A Dead Simple Process for Starting Keyword Research [and a Free Tool]

I’m a self-proclaimed keyword research junkie.

I spend hours every week auditing historical keyword data and running new queries to expand my targets and improve my focus on user intent.

I use a variety of tools including SerpIQ for SERP-level keyword competition, an internal tool that hits several external API’s to pull in related terms, and the good old Google keyword tool (soon to become the keyword planner).

Whether it’s for some quick and dirty research or just to get the ball rolling, I still use G’s keyword tool a lot.

A Handy Little SEO Tip

This may be the simplest SEO tip you ever get, especially from me, but I see so few people doing it and it has far reaching implications…

Input 1 (yes, only one) keyword at a time – and set to [exact] match only.

This will maximize the total output and suggested variations, which tops out at just over 800.

One More Quick Tip

After you’ve finished your first run, export to CSV, and then sort in descending order by local monthly searches. You’re specifically for the most relevant keywords with the highest volume.

Choose up to 10, and run each of the individually back through the keyword tool. Export the full results to CSV every time. Feel free not to stop at 10, if there is more keyword gold in there, for every good, relevant term – run it through the keyword tool.

Every time you are running a new keyword that is closely related to your core keyword you are expanding your list and picking up more and more related terms. There will be a lot of duplicates, but you will continue to get new keywords each time.

At this point you should have 11 files, and somewhere in the ball park of 8 to 9 thousand keywords, but that’s not convenient.

Cleaning Up Your Keywords with the Keyword Combiner

Now you’re faced with the task of either individually sorting and cleaning up all of these files or copying and pasting all of this data into one sheet, again, that’s not convenient.

So I built a small windows desktop app to do precisely this, I call it the keyword combiner, and you can download it for free by clicking the link below.

When you get there simply enter your email address, and set the price to ’0′ and voila, all yours.

Go Download Keyword Combiner

Using the Keyword Combiner

I’ve tried to make this as simple as possible. Once installed click the ‘Run’ button on the pop-up window prompt and the keyword combiner should pop up on your screen:

It is worth noting that I have been having some issue with the window re-sizing across different versions of Windows; if it renders short of full-width, just re-size it.

Now you want to make sure all of your .CSV files are in the same directory (folder), and that there is nothing else in there.

Click the top ‘Select’ button and choose your directory.

Next click the bottom ‘Select’ button and choose where you want to save the file and give it a name.

As is the case with the default exports from Google keyword tool, your first rows will all be headers, so make sure you select the checkbox for “First Lin is Header.”

Optionally: If you have data sets that are tab delineated versus CSV (which stands for comma separated values) you can also use this tool, just select the “Custom Delineator” checkbox and enter “\t” into the text field on the right.

Now you’re ready to Run. Click the button and watch the green progress bar shoot across the bottom of the window – I’ve run upwards of 100 files and it has never taken more than 5 seconds.

Output From the Keyword Combiner

Again, this is a super-simple tool – but very useful if you do a lot of keyword research with Google’s keyword tool or across multiple sheets and files, helping you quickly combine your mess of files into one clean file.

This makes it far more manageable to go through the motions of sorting, filtering, and de-duping all of your keywords so you can begin to gather the rest of your data; DA, PA, # of links, LRD’s, etc.

If you like the tool, or found any of this helpful, please consider sharing this post :)

Thanks for reading.

  This article originally appeared on SEO Nick and has been republished with permission.
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Author: Connor Brooke

Connor is a Scottish financial expert, specialising in wealth management and equity investing. Based in Glasgow, Connor writes full-time for a wide selection of financial websites, whilst also providing startup consulting to small businesses. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Finance, and a Master’s degree in Investment Fund Management, Connor has

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