One of the biggest mistakes most bloggers make is NOT focusing on the right keywords for their blogs. Today, I am going to be walking you through on how to use KWFinder tool to help you uncover low competition keywords and why it’s so important for your blog.
But First Quick Story
I started my blog in October of 2016 with the intention of walking away from my WordPress freelancing business. (I no longer freelance)
When I started this blog, I focused on writing over 60 blog posts on WordPress because that’s what I knew and loved. Well, fast forward to today, all those blog posts don’t rank on Google or Bing.
I’m sure that I have other articles on this post that were written with good intentions, but are just too competitive and will never rank high enough to drive traffic.
In fact, the only way they drive traffic to this site is through Pinterest or other social media platforms.
Why Am I Telling You This?
Because I don’t want you to make the same mistake I made. You need to invest time into doing proper keyword research, otherwise, you’ll spend months or years wasting your time.
Things only started changing for me when I first invested in SEMRush maybe 6 months ago. That’s when I realized that I had been doing it wrong.
Yes, I had been using some free keyword tools and Long Tail Pro to help me brainstorm keywords for my blog posts. But I was NEVER really doing proper research and analysis to see if little “ole” me could actually rank on Google.
See, most bloggers can’t rank on Google for a lot of competitive terms. We need to use a keyword tool like:
- SEMRush
- Ubbersuggest
- Jaaxy
- KWfinder
- Ahrefs
- SEOCockpit
- SpyFu
- LongTailPro
- Moz KW Difficulty Tool
- Keyword Tool.io
These tools can help save us months or years of frustration. I know what you’re thinking, I’m NOT ready to invest in a paid tool.
Well, that’s what I thought as well and look what happened. The cool thing is that you can sign up with KWFinder for Free and get 5 free searches per month.
Once you see how powerful it is, I have no doubt you’ll find it worth the money.
Now let me show you why I love it so much and why I use it every day. If you’re ready to increase your SEO rankings, then get started today.
How to Use KWFinder Tool to Help You Get Results
Keyword Finder has tons of features and you can see them all in this review I wrote. Today, I am just going to be talking about the UI of KWFinder Tool.
This is where it all starts. If you understand how to do proper searches and what to look for, you’ll start to see results in a few months.
My Traffic Changes Since Using KWFinder
I started using the Mangools Premium account on August 24, 2018. Let’s take a look at what has happened to my organic traffic compared to last year at the same time frame.
Here’s a snapshot of my traffic from August 1, 2017 – October 30, 2017 compared to the same time frame in 2018.
As you can see, my traffic is finally starting to grow. You can’t expect overnight results, it takes time for Google to find your content and rank it.
If you do it right from the get to, you should be able to have faster results than I’ve had.
Yes, you can build backlinks and make things happen a little faster. I personally hate building backlinks, so that’s NOT where I spend a lot of my time.
I let things happen naturally and with time. Yes, I write a few guest posts every now and then, but I’d rather work on growing my own digital asset than giving away my content to someone else.
If you do use any keyword research tool, just remember, you won’t get results overnight.
So let’s get started so you can see how easy it can be to help you uncover keywords you can actually start ranking for.
How To Find Long Tail Keywords Using KWFinder
I’m going to walk you through and explain how to find low competition keywords you can actually rank for on Google.
You’ll see exactly what I do with screenshots to help you understand the process.
But don’t worry, it’s not a hard tool to learn and you’ll see just how easy it is to find profitable keywords with low competition.
Let’s get started:
KWFinder consists of 4 components:
- KW Finder
- SerpChecker
- SerpWatcher
- LinkMiner
- SiteProfiler (Not as robust as SEMRush)
Today, we are going to be talking about KWFinder because this is where it all starts. Plus, this is where you’ll be spending most of your time brainstorming and coming up with new blog post ideas.
When you open up KW Finder you’ll see a window with two-panel side by side:
The information on the left is the Keyword Finder itself.
This is where you enter your seed keyword term and you can see all the related terms from your search. Based on this search, I got over 580 results from this search.
The information on the right shows the SERP results.
You can quickly see the top 10 websites that are ranking for your seed keyword. (we’ll cover the SERP results panel later)
Let’s sift through those results so you understand what you’re looking for.
For this example, let’s say that I run a Lifestyle Blog. I am thinking about writing a blog post on Full Zip Hoodies for the Fall weather.
Your First Search
I entered “full zip hoodies” into the KWFinder search box and hit the search bar. Once the search is complete, I am left with over 500 related search terms.
Now I need to filter through those results and find the ones that are actually possible for me to rank for.
In the left panel, there are 5 columns that you show you the information you need to know about:
- Keywords: Terms from your seed word.
- Search: Average monthly search volume
- CPC: Average cost per click (CPC for paid advertising)
- PPC: Average competition in Pay Per Click
- KD: Keyword Difficulty (based on a color score according to difficulty)
The only ones that I am concerned with are (2) and (5).
As long as the term that I am writing for gets 50 searches per month and has a Keyword SEO Difficulty score of 30 or lower, I am happy.
Keyword SEO Difficulty is ranked on a scale of 0 – 100. The cool thing is that it’s broken down into a color-coded scheme to help you make your decision to go for it or NOT.
I never write any content for anything with a score over 30.
At the time of this writing, I have a DA score of 31 and it’s going to be impossible for me to rank for keywords with an extremely high score.
I probably could rank for terms that have a score of 40, but since I don’t focus on backlinks, I’d rather target terms with lower competition.
As you can see, the phrase “full zip hoodies” has a KD score of 27 /100. If I didn’t get a green score, I’d have to sift through to find a different phrase.
Mining For Gold
I personally don’t use the filter feature, I just filter using the KD tab on the columns.
The thing that I have noticed lately is that when you click on the KD column, you don’t always see the color ranking score of the search term. Depending on which plan you use, you may want to consider using the filter feature.
This should sort the results from lowest to highest KD scores.
I think that every term you click on counts as a search. If you’re on the free plan, you could easily use up your 5 searches quickly. (just a heads up before you quickly waste your searches)
If you can’t see the color score, you’ll have to click on the actual keyword you want to analyze.
After sifting through the phrases, I uncovered a term that gets over 14,000 searches a month and has an SEO Difficulty 28/100 score. (which is within my range)
SerpChecker
Now it’s time to check the top 10 websites that are ranking for that search phrase. The first thing I notice is that all the sites on the first page of Google have extremely high DA scores.
In fact, all of them are sites of well-known online retail sites. This is a huge red flag for me, there’s no way that a blogger would be able to beat out those sites.
Yes, you could check to see if those sites are using the search phrase in their title tag. But the good rule of thumb for me is I don’t compete against these types of big sites.
It’s just a game that I can’t win.
Back to the Drawing Board
After doing some quick research, I found a new term that I would pursue if I was in the fashion or lifestyle niche.
“Autumn color palette” gets over 3000 (searches) with a 26/100 (KD Score). I’ve also checked the SERP results and right away I see two sites with a DA score of 18 and 28 ranking in the top 10 positions.
This is good news for me because it means that I have the potential to rank my post on the first page. Of course, it depends if I optimize my blog post properly.
Related: How to Use Yoast SEO Plugin Everything You Need to Know
Since it’s a phrase that would fit good with my fake lifestyle blog, I’d add it to my list. Just click on the little star on the left of the term.
Or you can check the box and scroll to the bottom where you see a blue “add to list” button.
If you don’t already have a list, KWFinder will ask you to create a list.
Otherwise, you just add that term to an existing list. Your compiled lists contain all the metrics for that term.
When you’re ready to sit down and write the article, you can quickly check that term to make sure that the metrics haven’t changed too much.
If you’re ready to write your blog post, then you can sit down and target the term “autumn color pallette.”
SERPWatcher
Once you write your blog post, it’s time to add it to the SERPWatcher so you can see your rankings climb.
First, you’ll need to set up SERP Tracking for your blog. So let’s get it set up.
If you’re using SEO for your content marketing, you need to know what’s working and what isn’t. The only way to do this is to a tracker that monitors your rankings.
Go to SERPWatcher and click on “Add New Tracking.”
Add Your URL
- Fill out all the information to start tracking your blog.
- Tracked Domain: Your website URL you want to track in the SERP’s
- Location: I leave it as default
- Search Platform: Desktop (You’ll have the option to clone keywords to mobile devices)
- Keywords to track: You can upload a file with keywords you want to track
Click start tracking and that’s it. Now, whenever you write a new blog post you’re trying to rank on the first page of Google, you want to add it to the SERPWatcher.
You can do that by just going to SERPWatcher and then scrolling down till you see the green button.
Keep writing content focusing on low competition with decent searches. Remember, you’re NOT going after keywords with thousands of searches per month.
You might get lucky and find some, but most of the keywords we can rank that get around 50 – 200 searches month.
We’re targeting these keywords because the bigger bloggers don’t waste their time on them. This means that you have a better chance to rank easier and quicker.
These are the keywords that we can rank for quickly without having to worry about building backlinks.
How KWFinder Helped Me Improve My Traffic
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been using this research tool for 2 months now. Take a look at how my organic traffic has been slowly climbing over the months.
You can see that my traffic has increased dramatically over the year. Of course, it helps that I am actually focusing on writing for the search terms that I can rank for.
But most of all, I am so happy to see my organic traffic starting to really grow. It hasn’t been easy and I’ve been spending a lot of time writing content.
If you’re a blogger, you’re going to need to love writing content, otherwise, you’re in the wrong business.
Here’s a snapshot of how much my organic traffic has increased in the last two months compared to the same time frame last year. My organic traffic has increased over 700% in the last two months compared to last year!
The cool thing is that number is only going to keep going up as I keep publishing new content.
Start doing your research and analysis correctly so you can be in a different place a year from now. I’m so excited to see where I’ll be a year from today.
Is KWFinder Right For You?
I know there are tons of tools out there, so let’s take a look at some alternatives you can use to help you grow your blog.
I’ve personally used SEMRush, LongTailPro, Jaaxy, and UbberSuggest. They all work and can get you great results, but I personally love the user-friendly UI of KWFinder.
It doesn’t take me long to find phrases with low competition. The two panels and the color-coded KD score make it easy to make a quick decision.
This means that I spend more time writing content and less time trying to find blog post ideas. I’m not saying that I don’t make any more mistakes on the words I choose.
I’m only human and I do still make mistakes. But the cool thing is that I make less of them and am actually starting to see my rankings go up.
How Does KW Finder Compare?
I’ll be honest and tell you that you won’t find all the bells and whistles you would find with SEMRush. Yes, they have the SiteProfiler, which is supposed to help you analyze your competition.
It’s nowhere near as good as SEMRush. But that’s okay, you can still sign up with SEMRush every 6 months like I do to do an SEO audit and run a more advanced analysis for your blog.
But if you’re a brand new blogger, there’s no reason to pay an extremely high price tag for a tool that you won’t understand.
You’ll just end up wasting your money on a tool you don’t understand.
If you’re just starting out KWFinder is the perfect tool to help you understand SEO. It won’t overwhelm you with data and it’s color-coded to help make decisions quickly.
Plus they offer tons of videos and articles that will help you make the most of the tool. If I can increase my rankings using this tool, so can you.
As a blogger, you need to focus on writing content if you want to have success. You don’t need to be spending hours and hours digging and brainstorming for topics to write about.
Plus the price is affordable for everything you get.
These are the current plans for other alternatives you can choose from:
- SEMrush – $99.95 per month
- Ahrefs – $99 per month
- Keyword Tool.io – $88 per month
- SpyFU – $39 per month
- LongTailPro – $37 per month
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Now let’s take a look at what what you can expect to pay for this tool.
- Mangools Basic: $49.00 per month
- Mangools Premium: $69.00 per month
- Mangools Agency: $129.00 per month
If it’s possible, I’d pay for a yearly subscription because you’ll save money on the front end. I personally paid for the Premium annual subscription.
I first started out with the 5 free searches every day. Once I realized that it was worth the money, I went ahead and signed up for the paid version.
The basic plan will be find for beginners. I signed up for the Premium because I am running two blogs.
In a year, I have no doubt that this tool will pay for itself. I mean, look what I have been able to accomplish in 2 months.
Final Take Away
Growing a blog is NOT as easy as everyone says it is. If you’re not doing your research and competitive analysis, chances are you are wasting a bunch of time as I did.
If you’ve been blogging for a while and are still not getting traffic from Google. There’s a good possibility that the keywords you’re targeting are too competitive.
Nothing is ever going to change if you don’t start doing it correctly. This is just a tool and you don’t necessarily need it to have success online.
But I can tell you from my personal experience, it’s so worth it to know that I am NO longer wasting my time on the wrong search phrases.
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