Many of us have known for a while that Google Autocomplete can be a useful tool for identifying keyword opportunities. But did you know it is also an extremely powerful tool for content ideation?
And by pushing the envelope a little further, you can turn an Autocomplete topic from a good content idea into a link-building, traffic-generating powerhouse for your website.
Here's how I did it for one of my clients. They are in the diesel power generator industry in the Australian market, but you can use this same process for businesses in literally any industry and market you can think of.
If you'd prefer flipping through slides to reading the post, take a peek at the deck I created here.
Step 1: Find the spark of an idea using Google Autocomplete
I start by seeking out long-tail keyword ideas from Autocomplete. By typing in some of my client's core keywords, I come across one that sparked my interest in particular—diesel generator fuel consumption.
What's more, the Google AdWords Keyword Planner says it is a high competition term. So advertisers are prepared to spend good money on this phrase—all the better to try to rank well organically for the term. We want to get the traffic without incurring the click costs.
Step 2: Check the competition and find an edge
Next, we find out what pages rank well for the phrase, and then identify how we can do better, with user experience top of mind.
In the case of "diesel generator fuel consumption" in Google.com.au, the top-ranking page is this one: a US-focused piece of content using gallons instead of litres.
This observation, paired with the fact that the #2 Autocomplete suggestion was "diesel generator fuel consumption in litres" gives me the right slant for the content that will give us the edge over the top competing page: Why not create a table using metric measurements instead of imperial measurements for our Australian audience?
So that's what I do.
I work with the client to gather the information and create the post on the their website. Also, I insert the target phrase in the page title, meta description, URL, and once in the body content. We also create a PDF downloadable with similar content.
Note: While figuring out how to make product/service pages better than those of competitors is the age-old struggle when it comes to working on core SEO keywords, with longer-tail keywords like the ones you work with using this tactic, users generally want detailed information, answers to questions, or implementable tips. So it makes it a little easier to figure out how you can do it better by putting yourself in the user's shoes.
Step 3: Find the right way to market the content
If people are searching for the term in Google, then there must also be people on forums asking about it.
A quick search through Quora, Reddit and an other forums brings up some relevant threads. I engage with the users in these forums and add non-spammy, helpful no-followed links to our new content in answering their questions.
Caveat: Forum marketing has had a bad reputation for some time, and rightly so, as SEOs have abused the tactic. Before you go linking to your content in forums, I strongly recommend you check out this resource on the right way to engage in forum marketing.
Okay, what about the results?
Since I posted the page in December 2014, referral traffic from the forums has been picking up speed; organic traffic to the page keeps building, too.
Yeah, yeah, but what about keyword rankings?
While we're yet to hit the top-ranking post off its perch (give us time!), we are sitting at #2 and #3 in the search results as I write this. So it looks like creating that downloadable PDF paid off.
All in all, this tactic took minimal time to plan and execute—content ideation, research and creation (including the PDF version) took three hours, while link building research and implementation took an additional two hours. That's only five hours, yet the payoff for the client is already evident, and will continue to grow in the coming months.
Why not take a crack at using this technique yourself? I would love to hear how your ideas about how you could use it to benefit your business or clients.
Judging by the numbers you are showing, you obviously have Satan himself working for you. Is this what SEO has come to? ;P
Haha, Nice one, Craig! Yes the 666 is about as blackhat as I get!
I noticed this as well and had a hearty chuckle.
This is a great post Jamie. It almost requires too much common sense for a marketer to employ correctly. Engaging in forums can have high payoff though. I've found that forum marketing can be especially fruitful and more worthwhile if you find a forum thread that is already ranking well for a high conversion intent search, network and build relationships there, and eventually add suggestive links in the thread that's already ranking well for the search traffic you wish to capture.
I've been renovating a 1979 Jeep Cherokee Chief for a few months now, and I've discovered all kinds of forum threads that are super helpful to solving the problems I'm querying for a solution; yet frequently the links out to the products used by the forum members in their walkthrough posts are dead. Usually because the company being linked to has changed some URL structures of product pages, without implementing proper 301s.
For example, I was recently researching how to bypass an ammeter in a cherokee chief and discovered a lot of forum threads with excellent walkthroughs, pictures and all. Most forum members would link directly to product pages from auto parts sites they purchased from, and most of those links were broken. More recently in the threads, others have commented with up to date links to other functioning product pages, and those links remain, because they genuinely aid the forum content.
Curious, when you created that page was the competition low enough that you immediately ranked on page 1 for that query, or did your rankings improve after building several nofollow links around the web communities you marketed to?
Hi Nicholas, thanks for your insights on your Jeep Cherokee forum experiences. Yes, a lot of those dead links are ripe for the taking by broken link builders willing to build content and let forum members know they have a more up to date resource!
In regard to your question, we didn't build any followed links to the piece and it took approximately six (6) weeks for the blog post and PDF to start ranking. It's certainly well optimised for the target phrase and I'm sure this in conjunction with the relatively lower competition helped us rank within that time frame.
Thanks for sharing the timeframe for traction to be gained.
It is often challenging to explain the time involved in detail to clients, and seeing this data along with the fact that your article was well researched, relevant and targeted with appropriate keyphrases just goes to shows how involved SEO can be... and just how fruitful when done right!
Glad you found it helpful, Karen.
Exactly what I was thinking, I guess Quora truly is the devil.
ha ha !
Very sleek and elegant. Cheers!
Probably only "gray zone" there is forum marketing. In most of forums you need to have some kind of reputation before start promoting your content. And building reputation can take months (or even longer).
Most of old users hate when on some online community newbie joins and immediately start dumping links. But forum links are valuable and sometime only way to do link building in "boring industries".
Hey Peter!
Thanks for reading.
Yes, I agree. If executed poorly, forum marketing can backfire, and a lot of the time, it can take a while to build your reputation and trust with moderators. Other times, if your response is well structured and genuinely helpful, it can stick.
True. You must invest lot of time in these communities for building online reputation.
The problem is that you must find forums where diesel generators can fit. This include - finding them, building profile, grooming profile and then profit. All this will take few months at least. And here is real problem - you can't scale easy this for other clients. They can be car repairs, hotels, restaurants or other. If they are near like camping equipment you can reuse profiles. But in most of cases you can't.
ah yes, forum marketing. I remember grooming a forum profile posting 5x per day useful info then dropping 1 link a year later and getting the account banned hahahah!
You know... it's risky business.
But you can see during this year of grooming how they react on posts with links and make some conclusions.
I got shadowban in Reddit for posting 3 links.
Hi Jamie,
I really like this technique, however I do wonder whether the traffic being generated is of any value to your client's business. It's all well and good to have high rankings and increased traffic, but what is it worth in terms of generating them more business? The high bounce rate and low pages/session suggest that these visitors are not particularly qualified or engaged and are unlikely to return to the site regarding their services. I'd also be interested to see where a lot of this traffic is coming from geographically.
I hate to be a negative nancy, but I think it's our job as SEOs to consider the value a strategy will bring before implementing. I think more thought should be adhered to this strategy to ensure that:
- this is bringing in the right audience for the business (type of visitors and location of visitors)
- it's increasing the businesses leads/goals
Thanks for your insights on this technique!
Hi Lisa, thanks for your comments. And yes, you make some very valid points. I totally agree about needing to strategise.
With our example, we see the 'diesel generator fuel consumption' search term as very much TOFU (top of the funnel). People are in research mode. They may be comparing diesel to petrol gensets and nowhere near ready to buy.
We do expect a lot of people to get the fuel consumption stats and leave, however, we have also made some kind of impression on those web searchers. If they download the PDF, they have the client's branding as a reminder: "ah that's right, these are the guys who had those details I needed".
We also see there being incredible value in the evergreen nature of this content. It will continue to gain more trust in the search engines over time. The Page Authority will increase and therefore the link juice we can pass to other pages on the client's site will see those pages benefit also. Sort of like a slow burn.
On the geo stats, a quick look at GA makes us smile as well:
#1 - Southern Asia
#2 - Australasia
Thanks again, Lisa. You're definitely not being a negative nancy, I'm glad we've got some great discussion on this!
Jamie Press, First at all thanks for the post!
As per the snapshot, the bounce rate seems quite high, it is 82.68%. Will it not harm your client's web performance, in terms of SEO?
Thanks
Sangeeta
Hi Sangeeta, thanks for the question. Bounce rate has not adversely affected the ranking of the page us far. In fact, across a number of clients, the odd post with high bounce rates continue to rank well.
Using this same tactic to fill long page content with additional sections where appropriate. I guess Google gives extra brownie points semantic wise, and the piece usually ranks better for all keyword phrases included. Quite easy to leverage this tactic in the travel industry. So many questions on autocomplete.
Too right, Slavko. Tapping into the question/answer type content format would work really well indeed.
Slavko, I confirm your theory. I have used this tactic before and the traffic just keeps growing like crazy. This tactic is the gold mine at the moment. You can even skip the forum part.
This is because of the Hummingbird algo update and the natural type of the search query.
Awesome article Jamie! I use a tool keywordtool.io which scrapes the autocomplete and pulls out content ideas by adding question modifiers to keywords. Worth taking a look at for speeding up the process.
Thanks Mitch! Yes, you're spot on about keywordtool.io to shave off time in the research phase. Smart move.
Good one Jamie. This kind of case study is always helps to digital marketers who are willing to get results. Google auto suggest always been a great weapon to find out best search terms.
When it comes forum links, i always prefer to do better communication, help forum members and be a active member. Getting links from forum is not bad but we have to do it in a right way.
I am just wondering that only forum tactics you have done or any other? That would be great if you drop your thoughts.
Hi Hiren, thanks for the kudos. Yes, besides forum marketing, ensuring the page is well optimised for the search phrase has helped it rank quickly.
Also, the idea of creating an SEO optimised PDF version of the page is currently helping the client grab two spots in the SERPs.
Totally agree with forum participation needing to be executed in the right way. Just try to be helpful is my goal and moderators are usually happy.
I hope this case study can give you some ideas to have a crack, too!
Jamie, first of all thanks to share your case study with us. No doubt "Google Autocomplete" is a great tool to invite traffic. Even I want to know, why most of the experts give example of projects/keywords outside of the SEO industry. Is there any hidden secret behind it?
Thanks Pappu
Au contraire, Pappu. Mate, I find there are far too many SEO centric examples out there on the web. Not enough real world case studies featuring industries other than SEO / online marketing.
Glad you liked the case study and hope you can apply it to either your business or some of your clients.
Reading this article, I realized I'd been using this technique as a keyword research strategy but I hadn't ever turned my team on to it. Thanks, Jamie!
Pro tip: Amazon has the same autocomplete setup on their search box... which gives you keyword insights otherwise not available through Amazon's tools. Keep this in mind the next time you're setting up a sponsored products campaign!
Fantastic tip for using Amazon, George!
yes, it works but mostly with long tail keywords and with low search volume.
Great post, i like the idea of use the Google autocomplete. I go to search new ideas for my blog with this tool now..
I had previously considered Google Search autocomplete results as a good resource for content ideas, but I never connected it to those next steps of checking out the competition and using forums to drive more traffic. You've done a great job of bringing all of these elements together. Now, I am thinking about some of the other ways that we see the types of topics that are on the minds of searchers. What are your thoughts about using this concept with social network trending hashtags and news stories? I think that those little sidebars on Twitter and Facebook could prove to be equally great resources for content ideas. On Twitter, clicking any trending hashtag would immediately show what people are interested in discussing based on that tag. On Facebook, reading a news story and then checking out the comments provides the same type of feedback. Best yet, you do not have to go to a forum to link back. You merely have to create and upload your content, join the discussion on either social network and then link back to your site.
Sounds like a great idea to me, Tood. Thanks for sharing. Hopefully others will be able to try this out and get some success.
I love case studies! Well done Jamie. Thanks for the walk through. Do you find it useful to be active on Quora in advance of using it for specific purposes like the one mentioned in this article?
Hi Steve, thanks very much. In the above example, I didn't spend time beforehand in any generator specific threads. I do however love Quora and have been using it on and off for the past year or so.
Simple, easy to understand and duplicate. Best of all it's free.
Hey Jamie, thanks for sharing this amazing case study. Even I had tried finding out keywords through google's auto complete ideas and its works. With this case study I have a proof to show my boss about my idea of using long tail keywords.
Cheerss !!!
That's fantastic, Sagar. I hope you get some great results!
Excellent article - but the real challenge is when you have to rank for something ultra-competitive. Which is my challenge. Going to be a long summer!
Hi Lee, yes, it's not easy, I know what you mean. But by targeting the longer tail phrases, get some pages to rank, build up the authority of those pages and then linking internally to your key pages, you can move the needle.
Enjoy your summer, it's smack bang in the middle of winter over here. Best of luck with your challenge ahead.
And go Australia in The Ashes!
Great post. Thank you.
I know I am late here, but last week was very busy and just got the time to read the post. Jamie, I like the post very much. I use Google autocomplete to find keywords but never thought in this way. Thanks for sharing.
You're welcome Yatindra
I use Google Autocomplete, Übersuggest and keywordtool.io to find highly relevant keywords for my clients' website.
I also use 'Searches related to ... ' (shown at the bottom of SERP) to get relevant terms which Google shows using its algorithm.
These tools give me good results in terms of keywords research and makes SEO work easier.
Thanks Jamie for sharing it.
Glad you found it helpful, Sadaf.
There is beauty in this approach and it is its simplicity. Truly encouraging, and as actionable as it gets! Thank you, Jamie.
Btw, what would you say is the reason for that lack of referral traffic from Reddit?
Hi Daniel, it's a great question. It could have been the way we've written the comment and just doesn't whet the reader's appetite enough. Will have to sharpen our pencil for the next one!
Great post! Just one question - can you talk a bit about the value of the PDF? I've never heard of creating a PDF to help SEO efforts in this way and would be interested to hear a bit more about it.
Hi Milly. A couple of reasons the PDF is worthwhile if you see the opportunity.
The more obvious one is getting two links in the SERP. The other reason is a PDF is often a more actionable piece of content. Prospects can save for later or print it off.
You can also put your branding on it as well as link back to your website. Hope this helps!
That's a good way to do a keyword research for your website. Wich tool is better for step 2?
Hi! I don't use a tool for step 2. Just search your target phrase in Chrome Incognito on Google and look for the top ranking site.
Here is a good article for research your competition https://www.inc.com/guides/201105/10-tips-on-how-to-research-your-competition.html
Brilliant thank you! I am currently working on an infographic for some research we did on surfer's ear and I might follow your plan in reverse to find a good title/keywords.
Best of luck, Toby. Hope you do well.
Mother, what I can take weeks to make you have shown to do so in five hours. wwoww, Congratulations !!
Thanks Ivan. You can do it too, mate!
Hi Jamie,
Greetings from the other side of Oz.
I use Übersuggest all the time for exactly the same kind of content projects. It's great for both idea generation and keyword research after you already have an idea.
The latter is becoming more important as Google gets more into the semantics. Finding all of the ways people use terms allows for a new style of "keyword stuffing" that isn't stuffing at all.
Another trick to try is to do it in both Australia and US settings. This gives you the possibility to pick up US search traffic in the US, as well. My most successful individual blog used this technique and ended up with a lot of overseas traffic. This seems to do wonders for page authority.
Hi Eric, thanks for tips!
Thanks for the short but sweet post Jamie!
As someone who is just getting into SEO as a role it's little things like this that really help to put together a set of tools and practices that help to get your head around things!
That's brilliant to hear, Degausser. If you try this tactic out, best of luck with it.
Interesting post!
I did not know that the auto function could be so powerful to try to improve the positioning of our web weapon.
Seeing suggestions leave us when we seek something in google, we have ideas to make.
I like this article.
Thanks Tino!
This was a great post! Very simple for Newbies and incredibly practical and comes natural! I mean who doesn't use auto-complete these days as a default setting on their browser. Plus Jamie, you're right, strategically placing these "expensive" long-tails on your home page is the first critical step so at least they're picked up by the spiders. However, the most important point you made was weaving the long-tails into your content and then figuring out how to present inbound linking opportunities to your site. First, make sure you have an onsite killer blog! Then use the google search bar code to see where the long-tails are being indexed. If you're lucky, you may find a few .edus or other high authority sites that you might get a link from if you handle the introduction the right way. Again, nice piece!
Thanks Todd, glad you enjoyed the article.
very good post Jamie !! We will have to implement ... :-)
Thanks for your help
Do let us know how you go, mate!
Great post.
Looks very simple but there are so many companies that are missing out on this. Reality is that "COMPANIES AND PEOPLE HAVE PROBLEMS TO SOLVE", some of them might be too complex but other despite being very popular don't have a clean and defined answer.
I personally recommend this approach for niche B2B services, B2B technology providers. Also for some niche financial services. It's basically for all the topics that sit only in forums.
Very easy method:
That's a fantastic approach, Fabrizio. Forums are a gold mine for reasearching common questions. We have a fantastic one where in Australia called https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/
It's not just a technology forum. People from all walks of life head to this site for advice from travel to whitegoods and everything else imaginable.
Awesome post Jamie and good to see a local (Australian) case study! I use Google Autocomplete myself a lot - but what I love about your post is the final results. It's definitely paid off for you and your client.
Edit: Didn't realise you were extremely local - Perth too!
Cheers Brad. Yes, here in sunny Perth :)
Thanks for sharing your valuable & result driven case-study. Only forum marketing is enough?? @Peter Nikolow you are absolutely right, reputation is one of the major obstacles to promoting any content in communities.
Hi Rachel, thanks for your comments :) - yes while Q&A forums are driving traffic, so is organic, too. Although Google's Keyword Planner says the primary target phrase only has 30 exact match searches a month, we know even longer tail variants bring in more searches.
Optimising the page around the target phrase, including in ther URL has really helped the page rank quickly.
The forum traffic is a great way to draw in the target audience, not necessarily to help the page rank.
Well done! I like your case study, it will act like another piece put in place for the campaigns.
Just one question though. In terms of PDF, how do you think Google would treat the page? Will it be considered as a duplicate copy do you think?
Hey Malika, very good question. So far, seven months in, the PDF has stuck, but I guess we will see if Google's algo deems it duplicate or not. Looks promising so far.
Jamie, this is amazing! Thanks for the details about autocomplete ideas for traffic and ranking. These ideas are very helpful for me to generate more traffic.
Question: What would you recommend for a keyword competition (low, medium and high) in terms of SEO.
Hi Naresh, thanks very much. Yes, competition is such a subjective thing and depends on your specific niche. How about trying this approach for quick competition analysis:
High competition means you may have to devote a lot of resurces (client money) and never see results. Low competition on the other hand may (not always) mean the keywords might not have a lot of commercial intent.
Thanks for your valuable reply....
Awesome post! Love how it's brief but instantly useful. We don't always need mega-posts! Sometimes the most seasoned SEOs get lost in all the high level tactics and only the spammers or actual forum users are lurking on the forums, but this is a good one to remember.
You're right, Joe. Thanks for the comments. If you have a go at this yourself, I'd love to hear how you go!
Hi Jamie, really awesome points you mention here. I have a question for you. When I look at the opportunities for my keywords. The longer tail autocomplete suggestions have almost no search volume. I use googles keyword planner. But how come does google suggest a particular search term which shows --0 searchers.
And these autocomplete suggestions are the on the top- 1st 2nd etc. Is it still worth to target those terms? Also does google count the people who select the autocompletes suggestions in its keywords planner or does it only count queries that are typed in all the way. Most of my long tail keywords have either "zero" or 10 searches a month, granted I feel it would be really easy to rank for all those terms. But I am not sure if it would add value to our business.
Hi Davit, thanks for your kind words and your question.
Would it be possible to test a small AdWords budget on these longer tail terms to get a more realistic idea of the actual monthly searches? If you setup conversion tracking and see they convert, and you get a healthy number of impressions, that would tell me it's certainly worth targeting via SEO for the long term.
Does that make sense?
Jamie, makes perfect sense. I'll test it asap
Love your post, Jamie! Nice to see someone else here from Australia!
Glad you liked the piece, Eva. If you get a chance to replicate it, hopefully you can get the same type of success!
Great post, Jamie :)
Cheers Woj!
A good post, with a nice easy to implement lesson. Thanks! [For your step 2, Check the Competition, I like to use the Moz keyword difficulty tool. It tells me quickly which sites are ranking and something about them.]
Smart move, Linda!
LOVE this article. I've seen a lot of articles about more in-depth keyword generation (and those are great, don't get me wrong), but sometimes time's just not on our side. Love that this is so quick - nice!
Thanks Barefoot Nomad!
Heyy Jamie.. Thanks for sharing this amazing piece of work. I am also targeting long-tail keywords for my clients. Will definitely try this out. After this Google autocomplete will be the center of focus for me.
Hi Ashwin, glad you found the piece useful. Let us know when you have a crack!
Awesome post! We are starting to work on a content strategy for a client in a very competitive market. This might be an opportunity to beat some competitors.
Great to hear! Best of luck with the tactical execution.
Waw so amazing! It's just some imagination and why not tool that could help you and you can find solution :). Is it the same community forum for all things? For exemple, if i want to create a pdf for design fashion or something else, should i use forum to market and distribute my content? Is social digital platforms like twitter, Facebook, instagram or else are better place to distribute content? Is pdf is the right format to make content on it? what about webinar or something else?
You know, in content marketing strategy you have to make strategy and decision to create content in right format to distribute in right plarforms, and i would like to know if this steps is the best way to improve content marketing increasing? Thanks a lot for your reply!
Hi Dallma, thanks for the questions :) - along with places like Quora, you want to seek out specific forums where you can. In the above example, the globalspec.com site offers an engineering & industrial supplies forum. This is packed full of target market buyers of industrial equipment our client sells.
For you fashion example, I would take the time to research opportunities in say https://www.vogue.com.au/forums - the key is to try and think about where your customer lurks about online and go and try and help solve their problems.
Also, don't think too narrow about forums and SEO. Target audience engagement is what you're after.
Sticking with your fashion theme, a PDF may or may not be the best type of content to market. You might have more success with a YouTube video - optimising it to rank. If your video is genuinely helpful and not overly salesy, there is nothing wrong with promoting it in relevant forums.
On your question about social channels, again depends on your target audience. Fashion is ideal for Instagram.
You are exactly right when you say you have to pick the right channels to promote content as part of your strategy. For me, it's trying to be pragmatic about where my client's target audience hangs out online. If you can then participate on these platforms in a helpful way, you will be successful.
A tailored strategy and tactical plan will help you achieve this.
I hope this info helps.
Hii Jamie, Very helpful post. I have see your screenshot where you got lot's of traffic from quora, I think it's good source of traffic but never post in forms like quora, is it good to drop link in forms. I have always fear of link building penalties.
Hi Jitender, great question. 99% of the kind of forums you would be posting in (where there is an engaged audience for your industry) would have nofollowed links, so that helps mitigate the argument you are being manipulative. If you happen upon a great forum that is the right fit and it has followed links, I'd err on the side of non blatantly keyword rich anchor text. Just to help keep things on the level.
Definitely give Quora a try. Just be genuinely helpful and you'll be fine :)
Thanks, Charles definitely I will try with Quora
Nice example, thanks for the clear 3-step structure of your blog post. One additional question: you managed to get your client some extra traffic, but what about marketing or organisational targets? I assume the marketing manager on the client side needs not just traffic, but conversions of some sort to meet his targets and keep his boss happy.
Hi Natasja, thanks for your question. Engaged organic traffic is a KPI along with lead conversions.
very nice idea. Would definitely try that out
Thank you very much Jamie
I've read a lot about different SEO practices&tactics, but this is my first time I understood everything :)
Jamie, as you wrote, one of the corner stones of your success in the case was a PDF-file.
But what if we have a product with which we cannot create a PDF (app, secure messenger) ? (people in these times are spreading everything about themselves in social networks. They do not bother about security and their personal live.)
Please, I will appreciate any ideas, help, pieces of advice
Please, have a Great life!
Hello jamie,
Great insights, thanks for the case study. As we know there is no SEO without keywords, and almost SEO marketers relay on Google. So, Google autosuggestion always help to select the latest trend keywords.
Regarding forum, I just drop one thing that nothing is spam if you do in legal way, if forum is spam (as some marketers says) then why there is Google webmaster center forum exist? Simple thing is your purpose and intense should be in right manner, then it would be either forum or content marketing, you will get success.
Keep it up jamie :)
Now in #1 and #2 it seems. Good job. Shame we have the "%20" bit in the PDF URL though
Hi Anthony, yes indeed. This is one thing I'd change next time around. Replacing spaces with hyphens in the file name. Doh!
Thanks a lot Jamie for this wonderful post. This is very important from my point of view as I got to learn something new and important from this. But I really want to know whether how it will work for my job search website osprojectz.com as not only generating traffic is important but also conversion rate is very very important. How do I get it with this can you please help me out...
Hemant