Aug 25, 2011 3 min read

How to Use Google Auto-Complete for Blog Post Ideas

I am always looking for additional keyword phrases and blog post ideas. I recently discovered a neat way to use the google auto-complete feature in connection with blogging. As I am sure that you are aware Bob and I are big believers in keyword research. The average blogger doesn’t use keywords. I will agree that it does take a little extra effort, but the effort can pay off. The average blogger just talks about whatever is on their mind or how their day went. You can use that method IF you already have traffic, but it is really hard to grow a blog that way.

Do I target every single blog post to a specific keyword phrase? No, I don’t. The majority of the time I do, but sometimes it is good to write just for the sake of writing about a topic. It just shouldn’t be your only strategy.

What is Google Auto-Complete?

Maybe you have no idea what I am talking about. Then let me take a moment and explain it to you. When you are searching for something in Google, a list of suggestions pop up even before you finish typing. Many of you may not even pay attention to this occurrence. If you use this to your advantage you can find keyword phrases that other are typing in.

Asking Questions – The Powerful Combination

Let’s take this a step further. We think that one of the best ways to grow a blog about a certain topic is to answer questions that people are asking. Most people go to google because they want either more information or an answer to a question they have. If your blog can show up in the search engines and answer these questions, then you just gained a follower. I also like to look for keyword phrases that are questions because they often great long tail keywords. A long tail keyword is just a keyword phrase that has several words in it. Long tail keywords have less competition than the short phrases do.

Here are the questions that I like to ask: why, how, what, when, and when.

Next, you want to use your main topic idea to explore keyword phrases. I like to type in my topic first and then add a word that begins a question. Here are some examples and then see the images underneath to see how it supplies ideas for me.

camping how
camping what
camping when
camping why
camping who

Example #1:

Example #2:

If you want to take it even further you can begin to add additional words for even more ideas:

camping how many
camping how much
camping when should you
camping why should

Here is a good example of how this supplies blog posts ideas:

I hope you are beginning to see the power in using the Google Auto-Complete to discover blog posts ideas. This just goes to prove that there are many content ideas out there that you can write about no matter your niche. You might think your niche is to narrow, when reality is you just need to spend some time gathering blog post ideas.