SEO Keyword Research Cheatsheet for Unlimited Topic Ideas-SEO

This search engine optimization (SEO) guide includes a keyword research cheatsheet to help you come up with unlimited topic ideas for your website.

One of the biggest roadblocks for website publishers is finding good keywords to target on their sites. That’s because many people have no plan in place to generate keyword ideas for new content.

Here’s the process most publishers follow:

• Open the keyword research tool.
• Try to think of an interesting topic to look up.
• Plug away at it for hours on end hoping to uncover something good to target.

While that strategy can certainly feel like you’re getting a lot done, it’s an inefficient use of your time that could be better spent on actually writing and publishing more articles on your site to get more traffic.

After doing keyword research for many years, I realized there are certain keyword research strings that can be used over and over again to help you find popular SEO phrases to target for every topic in existence.

And when you use these search strings during the keyword research process, you’ll never have any trouble filling up your content publishing schedule with new article ideas.

The Keyword Research Cheatsheet at the end of this guide includes a list of the most popular keyword research strings you can use to create a well-balanced website with both transactional and informational content to attract visitors at various stages of the customer journey.

How to Use the Keyword Search Strings

Basically, you want to pick and choose your favorite search strings below, or run through the entire set, for each new topic you want to conduct keyword research on.

Simply replace  with your seed keyword (or topic idea).

For example, if you wanted to find keyword ideas for the seed keyword “workout routines”, then you would replace  in any of the search strings below with workout routines.

Basic vs Advanced Keyword Search Strings for SEO

The keyword research strings in the cheatsheet below are divided into two types (Basic and Advanced), and depending on if your keyword research tool accepts wildcard (*) searches or not will determine which type you should use. For example, KWFinder by Mangools does not accept wildcards but LowFruits does.

Note: If you’re new to SEO keyword research and need a good tool to use for this purpose, you can check out our list of the best keyword research tools to compare the top options on the market. Our favorites are KWFinder and LowFruits as mentioned above.

Basis Search Strings

Practically every keyword research tool on the market accepts the basic search string format, which will return results with a wide range of keyword ideas that are relevant to the string of words.

For example, if your seed keyword was “bikes” and you used the basic search string, what , then the tool would return a mix of results like these:

• what bikes are good for hills
• what bikes do police use
• what are bikes
• what is a hybrid bike
• what can you do with bikes

Advanced Search Strings

Not every keyword research tool accepts the advanced search string format with a wildcard (*). But if it does, you can use the wildcard feature to force the tool to only return keyword ideas that will match a specific structure.

For example, if your seed keyword was “shoes” and you used the advanced search string, how * , then the tool would only return ideas such as these:

• how to tie shoes
• how to choose a new pair of shoes
• how can I stretch my shoes
• how do you clean shoes
• how much are shoes

Notice how every keyword idea starts with the word “how” and ends with the word “shoes”. The inclusion of the wildcard (*) causes the tool to only generate keyword phrases that are bookended with those two words.

SEO Keyword Research Cheatsheet

Basic Search Strings List

• who
• what
• when
• where
• why
• how
• are
• can
• do
• does
• will
• for
• vs
• alternatives
• ideas
• ideas for
• best
• best for
• top
• top for
• cheap
• cheap for
• review

Advanced Search Strings List

• *
• *
• who * 
• what * 
• what *
• when * 
• where * 
• why * 
• how * 
• are *
• can *
• can *
• do *
• do *
• does *
• will *
• for *
• vs *
• * alternatives
• alternatives *
• ideas *
• ideas for *
• best *
• best for *
• top *
• top for *
• cheap *
• cheap for *
• review *

Next Steps After Using the SEO Keyword Research Cheasheet

After you’re done creating your keyword list using the SEO keyword research cheatsheet above, the next step is to write your content and optimize it for on-page SEO.

You can learn how to optimize every part of your web page in our free on-page SEO training guides. These guides include SEO tips on optimizing the top on-page factors for SEO. So give it a look if you need extra guidance on this part of the search engine optimization process.

The Editorial Staff at SEO Chatter is a team of search engine optimization and digital marketing experts led by Stephen Hockman with more than 15 years of experience in search engine marketing. We publish guides on the fundamentals of SEO for beginner marketers.