As a blogger, online marketer, writer, and a shameless self-promoter, I am always on the hunt for content and ideas for creating online content. I totally agree with whoever coined the phrase, “content is king”. I have to admit that sometimes I get writer’s block or, as I like to call it, “promoter’s block”. Whatever you call it, sometimes you just need a place to start, a place to enter a keyword phrase to get started. I finally found that place, called KeywordSmash!, a free keyword research tool that lets you search every major online keyword research and content source you could imagine. And yes, it’s completely free to use.

KeywordSmash is pretty simple to use. Enter a keyword phrase and it lets you choose a category, such as:
- Offers (sites where you can make money)
- Keywords (keyword research websites)
- Trends (what people are talking about)
- Demographics (Google Insights, Compete.com, Alexa data, etc.)
- Ads (pay per click ads)
- Social Media Sites (what people are talking about on the social media sites)
- News (Google news, Yahoo! news, etc.)
- Discussions (forums, message boards)
- Articles (article sites)
- Images (pretty pictures)
- Video (videos)
- Public Domain (Wikipedia content, US Gov content, Creative Commons)

After you pick a source (or several sources), click on the “search” button and it will automatically find content and related content for you from those sources. For example, I recently used the tool to search for the keyword phrase, “search engine optimization”:

I clicked on the “news” button for all of the latest news on search engine optimization. This way, I was able to quickly and easily find all the latest news articles on that topic. If I was writing a blog post or had a blog about search engine optimization, then I would probably mention what’s going on today in the search engine optimization industry.

Let’s take this a bit further, though. Let’s say that we really do have a search engine optimization blog and want to write about that topic. First, go to KeywordSmash! and enter the phrase. You might first click on the News tab and see what people are talking about. You might mention and link out to other news articles. That could be one blog post for your blog, perhaps even a daily blog post. Updating your blog on a regular basis will get readers and the search engines coming back every day for more content.

Next, let’s do some keyword research to find out about other topics that are related to search engine optimization that you could write about. Check the keyword research for the phrase “search engine optimization” and you’ll see what people are searching for. You might even write about one of those keyword phrases that you find, maybe write one article about each keyword phrase.

Trends are also very helpful for content ideas, on KeywordSmash you can search these all at once, with one keyword phrase and one click:
- Google Trends
- Google Insights
- Blogpulse
- Twitter “twist” (this is way cool, especially if you have a Twitter account like I do)
- SEOmoz
- Yahoo! Buzz
- AOL search
- eBay Research Labs

If you look for your keyword phrase, you’ll quickly see what people are really talking about this month, this week, and even today. Certainly if you’re a blogger then you will get plenty of ideas of what to write about (or blog about). Sure, you could go on over to Twitter and look at the “top trends” and write about something, but why not take it one step further and really do some research to see where the traffic is?

If you’re not actually selling something right now (you’re not an online business or you’re not writing for an online business) then you might want to use the “Offers” search at KeywordSmash!, which lets you search for offers from these companies:
- ClickBank
- Pay dot com
- Aff Spy
- Offer Vault
- Associate Programs
- Affiliate First
- Affiliate Scout
- Affiliate Seeking
- Amazon.com

You first have to sign up for these services and become an affiliate to get your affiliate code number or “affiliate ID”, but they’re generally free to sign up. The idea is that you write a blog post (or an article, or put a page on your site) about a keyword phrase or a topic and then you “mention” a related offer that your readers might be interested in. If they click on your link and visit the site and purchase something then you make money. Some bloggers write all day long and include “affiliate offers” in their blog posts, getting you to purchase something so they can make money from their blogs.

However you end up using KeywordSmash!, I’m sure that you’ll find it useful, just like I did. I have a few ways that I’m using it to help me in my daily marketing activities, and I’m sure if you try just one keyword search you’ll be hooked on it just like I am.

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