Google has a new tool called the “Wonder Wheel.” Yeah, it’s a silly name, but it’s a good tool, and when used in combination with Google Trends and a standard keyword tool it could be a very effective way to increase traffic to your web pages.

First, give it a try.

1. Google a term that’s relevant to your site.
2. Click on the “show options” link at the top of the search results on the left-hand side.
3. Under “standard view” click on “Wonder wheel.” This shows different subcategories of topics under your search term.
4. Drill down into narrower concepts by clicking on one of the subtopics.

Each time you drill down you’re finding a group of related terms and you’re getting a more granular perspective on how the term relates to search.

With the “Wonder Wheel” you can get an idea of the structure of your search terms — e.g., how they might fit into folders in a content network campaign. And you can also get ideas for other terms.

But you don’t know which term gets more traffic. That’s where Google Trends comes in.

So you use the Wonder Wheel to get a sense of how Google organizes all the terms related to your primary search term, and to get ideas for related search terms (you can also use a simple keyword tool for that), then you use Google Trends to find out which terms and phrases get the most traffic.

Then comes the hard part. You need to go through this exercise before you finalize your content.

Let’s say you’re writing a story on the health benefits of green tea and you’re wondering what headline will attract the most search traffic.

First you go to Google Trends to compare a few ideas. Try “tea health, tea healthy, tea benefits” and get a chart like this.

Obviously “tea benefits” is the right way to go, so then you google “tea benefits” and try the “Wonder Wheel.” The first set of subcategories looks like this.

roibos tea benefits
oolong tea benefits
white tea benefits
black tea benefits
green tea benefits
herbal tea benefits
ginger tea benefits
chamomile tea benefits

Obviously you want “green tea benefits,” so you choose that one and get the next set of drill-downs.

green tea metabolism
matcha green tea benefits
green tea skin benefits
lipton green tea benefits
green tea benefits weight loss
green tea diet

Does the story have more to do with general health benefits, the effect on skin or metabolism, or diet or weight loss? Let’s say it’s about weight loss, so now you know you want “green tea benefits” in the title of the story, but do you want “weight loss” or “diet” (assuming they’d both fit from an editorial perspective).

Now consult Google Trends, compare “tea benefits diet, tea benefits weight loss” and see that weight loss is the clear winner.

I’m not saying that search results should drive all editorial decisions, but the simple truth of the matter is that if you want people to find your article, you need to use the words they’re looking for, not necessarily the words you like. The headline “Green tea is good for you” isn’t going to get the same traffic as “Green tea’s health benefits include added weight loss” for the simple reason that it has more of the terms people actually type into search engines. So use it as the title of your page and the headline for your story.

And if you don’t believe me, here’s an interesting article about how the Tribune Company used a method like the one I’ve just outlined to achieve a dramatic increase in search engine traffic.