Category: Mastering SEO

Here is the bad news… You can no longer use the Google Keyword Planner to easily assess which keywords are the best for your search engine optimization strategy. The competition ranges are vague and you must start a PAID campaign to see more specific analytics.

Yes, this change to the Google Adwords Keyword Planner totally stinks.

Here is the good news…

You can piece together your SEO research by using various free keyword tools or invest in a Google Keyword Planner alternative that gives you all of the information needed in one location.

Alternatives for Google Keyword Planner

This list includes a mixture of free Google’s Keyword Planner alternatives and paid keyword research tools.

InstaKeywords – Probably the most inclusive FREE keyword planning tool currently available, InstaKeywords allows you to see extensive information about your keywords without registration. If you create a FREE account, you can access even more keyword results.

Soovle – Not sure where to begin looking for keywords? Just start typing into Soovle and the database will pull the top related searches, automatically recommending related terms as you type.

Ubersuggest – If you know where to start but are looking for long tailed keywords, Ubersuggest yields the most comprehensive listing of keywords for free. You can even download your list as a CSV to help create a keyword strategy.

Google Trends– If you write according to trending topics, you can find exactly what has been the most popular over the last 24 hours as well as check on the popularity of other topics and categories.

Keyword Discovery – Check the popularity of keywords or use the free trends tool to research the best month to post your topic. Upgrade for access to additional tools.

Google Search – Sometimes, we overlook the easiest solution. Using the Google search engine as a keyword tool is simple. Add your terms to the search bar and Google recommends the top searched keywords.

Once you click to search, scroll to the bottom of the search results page to find other related terms.

Pinterest Guided Search – Pinterest hosts the fastest growing search toolbar on the internet. Guided Search offers you the benefit of seeing the most popular keywords related to the terms you place in the search bar and even helps you refine your keyword choice by offering additional context words.

Bing Webmaster Tools – Understand the words people are searching to find your blog and research keywords to target with your content.

Wordtracker – Start your keyword research for free with the Wordtracker Keyword Tool. This is a very limited search that reveals the overall volume of the search. An upgrade is required for additional information.

BuzzSumo – See how engaged social media users are with your topic by viewing the top trends for your keywords. You can also view current popular topics and trends.

HitTail -The simplest tool for locating keywords you should target based on your existing blog content. Have your website analyzed automatically and receive recommended keywords that fit the topics on your blog. You can try it for FREE and export the recommendations in a CSV file (which can be opened by Excel, Numbers, or with Google Drive.) This is the most affordable of the keyword tools at $9.95 per month.

SEMRush – See the keywords people are using to find your blog content and who is linking to you with SEMRush. Also use SEMRush to research keywords for new categories and see their popularity and the competition across the internet.

WordStream – Much like Google Keyword Planner, receive high-volume low competition niche longtail keywords. Receive 30 keyword reports for free but upgrade to receive more detailed analysis.

Keywordtool-io –  Without registration required, each search generates up to 750+ long-tail keyword suggestions but you must upgrade to see the important analytics.

Spyfu – The best keyword tool for affiliate marketing, you can see the most profitable keywords related to your search. A variety of analytical tools are available for free but an upgrade is required to see beyond the top results.

Keyword Eye – Boasting 50,000 users, Keyword Eye offers competitor analysis, keyword finder, and popular questions tool. Pricing starts at $44 per month.

MOZ – You can search for two keywords FREE each day and get complete results including domain authority and page authority of current search results leading pages. A 30-day free trial is available.

Your favorite Google Keyword Planner Alternative?

If you have a favorite tool for researching keywords, let us know! What will you use as an alternative to Google’s Keyword Planner?

Unless your blog is set up to make all links nofollow, every link you publish is automatically a dofollow link, so you have to manually change the links when necessary.

Did you read our post about dofollow and nofollow links?

While you could use a nofollow plugin, they can sometimes be buggy and cause other problems in your blog. Understanding how to build an HTML link can help you make each link nofollow by editing the HTML code in your post.

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** Each time someone figures out what works best for SEO, the algorithm seems to change. The best way to attract search engines to your blog is create amazing content and use words to describe your topic accurately.**

Dofollow links. Nofollow links. What does it all mean?

Blogging can be so confusing when you don’t understand the jargon. In this video, I explain what dofollow link and nofollow link are as well as which you should use in certain situations to make your links benefit your SEO.

As you watch the Educreations video embedded, remember that the internet is a web. There is a reason why we start every website url with WWW, short for world wide WEB. So, if the internet is a big web, the search bots are link spiders crawling the web and they report back to Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc with what they discover.

Adding nofollow coding communicates the links where you do not want to pass along SEO link juice.

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Important things to note about SEO link building

• Any affiliate link on your blog as well as links for paid content should be nofollow links.
• You need nofollow and dofollow links on your blog to prove your blog’s value to a search engine.
• Links should be to relevant content and not randomly placed.

So, you are working hard to improve the SEO on your blog, but how do you know if it is working?

What NOT to do

You cannot search for your keywords and expect to get accurate results. Why? Because the Google algorithm is synced to show you results from the places you spend the most time online and the results that are closest to your geographical location.

So, how can you check your search engine optimization strategy?

1) You can open an incognito search window.

Inside Google Chrome, click the settings icon (three stacked bars at the top right of your browser, just below the X to close the window). Then, choose to open a new incognito window.

Searches from this window will mask any of your preferences although your geographic information may still taint the results slightly.

2) You can check your blog’s Webmaster Tools.

Visit Google’s Websmaster Tools and follow the instructions in this video.

I love using the Google Adwords Keyword Planner for brainstorming ideas for new posts as well as focusing my post with the keywords people are using.

Watch this 6 minute video for a quick tour and tutorial for using Google Adwords Keyword Planner.

Are you taking advantage of every opportunity to tell the search engine spiders what your post is about?

Now, I am not talking about blabbing on and on with the same series of words or various combinations of keywords just to try to rank higher. I AM talking about natural places where your keywords should appear.

Check out this video to learn some special places you should be adding keywords.

**SEO changes all the time. I recommend that you stay up to date on best practices as the algorithm changes.**

This is PART TWO of our series, SEO 1.0.

If you think of your blog as a home, there are certain spots where you keep your valuable information. Your blog address (URL), site title, and tagline are prime spots for SEO.

Have you neglected the tagline of your blog? For WordPress users, is your blog still “just another WordPress site” or have you completed the information in the “general” section?

If you are a Genesis framework user, your blog theme is ready for some heavy duty SEO boosting. Just make sure you are completing the homepage settings under Genesis > SEO Settings. If your blog title doesn’t contain keywords (cough… Meet Penny???), you want to have a rich META description and select to wrap your site description in the <H1> tag.

Now, this is something for EVERYONE regardless of your hosting or theme situation. Watch this video to learn the other MOST important spots on your blog for SEO.

Then, watch this video to know the most important places within a blog post for SEO.

Your homework: 1. Complete the most important information on your blog. 2. Stop using “cute” titles for blog posts. 3. Divide your content appropriately with subtitles in the H2 heading format.