If you’re running an ecommerce website and are struggling to find topic ideas to increase your organic traffic, read on. In this article, I’m going to share with you a way to generate a ton of potential articles that will drive targeted traffic to your website.
The tool I use
The tool I’m using to do this is Serpstat. I use Serpstat because it’s inexpensive at only $70 a month and provides plenty of SEO resources like website audits, keyword research, and backlink profiles. This method should work with any other SEO tools on the market, you don’t have to use Serpstat.
The method
The method is quite simple to perform. What you’re going to do is a broad search for your product, and filter out the results to only show questions and buyer intent keywords.
For this article, I’m going to assume you’re an ecommerce website that sells laser pointers. If you were using Serpstat and punched in laser pointers into the keyword overview, you would see there are over 32k keywords that include “laser pointers.” That’s a lot to try and sift through.
Instead of trying to work my way through a massive spreadsheet and find the keywords we should target, I’m going to systematically reduce the list down to a manageable size. First I’m going to clickĀ Show all and start the trimming process.
Misspelled keywords
First, I’m going to get rid of all the misspelled keywords. The search engines are smart enough to correct someone’s search. For the most part, you need to conduct a search with boolean modifiers to get the results you’re looking for.
This won’t reduce the list down much but will get rid of those extra keywords.
Search volume
Initially, I like to keep the search volume of keywords to 10 and above. This filters out those incredibly long-tail keywords that would otherwise naturally be covered in a piece of content. However, don’t discount those low volume keywords. Just because a search only gets 5 people a month, they may be ready to open their wallets for your product.
This reduces the number of keywords from 32k to less than 7k. We’re making moves now!
Filter toponyms
Unless you’re selling locally, trying to rank for a keyword that includes location isn’t ideal. Think of things like “buy laser pointer in Seattle.” If you’re a brick and mortar store that also does ecommerce, go for it! Otherwise, get rid of these as well.
For this example, we didn’t see much change.
Onward.
Keywords
The real gem in this filtration system. I want the keywords I’m targeting to either
- answer a question
- be a buyer intent keyword
- include theĀ for modifier
Answering questions is a great way to get traffic to your ecommerce website and keep your brand top of mind for a future customer. If someone is doing a ton of research on a product and they’re continually coming back to your website from their searches, they’re going to remember that.
Buyer intent keywords are a little harder to rank and create content for, but if you can get a spot on that first page it can be a great win. You will be competing with paid advertising so keep that in mind.
ForĀ modifiers are great because they further segment the audience you’re looking to get. “Best laser pointer” may be harder to rank for than “best laser point for cats” which gets lower volume but you can really tailor the article to cat lovers.
Talk about a massive reduction in the number of keywords we have to create a content plan with.
Special elements in SERP
The last thing you can do but isn’t necessarily required is to filter out any special elements in the SERPs. Special elements range from location maps to videos to shopping blocks. This will make your chances of ranking go up significantly because you’re not competing with all sorts of special features.
You don’t need to filter outĀ every special element. For instance, things like related questions, PPC ads, and featured snippets could be beneficial and you could be included in them.
What we’re left with is a manageable list of keywords that have the potential to be easier to rank for. Remember, this isn’t a fool-proof plan, but it will make creating content a whole lot easier than sifting through 33k keywords.
If you have a product that you’re selling and want a list of keywords you can start creating content around, reach out. Let’s work together.