Brainstorming and Selecting Seed Keywords

ByAmrith Sudhakaran

Welcome to the tutorial on brainstorming and selecting seed keywords. In the following video tutorial, you will learn:

  • What Seed Keywords Are
  • Why They Are Important
  • How to Select High-Quality Seed Keywords

Here’s the tutorial:

Brainstorming and selecting seed keywords is the first step in the 3-step process we use to build and analyze query clusters.

If you want an overviews of the 3 steps and the query clustering service, check the services section of the home page.

The video references a few resources. You’ll find them in this article. You’ll also find extra information that I didn’t cover in the video.

Getting Started with Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a part of the Google Ads platform. Most of the tutorials I’ve seen on YouTube focusses on setting up ads.

We’re not interested in setting up ads. All we want is access to the Keyword Planner.

Keeping this requirement in mind, I found this tutorial from ZoCo Marketing.

The video covers all the information you need to access Google Keyword Planner in the first two minutes.

But you can watch the rest of the video for an overviews of Google Keyword Planner tool.

Here’s the video:

Splitting Screen Across Windows on Mac & PC

Splitting the screen across the Keyword Planner tool and the text editor makes it easy to copy-paste keywords.

If you use Windows 10, check this tutorial to learn how to split the screen.

If you’re on a Mac, check this tutorial.

Indicators of Low-Quality Seed Keywords

Google Keyword Planner provides many keywords associated with a topic. But not all of them make good seed keywords.

Here are a few tips on identifying poor seed keywords.

  • Lengthy: Avoid seed keywords that are more than 3 words long.
  • Redundant: If a keyword is a long-tail variant of a seed keyword you’ve already selected, don’t add the keyword to your list.
  • Ambiguous: Sometimes, a keyword may have multiple meanings. For example, the keyword british bulldog could refer to the dog breed or the wrestler. So, check the SERP for ambiguous queries to make sure that the dominant meaning is what you intend.
  • Commercial Intent: If the keyword signals am desire to buy something, avoid that keyword. Keywords with commercial search intent don’t lead to many informational queries.
  • Local Intent: If the keyword has some form of geographical reference, such as the name of a city, state, or country, that keyword won’t make a good seed keyword. You should also avoid keywords with the suffix ‘near me’.
  • Partial Query: Sometimes, you may find a partial query in the list of keywords. Since we’re looking for only fully formed queries, you can ignore the partial queries.
  • Typos: Ignore keywords with spelling mistakes.
  • Off-Topic: Rarely, you may find keywords that have nothing to do with the topic. In such cases, ignore the keyword.
  • Branded: Don’t select a keyword that has a brand name in it. They make poor seed keywords.
  • Navigational: A keyword that is a name of a popular site in your domain may be a navigational keyword. People are typing the name of the website on Google so that they can go to that website. This saves them the trouble of typing the entire URL on the address bar.
  • Low-Volume: Leave out all keywords that have a search volume below 100-1k.

Indicators of High-Quality Seed Keywords

We’ve seen a few signs of bad seed keywords. Now, let’s look at signs of a good seed keyword.

  • High Search Volume: Keywords with average monthly searches more than 100k make good seed keywords provided they don’t violate any criteria for rejection.
  • Many Long-Tail Variations: If a keyword appears as a part of many other keywords, the keyword is potentially a great seed keyword.

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