Discover 6 Simple Keyword Research Tricks

All you need to get started with keyword research is a tiny list of keywords. Once you have 3-5 keywords you can easily expand this list into the hundreds using my time-tested keyword expansion methods.

The expansion process is very simple and is depicted in the illustration below:

Once you have one keyword you’ll be able to extract more keyword ideas from it, and then from those you’ll be able to extract new keywords and so on.

Technique number one: Thesaurus  

This is such a simple method that the average webmaster simply overlooks it. Do you have a thesaurus somewhere in your house? If so then grab it and start inputting your general keywords in it.   If you don’t have a physical thesaurus there are alternative routes you can take on your computer. Consider using the built in thesaurus in Microsoft word.

Below are the search results for the term “software.”

My advice is to not take synonyms and plug them back into the  thesaurus as you’ll simply get an overlap of results which wastes time.

You can use a new online thesaurus to find out more synonyms for your keyword, or you can plug in definitions from the first thesaurus into the second one.

Here’s another online thesaurus I’ll recommend. Here are the extracts for the search term “software” in the second thesaurus.

As you can see the second thesaurus includes a lot more results, but  some of these definitions can easily be interpreted for something else in every day speech.

Therefore, it’s always a good idea to navigate through these definitions before adding them to your keyword list. Once you have extended your list using this method make sure to research them in keyword planner to see if it’ll be worth your time to target it.

This is a very simple method to use to extend your keyword list which is why I highly recommend it.

Plural & Singular 

This is another technique that’ll only take a few minutes of your time. You just need to analyze the list of keywords that you have and see if they would benefit from a plural or singular variation of it.

For example, if your keyword was “video game” then you can consider making it plural or “video games” and then add it Keyword Planner to see if it’ll reduce or increase the number of results.

Many keyword tools include singular and plural variations of keywords by default, but it’s not uncommon for them to miss significant ones so this is something that I’ll recommend checking.

Those not so pesky misspellings 

There’s no doubt that certain words are easier to spell than others. As you analyze your keyword list you should make note of the keywords that you have a hard time spelling.

If you constantly need the help of the auto correct feature then this is the type of keyword I’m talking about! The best way to derive the correct misspellings for keywords is to spell them out yourself on the qwerty keyboard, and then create a separate keyword list for the misspelling variations.

It only makes much sense to target misspellings for highly trafficked keywords that are difficult to spell. The reason for this is if you decide to target a misspelled long tail keyword then the traffic you’ll get from it will most likely be unnoticeable.

In addition, if you would like to look up the common misspellings of your keyword then check out this helpful tool here.

Prefixing 

In the context of English grammar think of prefixes as words that are placed before another. Therefore, what you should do is analyze your keyword list and think of all of the possible words that could come before it.

You’ll have to imagine your ideal searcher behind their computer typing in the keyword. Most web users will not just type in the general keyword, they’ll usually add either some prefix or suffix to it.

Let’s use the keyword “car” for example. What might be some prefixes that web users attach to this keyword? I have listed some examples in the table below:

This is an excellent example of keyword expansion as typically one idea may lead to the next and before you know it you have successfully expanded your keyword list in very short time.

If you’re having some difficulties figuring out what to use as your prefix then simply add your general keywords into Google and read the title and meta descriptions for the first page listings to get a general idea.

If this still doesn’t work then you can consider looking at the paid ads for inspiration. Even if you don’t see any specific prefixes you may have “a-ha” moments that’ll help you to think of clever prefixes to use.

Suffixing 

Suffixes are the opposite of prefixes in that they come AFTER the keyword. Below are some examples:

There are tools that can help you aid in this but remember,  computer programs can never replace the human mind.

You owe it to yourself to conduct some brainstorming and I’ll highly recommend using Google to find niche sites that can give you ideas.

Keyword Stemming 

This is a powerful technique for SEO purposes and it works by taking the root base of a word and then expanding it in either direction.

This will increase the number possible combinations of keywords you’ll have which will allow you to have better insights into your keyword lists.

Let’s use an example to help illustrate this concept. Let’s say that you have a keyword list that revolves around the keyword: “internet marketing”.

Internet is the noun in this case so let’s remove that and focus on the verb which is “marketing.” The root of marketing is market, so how can we expand this? Well, if you think about it carefully there are three ways which is indicated below:


➢ marketable
➢ marketed

➢ markets 

Don’t be overly critical of yourself during this process as the point of this is just to expand your keyword lists. If you can think of real words then you have done your job. Once you have expanded the root, combine it with other keywords to help create more specific phrases as indicated below:


➢ internet marketable
➢ internet marketed

➢ internet markets  

As you can probably see, two of these keywords don’t really make much grammatical sense so more than likely they’ll be of little use to you.

The only new keyword that we have derived from this stemming is “internet markets.” Now, let’s turn back to our noun “internet.” What is the root for this keyword?

Keyword research is the fundamental base for an array of internet marketing methods and a weak understanding of this concept is detrimental for your business.