We’ve done a fair bit of writing on how to go about your keyword research. There is a pretty well established set of best practices for determining your keywords in a way that will benefit (not sabotage) your web marketing campaigns. Today we check out a little used tool for keyword research. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s got the technical chops … it’s Google Suggest!
What’s Google Suggest?
Unless you have managed to switch the feature off without even knowing what it is, you’ll see Google suggest almost any time you type in a search term in the Google box. For example, when you type in ‘Am I on…’ to Google, a drop down list comes up showing you options like ‘Am I on the no fly list’, ‘Am I on the terrorist watchlist’, Ám I on Santa’s good list’, etc. These are high volume search terms.
How to use Google Suggest for keyword research
There are three main ways:
- Use the terms there as inspiration when you are creating more targeted content pages or thinking of blogging topics
- Include the terms in your heading tags and page titles
- Include the terms in your page copy
Choose results from near the top of the list – these have a higher search volume. Of course, you will be kicking your own web marketing in the shins if you choose terms that aren’t relevant to your business … remember your golden rules!
There are other tools (and indeed, other Google tools) that do exactly the same thing. However, Google Suggest is quick, easy, and simple. A great starting point – but not necessarily the web marketing guru’s top tool 
.