4:30 p.m. The dreaded time that I realize – once again – I didn’t plan supper. No meat thawed. No ingredients prepped. No plan. And a hungry fam. Another hour and we’ll all be hangry.

A friend helped me escape this vicious cycle with a simple suggestion. Hang a blank piece of paper on the fridge. For one month (maybe two), write down any meals you make. As simple as boxed macaroni and cheese. As elaborate as MeatEater’s Venison Scotch Eggs. 

By the end of the month (ahem…two if you survive on leftovers and frozen pizza a little too much…), you’ll have a list to pull from for meal planning. Your brain won’t have to work, just let your stomach be your guide.

So simple. So obvious. So helpful.

SEO keyword research

Blog writing can start to feel as monotonous and repetitive as meal planning. And one of my biggest pet peeves when I was starting to incorporate keyword research in my writing was how complicated and elaborate every tutorial seemed to make it. 

I knew keyword optimization mattered, but I didn’t have time to sift through eight different variations of how it could be done. Plus, I’m a learn-on-the-job kinda girl anyway.

I wanted one quick and dirty direction to get me started so I could fumble my way through and refine my own process. 

So that’s exactly what I’m going to do for you. 

Tools to get started

There are tons of tools out there. You already know that. C’mon. It’s the internet.

I’m going to give you two:

1. www.thehoth.com – This is an opt-in site, but it’s proven to be so worth that. 
2. Google spreadsheets 

Eventually, you’ll become a pro, spread your wings, and possibly find tools that work even better for you. But remember, keeping things simple in the beginning helps you start.

Word smorgasbord 

Using the tools above, you are going to create a word smorgasbord. A buffet. A list that will be just a bit of work upfront, but will take some of the thinking and research out of your work down the road.

1. On The Hoth’s toolbar at the top, choose that tab called “Tools.” Drop down to the item “Keyword Research.” Beginners live here. 
2. Type in one or two words in the search box that are related to your business or industry. 
3. This will pull up a long list with numbers, acronyms, etc. For simplicity’s sake (and to make this task not intimidating to start), we’re focusing on two columns:
   1. Keyword
   2. Volume
4. Look through the list to familiarize yourself with all the related keywords. These can prompt you to try other keywords in your search as well…but one thing at a time! Focus.
5. Next to each keyword is its “Volume.” Essentially, this tells you how much people are searching for that word/phrase. The bigger the number the more searches that word is getting. That means, yes, it’s a highly popular word…buuuuuut that also means it’s highly competitive, and therefore much harder to rank. 
6. When starting out (assuming you don’t have a huge following yet – all in good time), you’ll want to choose a range appropriate for you. Volume high enough that it’s worth your time to write for, but low enough that your content won’t be completely drowned out by the big dogs. That number is completely up to you, but a volume between a couple hundred and under a couple thousand is likely where you’d want to land starting out.
7. Once you hone in on your range, choose keywords with a volume that fits that. Take those keywords and their volume and plug them into your Google spreadsheet. These are the only two data points your going to document to start out.
8. Do this for as many keyword searches as you want, but make sure to not grow your list so long that it becomes useless to you. 

Basic organization

Now you have your word smorgasbord. If we’re going with the meal-planning analogy, you might simply stop here. All of these keywords and phrases should be relevant to your business and helpful to incorporate into your website and content (more on that later). 

Buuuuuut, if you’re like me, you might want a little more organization upfront. 

So I’ll leave you with one more little tip. Color coding. (Oh just the thought of color-coding makes my nerd heart flutter!)

I like to do a very basic, broad sort of my words and color code them. (Truthfully, this is better done back in step 8 with each new word or phrase you search for.) If I’m searching for “content writing,” then any related keywords or phrases that come up under that search are going to be color-coded yellow. If my search was based on “freelance writing,” all related words that search produces will be color-coded green.

You get the picture. 

Write on!

I’m a firm believer in systems. I love them. They’re predictable, they take the work out of work. They help you get on with your life. Shoot! Systems are the reason I was able to be a contract-hours-only teacher, and that’s a super rarity these days. 

But I also know that the same exact system rarely works from one person to the next. 

So my hope is that you take this bare-bones “system” and make it your own. Go collect your word buffet. 

Wondering what to do with this buffet? Stay tuned…