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Google Told Me How To Build A 5-Figure Asset
Sometimes it really is this simple.
It sucks to wonder whether anyone cares what you have to say.
If you’ve heard about this whole niche blogging side hustle, then fair warning: you’re going to deal with that uncertainty all the time.
I sure did. I spent months writing heartfelt and frankly good posts that reached next to nobody.
The problem? They just weren’t in demand.
The biggest issue wasn’t the hours down the drain. It was the feeling that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and I was too colorblind to see which direction it pointed.
Then I learned something that blew my newbie mind:
Google tells you exactly what people want to know.
That is, if you know how to ask.
Here’s the exact technique I used to gain traction with a site that now earns $600+ per month, and would conservatively sell for $20k.
(Not that I’m about to part with it!)
It’s impossible to say who invented this technique. Certainly not I. But I did find a few ways to use it efficiently.
The big idea
You know how Google tries to complete your thoughts?
Well, those autocomplete predictions are based on your past search history plus what others are already looking for.
Remember, Google wants to make it really easy to find what you’re looking for. If they can see it coming and save a few keystrokes, then you’ll be on their results page that much sooner.
Here’s the Google autocomplete “alphabet soup” method in brief:
- Use autocomplete predictions to get a sense of what’s in demand
- Play with wildcards and prompts to get even more ideas
- When a prediction makes sense for you, peruse the search results and see whether there are gaps to fill
- Repeat this a gazillion times
A basic example Google alphabet soup
For illustrative purposes, say I’m looking for ideas about standing desks for a brand-new site.
First, a few notes:
- These are not necessarily the most common queries, but they usually have at least some search volume.
- I’m in incognito mode since I don’t want my own history to guide Google’s recommendations.
- You can follow along by doing the same, but your results will still vary due to timing, region, etc.
Clearly, Google thinks I’m going shopping. If I wanted to write a buyer’s guide, then topics like “The Best Standing Desks At Costco” or “How To Choose An Adjustable Standing Desk” are probably in demand.
But those should be competitive. Unless the results are astonishingly weak, my new site won’t be able to compete.
Fortunately, autocomplete makes it easier to drill down. For starters, I can put a wildcard or a single letter at any point around my seed phrase of “standing desk.”
These are still product-centric searches. Users are close to buying an expensive product, which means affiliate commissions are imminent, which means competition tends to be high. Someone who knows the niche might see opportunities I don’t, but let’s steer these predictions toward easier, information topics.
Digging deeper
We can build on this technique to add a question word and a wildcard:
Now we’re getting into low-competition, information territory. That’s exactly where new publishers should start!
Evaluating the results
“How to unlock a standing desk” seems like a useful thing to cover, so let’s enter that query.
What stands out?
- There’s a featured snippet. I don’t know whether the answer is right, since this isn’t my real niche. But if it’s off the mark, then I could write a better answer to win that coveted spot.
- Only a couple of text results have relevant titles, so there’s a decent chance that a highly relevant article could rank. The first text result after the snippet is actually off-topic (it barely discusses the title), so it’s starting to look like an opportunity.
- There are several video results, and they outrank most text results. Before writing this, I’d think about why. Maybe Google thinks users prefer video, which is entirely possible and increasingly common these days. Maybe most text results aren’t that great (as mentioned above), so the videos are just more relevant.
The idea is to go through this process on topics where you actually have subject matter expertise.
Then do it again, and again, and again…
Keep inserting different prompts and words into the search bar, and your suggestions will grow exponentially. You can even use prompts around your previous suggestions!
Final thoughts
There’s no magic here, it doesn’t replace expertise or common sense, and it certainly doesn’t guarantee a hit.
But a lot of SEO success comes down to doing simple things consistently and efficiently for a very long time.
And by repeating this process through the lens of my own expertise, I’ve found upward of a hundred low-competition topics that generate thousands of monthly views and might not have come to mind otherwise.
Good luck!
