks.

There you go I have answered 7 underrated ways on how to use google for keyword research for your blog.

Do comment on what you think of the blog in the comments section below.

Read my other blogs,

• Pros and cons of keyword research.
• Pros and cons of building backlinks.
• Why SEO services are not worth it?

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I will catch you next time,

Till then

Keep learning and keep growing.