You know you need to do keyword research. After all, you’re producing content to support your business growth, not writing a love letter to your grandma.

The goal is to get as many qualified leads as possible to find your post, including new people finding you through Google search. But how can you make sure that what you’re writing is what people are looking for?

The secret is to do the overall topic research before you begin your content planning, then fine-tune the keywords once the blog post is written.

How do I find what my audience is interested in?

Step 1: Brainstorm topics related to your services

Lacy’s first step in editorial content planning is to divide your services into “buckets,” or categories/themes that you want to write about. Brainstorm different blog posts you can write for each topic, just to get the ball rolling.

Let’s say that you’re a health coach; your top 3 category buckets could be: clean eating, creating exercise habits, and dealing with stress.

Step 2: Discover the questions people are asking

Before you write anything, find out if people are interested in this topic. It’s much easier to drive traffic to content that people are already interested in than it is to educate them about why you think it’s important.

There are a few free research tools I love to use to discover the questions that people are asking about your bucket topics. My two favorites are:

Step 3: Expand your list

Now that you know what you want to talk about and what people are searching, let’s figure out exactly what people who are looking for you are asking.

Step 4: Build out your editorial calendar

I highly recommend Lacy’s Content Intelligence Academy. (I’m not only a member of the Content Direction Agency team, I’m also a client!) Figure out what you’re trying to promote, then work backwards to educate & inform people why they need your product or service.

Step 5: Map one specific focus keyword to each blog post

Once you have your editorial calendar sketched out, choose ONE key phrase for that post. Think about your readers: If they were looking for the information in that post, choose the phrase you’d expect them to type in to lead them to that exact answer.

It’s important that each post gets its own keyword, even if the topics are similar. or example, one post could be “how do I eat less sugar?” and another could be “5 sugar substitutes already in your pantry.” They both talk about sugar, and encourage the reader to eat less of it, but they’re bringing in audiences with different approaches to the same goal.

(Bonus: You can link them to each other to keep readers on your site longer and continue to educate them!)

Step 6: Forget about the keyword & write the whole damn blog post

Before you worry about working your keyword into your copy or perfecting your title, write the whole post—and write it like you want it to be engaging, authentic, and useful to your audience. Yes, eventually, we want the Google robots to read your content & share it with the world… but it’s more important that people actually enjoy reading it! If it sounds too robotic or stiff, people will click away (and Google notices how long people spend on your page).

I also recommend drafting the content loosely before worrying about keywords, because blogs have a tendency to shift in the writing process.

I can’t be the only one that totally changes topics in the middle of writing a blog post, right? Then suddenly realizing that I’d written 3 separate blog posts in one rambling Google Doc, and needing to find time to finalize all of them… good, glad it’s not just me that has that issue.

Step 7: Add a compelling headline that includes your keyword

You might have the most incredible blog post ever written, but if your headline doesn’t interest people? Nobody’s going to click through to find out more.

I suggest writing at least 7–8 headline options and running them through the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer before selecting one. If possible, try to make your focus keyword as early in the headline as possible, but don’t force it. It’s more important to make it interesting.

Step 8: Optimize, optimize, optimize

Now that you have your draft done and your headline selected, it’s time to make your blog post Google-friendly!

Remember that focus keyword? Try to include it in the headline, meta description, image name, and throughout the body text.

Find a few other related keywords and incorporate them into subheads and into the copy.

Don’t let the need to fit keywords into your copy make you feel robotic; f the keywords don’t fit in naturally, err on the side of sounding human.

Step 9: Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Finally: Publish your post! Share with your networks!

Then, in a month or two, check Google Analytics to see how your post is performing.

If it barely gets traffic, you have two options: Let it go into the blog post graveyard (RIP), or give it a second chance by targeting a new keyword or headline and republishing it.

Want to hear more about using SEO to attract new clients to your website? In addition to being the Content Direction Agency’s resident SEO Specialist, Meg also helps entrepreneurs get found online at Love at First Search, and runs a free community providing SEO trainings for the not-so-tech-savvy. Want to learn more about improving your SEO? Check out her free Plan to Publish challenge.