If you are a writer or blogger, there is a free resource for content ideas that you may be missing. Whether or not you are focused on search engine rankings, Google stores searches that make for great content ideas. And, this tool, called Google Autosuggest, is free.

You can use it to generate hundreds of article topics in minutes and avoid the frustration of trying to come up with something original every time. It’s so easy to use — just type your topic into the search bar and watch as suggestions appear below!

Find more statistics at Statista

You can also click any suggestion from the list if it interests you more than what you originally typed in. This will bring up related articles from across the web which gives even more insight into how people talk about the topic online and what they want to know more about when they search for it on Google.

These stored Google searches provide an endless supply of new article ideas that have already been proven popular by real readers who clicked them after searching for similar terms on Google Autosuggest!

Just think — all these great article and story ideas are free and easy to get to. All thanks to this little-known tool called Google Autosuggest!

What is Google Autosuggest?

Google Autosuggest is a great way to get the most of your content marketing efforts by helping you find new topics for articles, blog posts, and videos based on what people are already searching online.

You can use it as an inspiration tool or even just see if there’s something interesting enough about one of these popular topics to warrant writing about it.

How to Use Google Autosuggest for Content Marketing:

Type in a broad topic into the Google search bar. Scroll down and look at the list of autosuggestions that appear below the search bar. Click on any suggestion to get more ideas based on that particular keyword phrase.

For example, if you’re a web development company and you want to write a blog post about the best WordPress plugins for e-commerce, you can use Google autosuggest to help up with ideas for related terms that people may be searching for. Simply type in “WordPress plugins for eCommerce” and see what comes up in the dropdown results:

In this example, you can see that more people are searching for “WordPress plugins” than there are for “WordPress eCommerce plugins.” This means that if you create a blog post about WordPress eCommerce plugins and use the term “WordPress Plugins” in your post, you’re more likely to reach a larger audience.

You can also use Google autosuggest to get ideas for blog post titles. Simply type in a broad topic and see what comes up in the dropdown results:

Type in your focus keyword. In this case, we are looking for topics related to blogging. After typing in the word blog, and entering a space after it, I see the following suggestions. Yours might be different based on your recent searches related to the topic. Google attempts to return personalized results.

• Blog Sites
• Blog Examples
• Blog Definition
• Blog Post
• Blog Name Generator
• Blog Post Template
• Blog Ideas
• Blog Names
• Blog Post Examples

Playing Alphabet Soup with Autosuggest

You can also play alphabet soup with Google Autosuggest. Type in a word and then add an alphabet that comes after it. The autosuggestions will now give you ideas for words beginning with the letter you typed in. You can use this technique to find related keywords around your focus keyword or topic.

For example, if you add the letter A after the word Blog, you now are given these topic suggestions based on recent searches on Google.

• Blog apps
• Blog article
• Blog About Life
• Blog article template
• Blog Acronym.

Expanding on an Autosuggest Keyword

When you see a topic you like, you can click the space bar after the suggestion to see more long-tail searches. Longtail keywords are keywords that are more specific and have less competition than shorter, more general keywords.

For example, after clicking on the suggestion “Blog article template” I see this list of longtail keyword suggestions:

Long-tail keywords usually contain 4 or more words used together to create a more targeted search. The long-tail phrases are often easier to rank for and provide a more specific subtopic of the niche. These longtail phrases are ideal to use as part of a topic cluster.

For Example:

You are interested in the phrase Blog Apps that was suggested while playing alphabet soup. If you add the space bar after blog apps, you get these suggestions:

• Blog apps for Android
• Blog apps Free (you can move these words around)
• Blog apps for Shopify
• Blog apps that pay
• Blog apps to make money
• Blog apps for iPhone
• Blog apps for beginners

Checking the Competition

While Google autosuggest is free, it doesn’t provide keyword data. Once you have a set of long-tail keyword phrases that could work for your article, it’s time to check data such as search volume, keyword difficulty, and cost per click value.

If you are writing your article for a platform for social media, or blogging on Medium, and are not focused on search engine rankings, you may not need to do keyword research.

If you want to find just the right keyword for the chances of ranking on Google, here’s what I suggest.

Open your favorite Keyword Research tool. Enter in the keyword phrase you are interested in.

For example, using my favorite SEO tool called SEMrush, I can see that the keyword BLOG has a search volume of 246,000 US searches per month, but has a 100% keyword difficulty score.

This means it would be nearly impossible to rank for the term “blog”. Instead, drill down and test the next keyword phrase that appeared when you did your google Auto-suggest. The previous example selected ‘Blog Apps’.

Blog Apps, according to my SEO software, shows 1300 monthly searches with a keyword difficulty score of 60% out of 100%. The average domain that has a page ranking for the term “Blog Apps” has about 47 unique domain backlinks.

[Learn more about Keyword Difficulty with my guide]

While Google doesn’t use this competitive scoring system to choose which page ranks for a term, there is a strong correlation between a strong backlink profile and rankings.

Domain authority scores can have many factors, but most use the quantity, and quality of backlinks as a primary factor.

Therefore, when creating content with a goal to rank on the search engines, it’s best to choose keywords that have an average keyword difficulty score closely related to your own authority score.

If you have an authority score of less than 60 and don’t have backlinks in the 40 + volume, then it might be best to drill down further and find a long-tail keyword phrase that is less competitive.

In this case, blog apps for Shopify is an ideal topic for search. It has 33 Keyword Difficulty, and 90 searches per month. Since keyword tools are only estimates, you’ll most often see many more searches per month than the suggested 90.

Google AutoSuggest for Medium Writers

Because I blog on the Medium platform as well as my own WordPress website, I thought it wise to show some Google Autosuggest options for popular topics on Medium.

Mental health is a popular topic. Let’s say you decide to write on the topic of anxiety, but you aren’t sure how to spin it. Google autosuggest can help.

Playing alphabet soup with Google autosuggest, type in “Anxiety b”. You’ll get these results:

• Anxiety books
• Anxiety breathing exercises
• Anxiety before work
• Anxiety brain
• Anxiety body aches
• Anxiety breathing tools.

When performing this search, I was surprised how many times I came across words related to anxiety breathing. That could be a great article if you can write about that topic.

Here are some topic ideas:

• 10 Breathing tips to help anxiety
• How to do box breathing to reduce anxiety
• 5 Breathing techniques to stop a panic attack

There are many great ideas to be found using Google autosuggest for content marketing. By simply typing in a keyword or phrase and playing with the suggestions, you can uncover a wealth of information that can help you create better content.

Not only will this help you rank higher on search engines, but it will also help you write more interesting and captivating articles that your audience will love.