How to Find Related Keywords to Improve Your Content’s Reach

Related keywords are integral to an effective SEO strategy, but many website owners get tunnel vision on primary keywords.

The good news is a broader keyword approach can easily rectify this common SEO mistake.

In this article, you’ll learn how to find related keywords to diversify your optimizations and improve your content’s reach.

What Are Related Keywords?

Related keywords are terms and phrases associated with your web page’s main topic. They align with your focus keyword and fall into the following two categories:

• Secondary keywords: These keywords are closely related to your primary keyword. They can be variations of a term or different ways of expressing a similar idea. For example, if your primary keyword is “url structure for seo” secondary keywords might include “search-friendly url,” “urls for seo,” or “seo url structure.”
• Semantic keywords: These keywords are related to your main topic but aren’t necessarily the focus of your page. You may not be targeting them directly or want to rank for them. Semantic keywords provide additional context and can help you create a more comprehensive web page. Some semantic keywords for our earlier example of “url structure for seo” would be “on page seo,” “url slugs,” and “website optimization.”

A crucial distinction between secondary and semantic keywords lies in search intent.

Secondary keywords share the same search intent as the primary keyword.

In contrast, while related to the main topic, semantic keywords often represent a different user intent.

Why Are Related Keywords Important for SEO?

Related keywords are essential for SEO because they help you maximize a web page’s visibility in search results.

Instead of focusing on only one keyword (primary), optimizing for related keywords allows you to rank for multiple queries with a single piece of content.

Here are some additional benefits of SEO related keywords:

• Increased Organic Traffic: More visibility in search results means more visitors to your website.
• Enhanced User Experience: By addressing a broader range of related topics, you create a more satisfying user experience.
• Improved Keyword Rankings: When you make strategic yet varied keyword optimizations on a web page, you can rank for more keywords.

How to Find Related Keywords on Google

You can find related keywords on Google for free.

Here are three easy methods for finding them:

1. Use the Google Autocomplete Feature

Google has an autocomplete feature on its search.

To use it, start typing a seed keyword, but don’t hit enter.

Google will give you a list of related keywords to your seed keyword.

Many results will be semantic keywords, meaning they have different search intents.

Keep this in mind when creating your keyword lists, and try to group secondary keywords with the same intent together.

2. Check Out People Also Search for

Another free way to find related keywords is to browse Google’s suggestions under People also search for.

This area of the SERP provides users with related queries to their search.

In the above example, I looked for “diy gardening ideas.”

We see that Google found several related searches for this particular query, like “easy diy gardening ideas” and “diy gardening ideas on a budget.”

This method is a quick and easy way to come up with content ideas and find new keyword opportunities.

3. Analyze Competitors Ranking on Google

You can also check out competitors ranking in Google for your most important keywords.

Let’s continue using our keyword “diy gardening ideas” as an example.

After entering your keyword in Google, look at the top-ranking pages in search results.

Just from glancing at the SERP alone, we can already spot new, related keywords:

• diy garden projects
• diy garden ideas

We can get even more keyword ideas by visiting these web pages and investigating their keyword optimizations.

This process shouldn’t take long; just read through the article and see if you notice any words or phrases appearing multiple times.

You can jot these down to keep for your future content optimizations.

Finally, if you want to see the keywords the page is ranking for, you’ll need to use a keyword research tool.

We’ll discuss how you can find competitors’ keywords in our next section.

How to Find Related Keywords Using SEO Tools

Now that you know how to find related keywords for free, let’s see how you can improve the discovery process with SEO tools.

For our tutorial, I’ll be using LowFruits, the best keyword research tool for small business owners.

1. Perform a Search in a Keyword Research Tool

Start by entering your seed keyword into the KWFinder.

You can adjust the geographical and language settings if needed.

Once you’ve made your selections, click Search.

LowFruits will ask you how you want to access your keyword report.

You can either:

1. Access all keywords ideas
2. Access all keyword ideas + analyze all high-intent keywords

For our tutorial, I’ll select the second option. This selection tells LowFruits to extract SERP data for all the buyer-intent keywords in our report. (These are keywords that have high conversion rates.)

From here, you’ll get a keyword report that looks like this:

2. Refine Results by Keyword Difficulty

Now, we’re going to refine our list to only show keywords we can rank for.

Oftentimes, small business owners waste their time and efforts on keywords that are way too competitive. (We get it; high search volumes can be very tempting.)

Unfortunately, this isn’t the best approach for finding related keywords you can actually for.

Instead, we want to focus our optimization efforts on keywords with high ranking potential.

To do this, we’re going to use the following LowFruits metrics:

• SERP Difficulty Score (SD) represents the keyword difficulty. It’s on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being the easiest.
• Weak Spots represent low-authority domains ranking in the top 10 search results for a keyword. The more Weak Spots there are, the easier and higher you can rank for that term.

So, first off, we’re going to filter our report by SD.

Select the SD filter and set the maximum to 1.

Click Apply.

From here, select the #Weak filter and set the minimum to 2. (You can adjust this number to your preferences, but keep in mind that the higher the number, the fewer results you’ll get.)

Our report now shows keywords with an SD of 1 and more than 2 Weak Spots.

These are all easy ranking opportunities for a small or newer website.

To help us prioritize which keywords to target first, we can sort by search volume.

To do this, just click the Vol. column header.

LowFruits will sort your report in descending order of monthly search volumes for your selected country.

You now have a list of related keywords that are easy to rank for and have high search volumes.

3. Leverage Keyword Clusters

Keyword clusters are the secret weapon of SEO pros.

And they’re not hard to do.

Keyword clusters group related keywords together so you can create a content optimization strategy that gets results.

The best part?

LowFruits clusters keywords automatically for you.

To use this feature, simply navigate to the Clusters tab of your keyword report.

You’ll see an overview of clusters and how many keywords are in each one.

You can also open any of these clusters to see their keywords, as shown below.

You can use the earlier filters to refine these lists and come up with a cluster that’s perfect for ranking high in search engines.

4. Extract Competitor Keywords

Finally, you can also extract your competitors’ top-ranking keywords using the Extract tool.

To get started, select Extract from the left menu.

Then, click the Ranking tab and enter the URLs of your competitors’ domains. (You can include one or multiple.)

Click Extract.

LowFruits will generate a report that appears when you scroll down the page.

You can download the full report to your computer by clicking the blue download button.

This action will generate a spreadsheet full of your competitors’ ranking keywords, which you can use as inspiration for your related keywords.

How to Use Related Keywords in Your Content

Now that you have your related keywords, it’s time to put them to work.

Content optimizations are the backbone of SEO, and this is where you’ll find the greatest use of your related keywords.

You can place them in the following areas:

• Subheadings
• Table of contents
• Body copy
• FAQs
• Image alt text

If you’re a WordPress user, you can use plugins like All in One SEO (AIOSEO) to streamline your content optimizations.

Its latest tool, Writing Assistant, connects with your SEOBoost account to generate keyword ideas directly in WordPress and grade your on-page SEO.

The Optimization Wizard provides related keyword suggestions:

And the Overview rates your content against the top-ranking pages for your primary keyword:

It’s extremely user-friendly and makes keyword research and content optimizations much faster in WordPress.

Final Thoughts

By understanding the nuances of primary, secondary, and semantic keywords, you can enhance your content’s visibility in search engine results.

Then, when you incorporate these related keywords into your content, you can:

• Improve your search engine rankings
• Increase visibility in organic search
• Boost brand awareness
• Enhance the user experience

What do you have to lose?

Try incorporating related keywords into your web pages and watch your rankings soar.