{"id":4145,"date":"2016-05-05T03:00:48","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T07:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/?p=4145"},"modified":"2016-08-10T14:22:56","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T18:22:56","slug":"keyword-research-existing-blog-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/keyword-research-existing-blog-posts\/","title":{"rendered":"Keyword Research For Existing Blog Posts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"elements-of-optimized-blog-posts\"As you know, keyword research is one of the crucial SEO activities when optimizing a site.<\/p>\n

In an ideal world,\u00a0keyword research should be done first before an article is created. This way, we can ensure the article is created around the target keyword to avoid a lot of SEO headaches.<\/p>\n

However, in reality, keyword research process is a lot messier.<\/p>\n

In most cases, we have to deal with existing blog posts\/ articles that were created without SEO in mind.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0is not even because the lack of understanding in SEO, but rather it’s the time required to do the keyword research that prevent many people from doing\u00a0keyword research first.<\/p>\n

Even I\u00a0do skip keyword research from time to time, because I am not sure if the article will end up with enough content to rank for a keyword to start with.<\/p>\n

I know I can just keep mumbling about the topic to get it\u00a0up to more than 1000 words but I am sure the readers will\u00a0disagree.<\/p>\n

So, in this post I am going to share with you how to solve this problem when you have to align an existing blog posts \/ articles that are not optimized.<\/p>\n

What is the best keyword research approach for existing blog posts?<\/h2>\n

First – we do not want to mess with\u00a0what is already working.<\/p>\n

Most likely, a lot of the existing blog posts do rank for some sort of keywords.<\/p>\n

So the first step is to find out which keyword(s) the\u00a0post is\u00a0ranking for.<\/p>\n

Step 1) Use SEMrush to find out which keywords the article is ranking for<\/h3>\n

This is essentially what SEMrush.com<\/a> was originally created for…. to find out which keywords a site is ranking for.<\/p>\n

Let’s use one of the pages from DigitalReadyMarketing.com as an example –\u00a0https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/key-performance-indicator-kpi-amazon-affiliate-niche-websites\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Input the URL into SEMrush.com\u00a0to find out which keywords (if any) the page is ranking for.<\/p>\n

As you can see, this particular page talks about Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and is ranking for relevant keywords.<\/p>\n

\"which<\/p>\n

Step 2) If no keywords are found in Step one, use Keyword Planner tool<\/h3>\n

If your page is not ranking for anything, it means whatever keywords you have on the page either have really high competition, or nobody searches for them.<\/p>\n

Either way\u00a0we want to use the Keyword Planner tool to get the\u00a0monthly search volume first.\u00a0Then we can start looking for other ways to say the same thing.<\/p>\n

Let’s use the title of this post as an example – “Keyword Research for Existing Blog Posts”.<\/p>\n

People might actually search for\u00a0“How to find keywords for existing blog posts” instead.<\/p>\n

Brainstorming for keywords is out of scope for this post, so I am just going to provide this link<\/a> for you to explore..<\/p>\n

Think about purchase funnel (a.k.a buying funnel)<\/h4>\n

Which purchase funnel step do you think the\u00a0article is targeting?<\/p>\n

If it is at early stage, you should look for keywords with “how”, “what”, “why”, “where”, “which” etc<\/p>\n

If it is at later stage, you should look for keywords with “the best”, “review”, “buy” etc<\/p>\n

Step 3) Check\u00a0how competitive the keyword is<\/h3>\n

Now that you have identified a set of\u00a0keywords, it’s time to see which ones have low competition.<\/p>\n

Use the\u00a0Keyword Difficulty Checker\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0we developed or any other keyword difficulty tool\u00a0on the market.<\/p>\n

Step 4) Sprinkle the keyword strategically<\/h3>\n

The target keyword should be present in these key SEO elements. It’s also important to make it appear at least once in the first 200-300 words.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Title<\/li>\n
  • Meta description<\/li>\n
  • H1<\/li>\n
  • H2<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    What do you think?<\/h3>\n

    So to sum it up, it’s really the first step that is important. The rest is pretty much the standard on-page optimization stuff.<\/p>\n

    If you don’t find out which keywords your blog posts are already ranking for\u00a0before\u00a0tweaking and optimizing, those posts might not even rank for anything afterwords.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As you know, keyword research is one of the crucial SEO activities when optimizing a site. In an ideal world,\u00a0keyword research should be done first before an article is created. This way, we can ensure the article is created around the target keyword to avoid a lot of SEO headaches. However, in reality, keyword research […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-4145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seo","tag-step-3-keyword-research-generate-content-ideas"],"yoast_head":"\nKeyword Research for Existing Blog Posts - Digital Ready Marketing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Keyword research for existing blog posts could be tricky especially if the posts are already ranking. 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A must read before optimizing your posts.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/keyword-research-existing-blog-posts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Digital Ready Marketing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-05-05T07:00:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-08-10T18:22:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/elements-of-optimized-blog-posts.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"415\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"289\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tony\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@digitalreadyseo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@digitalreadyseo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tony\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/keyword-research-existing-blog-posts\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/keyword-research-existing-blog-posts\/\",\"name\":\"Keyword Research for Existing Blog Posts - Digital Ready Marketing\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/keyword-research-existing-blog-posts\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/keyword-research-existing-blog-posts\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/elements-of-optimized-blog-posts.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-05-05T07:00:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-08-10T18:22:56+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/digitalreadymarketing.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9900d9fa92bb16a33df4968eaf2b37c1\"},\"description\":\"Keyword research for existing blog posts could be tricky especially if the posts are already ranking. 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