Part 1 mapped the five channels. Part 2 covers the skill underneath search and content: finding out what people type, and deciding which of those things you can realistically rank for.
Paid tools make this faster. They do not make it possible — everything below works without one.
Where to find the queries
The search box itself
Start typing your topic and read the autocomplete suggestions. These are real queries, ranked by frequency. Then go through the alphabet — type your term followed by each letter — and you will collect several dozen genuine phrasings in ten minutes.
The “people also ask” and related searches blocks
Free, on every results page, and directly sourced from what people search. Click one and it expands into more. This is the cheapest source of question-shaped keywords there is.
Your own site’s search data
If you have any search traffic at all, the free search console from the major engine shows you exactly which queries brought people to you, including ones you never targeted. This is the highest-quality source available because it is your own audience.
The most valuable report is queries where you rank between position eight and twenty — you are already visible, and small improvements move you into the range where clicks actually happen.
Communities
Forums and question sites where your audience asks things in their own words. The phrasing people use with each other is different from the phrasing marketers assume, and it is closer to what they type.
Judging whether you can compete
Search the query and look honestly at the first page.
- Who is there? If the first page is entirely large established sites, you are unlikely to break in soon. If it contains small sites, forums or thin pages, there is a gap.
- How good is the content? Open the top three. If they genuinely answer the question well, you need to do something better or different. If they are padded and vague, that is your opening.
- Is the intent even yours? If every result is a product page and you were planning a guide, the engine has told you what it thinks this query wants.
The intent test
Every query has an intent, and matching it matters more than any other on-page factor.
- Informational — “how to calculate cgpa”. Wants an explanation.
- Navigational — “cgpa full form login”. Wants a specific place.
- Transactional — “buy noise cancelling headphones”. Wants to purchase.
- Tool — “cgpa calculator”. Wants to do something immediately, not read about it.
That last category is frequently mishandled. Someone searching for a calculator wants the input fields at the top of the page, not nine hundred words of preamble. Our calculator pages are built that way deliberately — tool first, explanation below for the people who want it.
Choosing what to write
Rank your list by three things: how closely it matches what you actually offer, how weak the current first page looks, and how specific the query is.
Specific beats broad for a small site, every time. “Cgpa to percentage for vtu” is a smaller audience than “cgpa” and a much better target, because the people searching it have a precise need you can fully satisfy on one page.
What to do after publishing
Wait six to twelve weeks, then look at which queries the page actually attracted. It will be different from what you targeted. Update the page to serve the queries it is really getting — this single habit outperforms writing another new article.
Next in this track
Part 3 covers writing a landing page that converts.