Keyword planning: What is Google keyword ranking and how to find new keywords with low competition

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Episode 6 – Part 1: Keyword ranking and tools for keyword planning 2021 – check Google keyword ranking for your blog and improve it by finding the best keywords

Every week I have students who say ‘I don’t need a blog, just a website for the business will be fine‘. But let’s think about what a blog actually is. It’s the News section of your website, so it’s there to host new content. New content is loved by readers and also by Google.

Did you know that there is no difference for Google between posts and pages on your website?

Yes, that’s correct. So if we all start with a simple website with an average of 15 pages (About us, Our Services, Contact us etc.) and we create one blog post per week, our site will have over 60 pages (that includes posts and pages) after one year.

Whereas our competitor who started with a similar website with 15 pages and didn’t blog will still only have the same amount of content a year later.

Who do you think readers will trust more? And who do you think Google will display in search results more often?

That’s right, the website with frequent blog posts of course. It’s still the same ‘Content is King‘!

However, our content has to be good quality content and to be able to write good quality content we have to do some keyword research or our post will never be found.

Why start a blog if you have a website already?

• Websites that also have a blog are shown to have 434% more indexed pages.
• Companies who blog get 97% more links to their websites.
• Blogs have been rated as the 5th most trustworthy source for gathering online information.
• 66% of bloggers today are publishing a few times per month, rather than a few times per week back in 2014.
• 77% of internet users read blogs.

Source: Blogging statistics by Optinmonster

Important metrics for keyword planning

Google keyword search volume

The keyword search volume is really important as it indicates how many times people have searched for this specific search term. Knowing what people google for can make all the difference as to whether your article will be displayed by Google or not.

The Google keyword search volume metric will be shown by all keyword planning tools, however, some of them like the Google Keyword Planner will show you just a range of the search volume such as 1k-10k, or 10k-100k. As you can imagine, knowing the exact number here can make a huge difference – one keyword search volume might be 11,000 per month but a similar keyword search volume might be 90,000 per month.

They will both be displayed in the range of 10k-100k but it can make all the difference whether you have 11,000 or 90,000 people searching what you’re writing about and therefore driving traffic to your site. 

Check Google ranking for your website

Before you get started with keyword ranking it’s a good idea to check the Google ranking for your website. There are lots of tools out there and most keyword planning tools include Google keyword ranking checkers as well.

I use Rank Math on my websites, this plugin is a fabulous help to write SEO friendly content, it tells you how often your chosen keywords are included in your headers and content and it includes rank tracking software too. However, if you don’t have an account with an SEO plugin or keyword research tools yet you can use Seobility or TheHoth for free.

Seobility is a free all-in-one SEO software with tools for better website optimisation:

• Website Crawling and Site Auditor
• Google Rank Tracker with Daily Updates
• Backlink Checker and Link Building Tools
• Continuous Monitoring and Whitelabel Reporting

TheHoth is another free tool to check your Google keyword ranking

• Free Google SEO Ranking Checker
• Free Backlink Checker
• Very easy to use
• You don’t have to sign up for an account, however you have to sign up for their newsletter to get the results

I sometimes use these tools for client’s websites, however, I personally prefer to have it all in my WordPress dashboard instead of opening another site. As a dashboard integration Rank Math is certainly my favourite plugin, not just to check your Google keyword ranking but every day when writing content. I use their premium version, however their free version offers a lot of functionality. I’ll create a video tutorial on how to use Rank Math soon. (link)

Can keyword search volume be influenced? 

Google keyword search volume can be greatly influenced by seasonality – the keywords you’re targeting might be more in demand in summer or winter, or during holiday season or around specific events. 

How to find growing keyword search volume? 

Trends can also play a big role in Google keyword search volumes changing – when a specific kitchen machine or diet gets hyped up in the media, suddenly lots of people search for it and therefore push the search volume up.

Trends can grow and disappear very quickly, so they can be difficult to keep up with. However, if your blog is about something you’re passionate about you are probably up-to-date on trends in your niche anyway and it’s well worth your time to create useful content if you see a trend emerging, as at the beginning of trends your competition will usually be limited. This brings us to the next metric – Google keyword competition.

What is Google keyword competition

Keyword competition is the other side of the coin, if there is strong demand for certain content and keyword search volume is high then very likely your competition will be high too. However, this is not always the case.

With a good keyword planning tool it’s easy to find specific keywords – often long-tail keywords – to focus on; keywords that have a healthy amount of Google search volume but low competition.

For new websites, it wouldn’t make sense to try to compete with the big players, the websites that have dozens of editors, huge marketing budgets, strong domain authorities due to highly valued backlinks and long-established domains. It would be very frustrating because as a new blogger you probably won’t be able to win this battle and would never see your site anywhere close to page 1 in Google. 

How to find keywords with low competition? 

Here is where good Google keywords research tools will make all the difference, so you can slowly move onto page 1 in Google with articles targeting specific long-tail keywords.

In the beginning, these long-tail keywords will often have only a few hundred searches per month but also low keyword competition, and if you create good and informative content about this topic, Google will have no issue moving your post onto page 1 of search results quite quickly.

And believe me, it feels so great when you see your new blog suddenly appearing on page 1 in Google – it’s just incredible! You can then build your domain authority and target more competitive keywords in the long run. Also, you can and should target multiple related keywords per article. And don’t underestimate a low figure of 30 or 100 searches, each long-tail keyword brings more readers and they all add up.

Free Google keyword research tools

There are a few free keyword planning tools out there that are worth checking out to kickstart the SEO of your blog. 

Two of the most obvious keyword research services and well-known ones are Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends.

Both tools are very reliable because the data comes from Google itself. To use any of those free tools you will just need a Google account, if you don’t have one you can sign up here to your free Google account.

Want to find out more? Read Keyword Planning Part 2: How to use Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends and many other FREE keyword alternatives as part of our WordPress tutorial series ‘How to start a blog in 2021‘.

What about you, do you do any keyword planning when blogging?

Please let me know in a comment below – I’d love to hear from you!

You might also be interested in How to find your niche before you start blogging. Or perhaps ‘Where to find the best and fastest WordPress themes‘ and ‘How to deal with website maintenance‘ so you can spend more time blogging and creating content knowing your site is secure.

I’ve got lots more, easy to follow, quick tutorials such as how to get WordPress FTP access, how to create Pinterest Rich Pins with Rank Math in 5 minutes, or upload a text file to WordPress without plugins to get started with Google AdSense.

Check them both out or click the button below for the full index of the How to start a blog in 2021 Index- step-by-step WordPress tutorials so far and I’ll keep updating this index as the guide develops.