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Get The Most Out Of Keywords And Write Faster

Yesterday, a new writer contacted me and asked about keywords and SEO. The problem was that she was spending more time playing with the keywords and keyword density than she was actually writing the piece. My suggestion is to use Google and Live Keyword Analysis to cut that time in half. Let’s use ‘writing coach’ and ‘online writing coach’ as the example.

Before I ever start writing, I gather my keywords and head to the Google search bar. Once there, I use the ‘~’ key (mine is above the tab key) and type in a keyword after it. When you press the search button, write down the synonyms it gives for the given keyword. For my keywords, this would be things such as writing consultant (which is a little different, but often done by the same person), writing adviser, online writing help, and writing advice just to name a few.

These alternatives benefit your customer and boost the Google power of the article as well. How? It will help bring up your article when someone searches for any of those alternatives. In fact, I will often run a list of alternatives through Google’s Adwords tool to find the best alternatives to use.

The number of alternatives you need depends on how many words you have to work with. Since I often write 500 word pieces, I keep three alternatives and two extras for tough sentences. Then, I set up the article on the page.

Write the title and any other additional items at the top of the page and make my sub-headings. In a 500 word piece, I design the page to have five paragraphs. This gives me an intro and a conclusion paragraph as well as three paragraphs to back them up. Next, I plug my given keyword (the one originally requested) in the start of the introductory paragraph and once into each paragraph after. The only thing left after that is to write out the piece using the alternative keywords elsewhere in the piece when needed.

I found this not only eliminates a large amount of time playing with keywords, but it also makes the writing faster. When I’m finished, I run the piece through Live Keyword Analysis and do any fine tuning before I press the save button.

Just a few quick tips for working with Live Keyword Analysis:

• This tool doesn’t recognize two letter words. To solve this, I use the ‘find and replace’ option to add an X onto the two letter words used in the keyword phrase. Once I copy it in the tool, I use the undo button to take them out of the word document instantly.
• It doesn’t like punctuation. I use the find and replace function to remove the apostrophes and the undo button to replace them after it has been copied into the tool.
• If you have singular and plural keywords such as writing coach and writing coaches, I still enter both into the tool. Then, I subtract the density of the plural from the singular word’s density to get the real density.

I hope this helps! What kind of tricks do you use? How do you make your work faster and easier?

(Image byDoBeRaGi)

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