How to Find Topics People Actually Search For

Great content starts with finding the right topics.

Topics that people are actually searching for.

Topics that truly align with an audience’s needs and interests.

Topics that drive traffic, engagement, and conversions.

Easier said than done? You bet.

But don’t worry, I’ve got you.

All my secrets on topic research for SEO 👇

Identify Who You’re Creating Content For

Before you even touch a keyword research tool, I want you to seriously consider who you’re creating the content for. Even for those readers who have a target audience in mind, I still encourage you to work through the following exercise.

Why? Target audiences aren’t a forever-the-same type of deal.

Their preferences change; trends come and go. Not to mention the type of content you enjoy creating shifts as well. A good balance is to tackle topics that align with a target audience but that you also have a passion for. The best content is created by those who are truly passionate about their niche.

So, let’s get to know your audience better.

I want you to create a “persona”—a fictional representation of your ideal customer. Give them a name, a face, a job, and a personality. Think about their demographics, their interests, their pain points, and their goals. What are they searching for online? What kind of content do they consume? What are their biggest challenges?

Here are some questions to get you started:

• How old are they?
• Where do they live?
• What do they do for work?
• What are their hobbies and interests?
• What are their pain points and challenges?
• What are their goals and aspirations?
• Where do they hang out online?
• What kind of content do they consume?

Answer these questions, and you’ll have a pretty firm grasp on who it is you’re creating for.

Before we move on, another quick tip on this: if you’re stuck, AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini can give you a helping hand. I asked Gemini to create an ideal customer profile (ICP) before I started writing this guide.

This gave me insight into who you, the reader, are likely to be. What your interests are, what content preferences you may have, and what pain points you might be experiencing. As I’m writing, I check back in with this ICP to make sure I’m grasping who you are. That way, I (hopefully) make content that’s truly helpful.

How’d Gemini do? Does the ICP sound like you?

Understand Why Your Audience Is Searching

One more step before you fire up that keyword research tool: understanding your audience’s search intent, aka: why are they reaching for their device and searching?

Search intent gets into the minds of your audience and figure out what they’re really looking for. Once you understand their intent, you can create content that not only satisfies their immediate needs but also anticipates their next steps and guides them further down the sales funnel.

Search intent can be broadly categorized into four types:

• Informational: The searcher is looking for information on a specific topic. They might be asking questions, seeking explanations, or simply trying to learn something new.
• Navigational: The searcher is looking for a specific website or webpage. They might know the name of the website or brand but not the exact URL.
• Transactional: The searcher is looking to buy something. They might be searching for specific products, comparing prices, or looking for deals and discounts.
• Commercial: The searcher is researching a product or service before making a purchase. They might be comparing different options, reading reviews, or looking for more information to help them make an informed decision.

Stuck? Allow me to give you a few examples:

1. If someone searches for “how to bake a cake,” they’re likely looking for informational content, such as a recipe or a step-by-step guide.
2. If someone searches for “buy iPhone 15,” they’re clearly looking for a transactional page, such as an online store or a product page.
3. And if someone searches for “best CRM for small business,” they’re likely looking for commercial content, such as comparison articles or reviews.

So, before you move on to the next step, keep search intent at the forefront of your mind. It’s the key to picking the right topics and creating content that not only ranks well but also resonates with your audience and drives results.

Use a Keyword Research Tool to Identify Relevant Topics

Now that you have a decent idea of who you’re writing for, let’s take a look at some of my favorite keyword research tools and how to use them to identify ICP-relevant topics. They are

1. Ahrefs,
2. LowFruits,
3. Ryan Robinson’s Free Keyword Research Tool,
4. and our old friend AI (with a caveat).

You may already have some keyword research skills under your belt, and that’s okay. I’ll be offering some tips in this section that will still be relevant to you.

For those who are completely new to keyword research, don’t worry because I’ll break it down step-by-step. Here we go:

Ahrefs (Paid)

Starting with Ahrefs Keywords Explorer:

1. Begin by entering a seed keyword—a broad word or phrase that represents a good starting point and is relevant to a site’s niche. We’ll think broadly, and then we’ll niche down. For example, if you’re in the fitness industry, you might enter “fitness.”
2. Click Matching Terms. Here, from your chosen seed keyword, Ahrefs will have generated a massive list of related keywords.
3. Pay attention to the Parent Topic column. It gives you broader topic ideas that you can explore further.
4. Click on the SERP button next to a keyword to see the top-ranking pages for that keyword. This feature gives you insights into what kind of content is already performing well and what your audience is likely looking for.
5. You can also use Ahref’s filter feature to niche down into exactly the topics you’d like to uncover.
6. Once you’ve landed somewhere close, select the keywords and export those puppies.

LowFruits (Free with Paid Features)

Onto another favorite of mine, LowFruits:

1. Using the KWFinder feature, enter your seed keyword and run an analysis.
2. From your seed keyword, LowFruits will generate a list of low-hanging fruit keywords that are relevant to your niche and relatively easy to rank for.
3. Use the filter options to filter for suggestions, questions, and clusters.
4. With a free account, you have 10 credits to spend. If you’d like to learn more about a keyword, click the magnifying glass to uncover search volume and SERP difficulty score.
5. Once you’ve landed on a few potential topics, select the keywords using the check boxes next to each keyword, and click Export.

Free Keyword Research Tool

If you’re on a tight budget, Ryan Robinson’s Free Keyword Research Tool is a great option:

1. Enter a seed keyword that’s relevant to your niche.
2. The tool will generate a list of related keywords, along with their search volume and competition level.
3. Unfortunately, this tool doesn’t have an export option, so you’ll have to copy and paste the keywords into your spreadsheet manually (or wherever else you’re hoarding your chosen topics).

I guess you get what you pay (or don’t pay) for, right?

AI Tools

You can also use AI tools to brainstorm topics. The best way I’ve found is to give the AI tool of choice your chosen seed keyword and run a prompt that will help brainstorm topics.

Here’s how to use ChatGPT for topic research:

1. Start by giving ChatGPT some context about your niche and target audience. The more information you provide, the more relevant and helpful its suggestions will be. For example, you might say, “I’m brainstorming ideas for X website in the fitness niche.”
2. Next, give ChatGPT a clear and specific prompt. For example: “Brainstorm twenty topics from the following keywords:”
3. Ask ChatGPT to analyze the search intent behind certain keywords. This can help you understand what kind of content Google is looking for and how to tailor your content to meet those expectations. For example, you might ask, “What is the search intent behind the keyword “apple exercise app”?”

The downside of this approach?

ChatGP, Gemini, Claude, whichever AI tool you choose to use doesn’t have access to real-time data like SEO tools do, so they can’t give you realistic metrics for your keywords. But they are useful for brainstorming ideas to use in conjunction with an SEO tool.

Pick Keywords That Balance Topics, Intent, and Difficulty

You’ve got the topics, and you’ve nailed the search intent. Now it’s time to face the music: keyword difficulty. It’s a total buzzkill—a reality check that reminds us that not all keywords are worth your time, energy, and resources. Some keywords are simply too highly competitive and difficult to rank for.

But wait. Before the pendulum swings too far the other way. You also don’t want to just target easy keywords for the sake of it. If those keywords aren’t relevant to your audience or their search intent, you’re once again wasting your time.

So, how do you find that sweet spot between relevance, intent, and difficulty? It’s all about balance, baby!

Start with your audience and their interests. Then, find keywords that align with those interests and have a realistic chance of ranking. Use keyword research tools to uncover hidden gems and analyze the competitive landscape. Then, look for keywords that have decent search volume but aren’t too competitive.

Find that sweet spot, and you’ll be head and shoulders above most content strategists.

Go Beyond SEO Tools

Keyword research tools are great at their job. No doubting that. But they do have their limitations. One of the biggest limitations is that they often rely on historical data.

Here’s what Ahrefs has to say on this:

“The higher the search volume a keyword has, the more frequently we fetch new SERPs for it. This is anything from multiple times a day to once in 1-2 months.”

In online terms, 1-2 months is a dang long time.

Why do they rely on historical data?

Well, it’s because it takes time to gather and process all that search data. Those tools need to collect information about what people are searching for, how often they’re searching for it, and which websites are ranking for those keywords. This data is then used to calculate things like search volume and keyword difficulty.

But here’s the catch: by the time that data is collected and processed, it’s already outdated.

New trends might have emerged, new keywords are gaining popularity, and the words and phrases search engine users are plugging into their search bars are different. Simply put, keyword research tools can’t keep up with the changes.

So, what’s the solution? Well, you can’t just ditch those tools altogether. They’re still invaluable for identifying potential opportunities. But you need to supplement them with other methods that can help you stay ahead of the curve.

That’s where things like social media monitoring, online community participation, and talking directly to your target audience come in. These methods allow you to tap into real-time conversations, identify emerging trends, and get a sense of what your audience is interested in right now.

Tap into Social Media and Online Communities

So, how do you tap into social media and online forums? Here’s how:

1. Find your tribe: First, identify where your audience hangs out. Are they on X, debating the latest political scandal? Are they on LinkedIn, complaining about insurance premiums for their Maserati? Or are they on Reddit, rubbing shoulders with other r/wallstreetbets degens? Wherever they are, be there.
2. Listen up: Once you’ve found your audience’s online hangout spots, it’s time to listen up. Pay attention to the hashtags they’re using, the topics they’re discussing, and the questions they’re asking. What are their pain points? What are their interests? What are they passionate about? Take this newfound understanding and use it to revisit the ICP and personas we created earlier.
3. Blend in: Once you’ve found your tribe, it’s time to blend in. Don’t just barge in like a bull in a china shop. That’s a surefire way to get yourself kicked out by some basement-dwelling Reddit mod. Instead, take the time to read the rules, understand the culture, and contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.
4. Track the trends: Use tools like BuzzSumo or Google Trends to track trending topics, hashtags, and influencers in your niche.
5. Turn insights into content: Now, take your freshly uncovered insights and turn them into content gold. Write blog posts that address your audience’s questions, create graphics that visualize trending data, or even produce videos that showcase your expertise on a hot topic.

Go to the Horse’s Mouth

Storytime: A few years back, I cofounded a little website in the indoor plant niche. It was chuffing along quite nicely before we got hit by HCU (but that’s beyond the point). The point is that we had a NYC-based writer working for us.

She was awesome. She would go around to boutique indoor plant stores, interview the owners, staff, and customers, and create content based on the conversation she’d had.

I swear, some of the best-performing content on that website was written by this writer. We loved her writing style, but it was more than that: she’d tapped into the real people who were on the ground talking the talk and walking the walk.

The benefit of this approach? The content was ahead of its time.

Before tools like Ahrefs had picked up on a new online trend, a fresh keyword that was beginning to gain traction, we’d already written a piece on it, were ranking, and were ready and waiting to scoop up the traffic as the trend took off.

Sure, we had a few swings and misses. But more often than not, we’d hit a home run.

Seriously, don’t sleep on this! Talk to your target audience, speak to industry experts, and see the trends before they emerge.

Being ahead of the curb is way better than trying to play catchup.

Conclusion and Next Steps

So there you have it. A crash course in topic research.

If you’re still feeling like you could use a helping hand, our team of SEO experts and content strategists are here to help you tackle topic research, develop a winning content strategy, and create great content.

👉 Simply head over to our SEO services page and find a package that works for you. 👈