SEO research for websites or blogs can be a little intimidating for many destination marketers and tourism partners.

I’ll demonstrate how Google’s free search data can provide a wealth of useful SEO information, as well as introduce you to a fun new tool for creating blog post headlines and content that answers common questions.

When you first start typing a Google search, pay attention to the drop-down words.

To begin with, Google makes an educated guess about what you’re looking for based on the searches of others.

This time, they’re telling you what people are searching for in relation to that topic, based on their own Google data. Observe carefully!

An illustration is provided. For many travelers, finding fun activities is a top priority. Ideally, your CVB, DMO, or Tourist Board website and blog posts will always appear on the first page of Google search results for that term.

That list has a ton of potential topics for a blog post.

If you match the post title to the search term, you will be answering people’s actual search queries in the words they are using to search for it, and this will help your site appear higher in search results.

Activities in (name of town) for families with young children
• “Sunday activities in (your city’s name)”
• “Dog-friendly activities in (your town’s name)”

Continued from above… The content marketing strategy for your blog is practically writing itself.

Continue to scroll down the SERP for more information (Search Engine Results Page.) More information can be found on Google.

As a second example, How SEO research from Google will tell you what “People Also Ask”

Frequently, “People also ask” links will appear further down the results page, providing additional ways to see what users are looking for.

This is yet another free set of search results provided by Google.

A few more ideas for web pages and blog posts can be found here. Free things to do in Waco shows up right away when you search for that term, so it appears that Waco tourism has noticed those searches for free activities.

Go to the bottom of your search results for additional information.

At the bottom of the page, look for Google’s “Related searches.”

Here are a few more quick and easy SEO tips.

Every Valentine’s Day, you can be sure that a blog post about “romantic things to do in Waco, TX” will be an evergreen SEO winner.

In addition to the who, what, when, where, and why question-answering model, here is a free tool that returns search results with mind-map-like images of people’s actual search queries.

You can see questions people ask by using the “Answer the Public” feature.

Answer the Public allows you to conduct a few free searches, which is more than enough to give you new ideas for blog posts and content.

One of the reasons this tool is so effective is that it answers real-world search engine queries. Content and titles must be reworked to give your readers exactly what they want.

Search results are displayed in British English by default. Depending on your location and situation, you may want to make that change prior to starting.

Experiment with how you conduct your search on Answer the Public to see if you get better results using single words or short phrases.

The search results can be downloaded and alphabetized, making it easier to find content ideas.

See? You don’t need to break a sweat doing this SEO work!

Please use the buttons below to spread the word about these SEO tips with your travel partners and friends in tourism marketing.

Get in touch with us and let’s talk about how we can help you improve your blog and website.