It’s been almost 5 years since I started my travel blog.
Back then, I had two toddlers.
My first-ever blog post was titled something like:
“7 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Stop Travelling When You Have Kids”
I remember showing my husband.
He has an SEO background too.
He wasn’t too impressed.
He said:
“What keyword are you going after with that?”
I said:
“I’m not going after any keywords – it’s just for fun!”
And honestly, fun is all I ever thought it would be.
My day job was SEO, and had it been for 10+ years at this point.
But I didn’t care about SEO-ing my blog.
It was just an outlet for my creativity.
Somewhere to write my opinions (it wouldn’t be appropriate to do that in my day job.)
That was, until, my blog started making money…
As soon as I saw the potential to make enough money to work for myself instead of someone else, that was it.
The business brain switched on.
I became laser focussed on creating the content that would make me the most money.
It worked.
My bank balance went from -$2,500 to +$1,000,000.
Thanks to SEO.
Of course, something so good couldn’t last forever.
Google turned off the tap of free-flowing traffic to blogs like mine.
And that’s okay.
They switched off the traffic, but they can’t switch off my business brain!
The articles I started with as a hobby…
Like: “7 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Stop Travelling When You Have Kids”
I forgot this along the way,
But they have value.
They’re entertaining, inspiring, educational, relatable, and (despite what Google might say), they’re helpful.
There’s an audience that’s hungry for that.
All we have to do is connect with them,
Whether that’s via an email newsletter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Medium, LinkedIn or somewhere else.
I’ve come full circle
I’m back to creating content that people aren’t searching for.
And I love it.
It’s refreshing AF.
But, here’s the important bit…
My business brain is reminding me to emphasise this…
You can’t just write whatever you want and expect a ROI.
For example…
I would love to write an article about the best vegan-friendly restaurants in the small town that I moved to last summer.
I could do an amazing job of it.
But you know what?
I started a Facebook group for the vegans who live here,
And there’s 27 of us.
That will never make me any money.
So…
I still do keyword research.
Using a good keyword research tool is important to validate that my ideas are things that people are interested in.
Here’s how I do that…
- I use KeySearch’s new tool, Deep Dive.
- I put in my seed keyword, let’s say it’s ‘waterslides’
- I change the database to ‘Pinterest suggest’
- I tick the keywords that look interesting to save them
This gives me have…
- “most dangerous waterslides”
- “coolest waterslides”
- “rock waterslides”
- “abandoned waterslides”
My friend ChatGPT will turn those into titles like:
- The World’s Most Dangerous Waterslides (Ones To Avoid!)
- These Are The 7 Coolest Waterslides On The Planet
- Why These Natural Rock Waterslides Are SO Much Better Than Plastic
- Check Out These Horrifying Abandoned Waterslides
These articles will do well on email, Facebook, Pinterest etc.
And they’re super easy to create because I don’t need to actually visit the waterslides myself!
If your niche is home decor or something like that, you could even get AI to make the images.
If you’re writing about “7 Rainbow-Inspired Kitchen Designs”, nobody will care if the kitchens don’t exist in real life.
(They would care about fake waterslides though, so don’t do that.)
KeySearch does a LOT more than this, of course – this is just one example of what I use it for.
They keep adding new features all the time, without increasing the price.
It’s STILL only $17 per month, and you can also get 30% OFF with my code NICHESITELADY.
So, even if you’re not going after Google traffic any more.
It’s worth having.
So you can be sure that you’re writing about the things people want to read.
If ever you’ve struggled to think of topics that will drive non-Google traffic to your blog,
Give KeySearch a try.
I mean, it’s $11.90 when you enter NICHESITELADY.
Why would you not?
– NSL