The art of keyword research is something that just about anyone who is involved with content marketing knows all too well. Those who have to market their products and services also know how frustrating this part of the e-commerce model can truly be; you may ultimately spend more time researching keywords than you will producing the actual content to be showcased. Whatever the predicament, keyword research is something we all want to simplify a bit more, and thankfully there are a number of ways you can do this. Below, we will discuss three keyword research tactics you should be using to take care of this dilemma while enjoying even more success in the long-run.

Grab Your Competitors’ Keywords

There’s a good chance that you are not number one in your industry or niche, so there are likely several other brands and entities out there doing better than you. Why not put their efforts to work for you? You can quickly determine what competitive keywords are working for them and use them to your advantage, thanks to tools such as Keyword Planner. By simply entering the URLs of the sites you wish to target, these tools will spit out which sets of keywords are sending these sites traffic. How much easier can it get? You can also use this tool and many others to filter by ad groups or broader keyword categories, in case you don’t want every single result being displayed in one list.

Google Suggest Wildcards

We are all familiar with the concept of AutoComplete, and many of us have used Google Suggest as a great way to come up with new and exciting keyword matches and phrases that relate to our existing targeted markets. Pinging for SEO can be more difficult, however, when we can only start at the beginning of a keyword phrase and find suggestions for the middle and ending. Google Suggest Wildcards allows us to break that trend and find suggested words all through a potential keyword phrase. If you want to branch off from a keyword phrase such as “buy new shoes for Christmas”, Wildcards can help you build new phrases around Christmas, shows or new (rather than just buy). You will now be able to exponentially expand your keyword targets without copious amounts of work.

Hire a Freelancer

As crazy as it may seem, you may find it more beneficial to employ the services of a freelancer for the sole purpose of uncovering new keyword phrases than doing it yourself. In many cases, blogs and businesses don’t have the time to waste on keyword phrasing and discovery; instead of getting bogged down in the technicalities, many hire others to do this while they themselves continue to work on content. This productivity – especially when considering the low rates most keyword mining freelancers will accept – makes it a lucrative industry for both sides of the agreement. While not all keywords mined by freelancers will turn out to be valuable for pinging for SEO, you will no doubt get many great results and will have saved your time (and possibly, your sanity) in the process.