Google is rolling out a global update to serve better search results, improving 7% of the queries. But what does it mean for you as a blogger?

Google will pick the individual passages of a web-page to see how relevant it is to the search query. The search engine typically analyzes the whole web page, but Google will show specific passages of the web-pages to answer particular questions from now on.

This update was necessary for two purposes:

• Google has always been committed to showing better results for search queries. As Google’s AI is getting stronger and smarter, it wants to make the user experience better and more helpful. Showing specific passages of a web-page will be less confusing for the user and will help him get the answer immediately.
• Google’s indexing is a complicated process, and it’s getting strict to rectify the bad-quality content from the search results. Hence, Google has decided to show only specific content from the whole web-page that solves search queries. This will help Google understand better which content part is more helpful to the searcher.

In this article, I will discuss if keyword research is becoming dead for blogging and will share the SEO strategy for writing a perfect blog post that will stand out in the search rankings after Google’s update.

Is Keyword Research for Blogging ‘Dead?’

Keyword research is becoming obsolete as far as the blogging strategy is concerned. The reason for that is the blog posts are becoming ‘response-centric,’ and targeting one or two keywords for one blog post isn’t enough SEO optimization.

Therefore, instead of just focusing in 1-2 keywords, you should think about keyword variations related to questions, so that you write content that answers those questions.

What does it mean for you if you’re into the blogging industry? You might have several questions in your mind regarding the blog keyword research.

What’s the alternative way of optimizing blog posts?

You need a more seamless approach by adding more keyword variations to your content to make it sound natural for humans and optimizing for the search engine crawlers.

Keyword research alone is no more a sane strategy that will help you get more traffic to blog posts by search engines – In fact, it never was.

As Neil Patel says,

“The disadvantages of focusing your blogging strategy on keyword research far outweigh the advantages.”

Keywords will take you to the rabbit hole of a few search phrases, and you’ll keep targeting the same words     so, in addition to that, you need to create legit content that answers possible questions.

What’s the Right Way of Writing SEO Blog Posts?

When writing a blog post, answering the question in a simple and teaching way is necessary to get indexed and ranked for that particular search query.

Blogs are a gold-mind of valuable content that attracts tons of visitors through search engines, mostly from Google.

As Google clearly stated, they would be more interested in specific parts of web pages instead of a haystack of information that’s hard to extract. So you need to make sure that your blog post answers all the topic-related specific questions possible.

Do You Need Keyword Research Tools for Blogging?

Now, let’s consider you’re researching keywords for your next blog post by AHREF, SEMrush, Moz, or any keyword research tool you use. The keyword research tool will show you an exact number of search volume for a particular keyword.

And guess what? That number would be WRONG!!!

In fact, most of the keywords that have potential of driving traffic to your website wouldn’t even be shown by the keyword research tools.

Just because you’re using that particular keyword in your article several times, it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll rank for that. Google is smarter than before, and it shows the best possible results for the ‘SEARCH INTENT,’ not for the ‘KEYWORDS.’

Instead, let’s merge the new and old approaches; you find a perfect topic to write on that answers a specific question and has less competition (you can quickly identify that through Google search), and start answering that question as a long and detailed blog post. You can add your keywords in those answers.

How Should You Research Topics for Your Blog?

Researching topics for your blog is easier than you think if you use your intuition only.

You must have used Google search for yourself – Why don’t you use it for your blog?

It’s the number one source of finding what people are searching for in your niche. Be it the best knee pads for dirt bikes or a perfect holiday destination in Canada – Every single topic is hidden in those search suggestions that you need to find out.

For example, if you’re running a dog blog, you can simply enter the words ‘why dogs…’ Google will show up the most searched queries.

Here is your chance to get your hands on those in-demand topics and create a nicely crafted response post for each query that fulfills the search intent. If you build the best resource possible for that particular question, don’t you think Google will rank you for that specific search query?

Oh wait, that’s just one query. How do I know if it has the potential to attract sufficient traffic to my website? Well, here’s the answer.

People don’t search a question by a single query – There might be hundreds of possible ways through which your SEO content writing can be searched for.

Here’s an example of how this method works.

You can see a set of suggestions shown by Google as you type in a few words. Each suggestion is absolutely a fortune for your next blog post topics.

Now, here’s the thing, instead of stuffing the exact search query in the title or content, try to make the answer targets for the query and diversify that question into many phases. There are hundreds of search queries that can get your single blog post number one spot!

You can also get good ideas from Answer the Public website!

Don’t get stuck with just one keyword!

SEO is evolving everyday – If you’re still alive with those old-school blogging strategies, you’re not going to make it to the top search results.