Brainstorming Keywords? Try Google Sets.

If you’re anything like me, you’re always looking for new ways to brainstorm potential keywords. I come up with my own list of terms that I think might be suitable; I ask my friends, coworkers and husband for what they might use to search for different products and services; I pinpoint longtail keywords by using the auto suggest feature in Google’s search box; I use various keyword tools for their related keywords function, and so on and so forth – but I always want more.

Being the self-proclaimed Queen of Keywords that I am, I was surprised when I stumbled across a Google tool that I hadn’t seen before: Google Sets. Apparently Google Sets is one of the first applications created in the Google Labs and it was made to help identify “groups of related items on the web and uses that information to predict relationships between items.” Well that sounds cool, let’s give it a whirl!

Since I wanted to know what the “kids” are into these days, I typed in two popular tweens, Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus, and giddily clicked “Large Set” to get all the related words on the interwebs:

As you can see, many other teen-worshiped celebs pop up such as Hilary Duff and Zac Efron. Given all we know about Lindsay Lohan, I don’t know that she’s the best role model for today’s youth, but I digress.

For pure brainstorming purposes, this is a great tool to add into the rotation to really expand your list before you start the process of validating those keywords.

A Note About Content

Even if you discovered a lot of great keywords using Google Sets or any other keyword tool and are ready to use them, take a moment to assess the content on your current site. Does the text on your website contain these new keyword discoveries? That’s great if it does, but highly unlikely. If you’re going to target some new keywords for your site, please, please, please don’t forget to expand and tweak your content to include those keywords. Search engines need to see the keywords reflected in both the on-page SEO elements AND the content on your site.

So have I just been living under a rock these past years? Are you guys already using Google Sets? Let’s discuss!