Performing keyword research can be very exciting as it unveils information and ideas you would have never thought of for your SEO campaign. It is arguably one of the most important aspects of SEO. If you can understand the keywords and phrases people are actually using to find your products of services and successfully incorporate them into your website, you can significantly increase your organic website traffic. A key mistake many people make when carrying out keyword research is by simply signing into Google Adwords, going to the Keyword Tool, typing in some phrases that come to mind and then review the average monthly search volume.No doubt about it, the Keyword Planner is a great tool, but it should be used in conjunction with many other great resources out there to help find the not so easy to find phrases people are using to discover products and services.Below I have shared a couple of my favourite autocomplete resources I use while carrying out keyword research to find those not-so-obvious keywords and phrases that will help improve a website's organic traffic.1. Google AutocompleteWhen typing words in Google's search bar, you may notice that Google likes to help you out by predicting your query and typing it out for you. This feature has been around for a while now and as you may guess, it's algorithm has become increasingly more intelligent.The great thing about autocomplete is that all of the suggestions are based on actual user queries, however they do vary according to geographic location and language. Despite this, autocomplete provides a relatively accurate representation of what people are looking for.Here are a few reasons why autocomplete is a fantastic resource for keywords:It points out some of the most popular keywords.It provides the long tail suggestions.The keywords are ranked in order of popularity according to Google's "freshness layer" algorithm.So how do you go about using autocomplete for keyword research? I usually go about it the good old-fashioned way and it looks something like this:Step 1: Open Google. To avoid Google autocompleting previously-searched for terms, log out of Google or open an "incognito" window (Chrome: Shift + Cmnd + N).Step 2: Type in your main keyword or longtail keyword E.g. "osteopath"Step 3: Write down the suggestions that appear in autocomplete.Step 4: After you type in your main keyword or phrase, type in "A" and write down the autocomplete suggestions.Step 5: Repeat Step 4 for rest of the alphabet.2. Keyword ToolA few months ago, I stumbled across Keyword Tool, a free online keyword research tool that uses Google Autocomplete to generate hundreds of relevant long-tail keywords. What I love about this website is that it extracts every possible Google suggestion and presents them to you in an easy to read list. It gets better, you also have the option to copy all keywords with a click of a button and paste them into your Keyword Planner to find out their average monthly search volume.To get an idea of how brilliant this tool really is, check out some of the results below from my search term "osteopath North London".To ensure your website receives traffic from Google or other search engines, it is vital that your website contains content created around the right keywords. This ensures that you are using the same words your potential audience is already using while looking for products and services online. Conclusion Keyword research does not require any expensive tools or "proven formulas". By using the methods above, you can begin to understand what keywords and phrases people are actually searching for. You can also find the not-so-obvious phrases that you would not otherwise come across, and create opportunities to add them to the content of your website.I have used both the above methods for myself and my clients with great success and would recommend them to anyone interested in keyword research!
