Look behind the curtains and see how I do my keyword research.
If I were going to start a website about “lawn mowers”, the very first thing I would do is to take a look at what kind of lawn-mower-related keywords people are searching for using the Google Adwords External Keyword Tool.
I usually start with a search like the one below:
Search for “lawn mower” in Google Adwords Keyword Tool.
When I have a rough idea of what people are searching for, I create a mind map with the keywords and concepts I want to look closer at. At the moment I’m using the free mind map tool on www.bubbl.us.
Mind map created in 5 minutes using Bubbl.us – You may want to include the number of exact searches on the mind map.
At this point, I would usually search for every single keyword individually and start adding the new keywords I find.
After having created a mind map like that, it becomes much easier to come up with a good structure for the site navigation, and you have a very solid resource to refer back to whenever you are having troubles coming up with ideas for new content.