Keywords for Beginners [2]
As I said in my last post, Keywords for Beginners I jumped the gun a bit showing you the keyword tools, but didn’t want you to feel overwhelmed by all the information without, showing that there are ways to significantly reduce the work needed to do good keyword research.
Just one thing that I didn’t mention last time. The search engines recognize singular and plural, so keyword, and keywords are two separate words to them.
That said, I wanted to show you a couple of more ways to and find some more keywords.
Let’s get started by entering our keyword into Google. On the left side of Googles results page you will see the wonder wheel.
When you click on it you will get the following pages, they are Googles suggested related searches.
Another place to find keywords is at the bottom of Googles results page.
Ok, so hopefully you have a very long list of keywords, some people more organized than me create Excel spread sheets to keep all the data together.
You could go to Traffic Travis right now and start entering in your keywords to check out if they are viable, but I’m going to take it a step further. Go back to Google External Adwords Tool.
First I want to add a column called estimated average CPC
There are a few things to look at in the image below.
First the difference between Exact and Broad Matches. An exact match is you guessed it exact. A broad Match uses any combination of the words in your keyword phrase, and the individual words by themselves. I am going to use exact.
Second is the competition.
Third is Global Monthly Search Volume, and the last is Average CPC.
While judging competition from the keywords tool isn’t the best way to do it. It does give you an idea of how many pages are competing for that keyword. You could have very high competition for a keyword, but the pages have not been optimized for it. Conversely, the competition may be low for a particular keyword, but the pages are highly optimized. That’s why we use a tool like Traffic Travis.
By looking at the Global Monthly Search Volume for Yoga Clothes, we can see that has 33 100 searches, also the Estimated Average CPC is $1.49 (which means someone is willing to pay for advertising on that keyword) . Take a look at Cotton Yoga Clothes just below. The Search Volume is only 170, and the CPC is $0.05.
Yoga Clothes is worth further investigation, Cotton Yoga Clothes is not. Remember even if you get the number one spot in Google, you still only get about 40% of the clicks.
So lets take our list that we have reduced and go to Traffic Travis. This is the free download link if you don’t have it already.
What we are looking for here is to see if we can rank easily for the keyword we chose. Low PR, low domain age, not to many back links. Don’t worry about the total back links for Zappos, Nike, Amazon, etc. Those are going to be very high. What we are looking for are websites that are ranking in the top 10 that are not well optimized, possibly an affiliate site that someone didn’t do a very good job optimizing. Which you will see by the number of X’s.
As you can see in this image, it would be easier to rank for the keyword plus size yoga clothes.
I just made a quick 2 min. video. Please take a look at how I am now on the first page of Google for the keyword “Keywords for Beginners” with very little effort in a few days. I think this video will clarify what keywords not to go after, and this is one of them.
Keyword Research for Beginners Video Click on the Back < button to get back to this post.
I hope you enjoyed this post. Please leave a comment, and share with my cool new share buttons.
Thanks,
Neil
Photo Credit : Salvatore Vuono
Hi Neil,
I definitely liked your posts about keyword research, very helpful. And congratulations to your first video, it supports the written stuff pretty well !
Thanks for sharing and take care
Oliver
Oliver Tausend recently posted..Are You Able To Say “No” To People Questions- Only Questions
Hi Oliver,
It’s funny I used Jing for the still images that I was putting in my posts,
then discovered you can do video on it too. It was there all the time.
Thanks
Neil
Hey Neil,
You have definitely done your homework on this one. Kudos to you! Targeting the right keywords is something that usually takes a little bit of time to find them, but it’s well worth it when you do.
Thanks for sharing this…
Jerome Ratliff
Jerome Ratliff recently posted..Is Old School Network Marketing Dead
Hey Jerome,
Thanks a lot. I think that once you understand the basic reasons why to do keyword research,
and the benefits of doing it, you will realize how important it is to your online success.
Take care,
Neil
Again, some more excellent keyword tutorials Neil.
I think you should be putting together your own product.
Peter Fuller MBA recently posted..Does Your Home Business Make You Feel Uncomfortable
Hey Peter,
Great minds.. I was thinking the same thing
At some point I may bring it all together as an E-book, or mini course.
Thanks,
Neil
Neil this is good stuff man you are going have change the name to master to newbie one day.
You are offering a pile of value love it.
The wonderwheel is great for finding content as well keep up the great work.
Steve Shoemaker
Haaa, I have a long way to go still Steve, but have definitely learned quite a lot.
The great thing is that I enjoy learning SEO (geek alert !), and sharing what I’ve learned.
Neil
Great post Neil! Keywords are like this elusive thing that I know I need to be researching but it seems tedious and time consuming. Thanks for simplifying it for me!
I’d like to ask, do you have information on using keywords with a high KEI ranking?(It’s the ratio between the monthly searches and the competition.) I’ve heard that a high KEI can give you a better chance of ranking for those keywords, but I’d love to know your experience.
Thanks for the information and for simplifying a complicated subject!
Heather
Heather C Stephens recently posted..The No Traffic Obstacle- A Beginning Bloggers Guide to Get Over It!
Hi Heather,
Like you said KEI or Keyword Effectiveness Indicator uses competition in the formula, but does not take into account the strength of the competition.
In my opinion that is a major piece of the puzzle that is missing with KEI. You could have very high competition for a keyword, but the pages that you are competing for, have not been optimized for it.
Conversely, the competition may be low for a particular keyword, but the pages are highly optimized.
That’s why I use a tool like Traffic Travis.
Thanks for the great question, here’s a couple of resources you can look at to clarify KEI further.
Jenny Stradling @ SEO gurl talk http://seogurltalk.blogspot.com/2010/03/seo-definition-of-day-kei.html
SEO Round Table Forum http://forums.seroundtable.com/showthread.php?t=1552 and
Digital Point Forum http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=712982 check out the four comments by l3vi
Take care,
Neil
Hi Neil,
You’ve gotten very specific once again. I have to agree with Peter. You could be selling this stuff easy.
Awesome post!
Susanna
P.S. I checked out your video. You did a great job! Congrats on your fist video. You’re rockin & rollin’!
Susanna Hess recently posted..Time Is Running Out! Save Your Spot In The “Blogging Giveaway” Today!
Hello Susanne,
I wanted to get as much basic information in as possible, without going too overboard.
Thanks for the words of encouragement. I think I may put it all together at some point, then I won’t have to worry about the length of my posts
It’s a difficult balance to achieve, getting enough information in your posts, and making them too long.
The video was just a little tester, thanks for watching it and commenting.
Take care,
Neil
Hi Neil,
Wow, awesome post as usual! This is very helpful.
I enjoyed your video too. Well done!!
Keep them coming!
All the best,
Mavis Nong
Mavis Nong recently posted..Mavis Nong Invites ALL Bloggers…
Hey Mavis,
Thanks so much for your continued support.
I really appreciate it
Neil
Hi Neil great and relevant content – wish I had the patience to be more disciplined in this whole keyword research and appreciation deal!
Cheers Kiaran
kiaran recently posted..Your First Steps To Branding you Inc
Hi Kiaran,
My biggest thing was, what keywords should I be targeting ?
A good start is to think of what words you would search for if you wanted to find the information on your blog.
Thanks,
Neil
Hi Neil,
Excellent information! All this SEO stuff is still Greek to me but you did a fantastic job shedding some more light on it. I forgot I had Traffic Travis. Thanks for the reminder!
Have an awesome week!
Ilka
Ilka Flood recently posted..Do Dogs Love Bones Are You Settling for Less in Your MLM Network Marketing Business
Hi Ilka,
A few months ago I had SEO written on a piece of paper on my desk because I was always forgetting what it meant. LOL
It does seem a bit confusing at first, but slowly starts to make sense, and the pieces start coming together.
You already have Traffic Travis Downloaded so why not take a few minutes, and take it for a spin.
I’m glad my post was helpful.
Neil
Every time I read a new post from you, Neil, I am more and more impressed.
You have a great grasp of so many different aspects of keyword research!
I am glad you mentioned profitability – this is something that is missed by so many marketers.
Keep them coming!
Ana Hoffman
Ana | Traffic Generation Cafe recently posted..How To Rank Well For Your Inner Pages
Hi Ana,
Coming from you that is indeed a great compliment. Thank You !!
Keyword research can be frustrating at times, but if you don’t at least start you will never learn it.
I’ve seen comments by bloggers saying that they write for people,
that’s great, but if the people can’t find you, then all your great content are not being read.
Social media is great. I notice when I do it, I get more visitors, but when I don’t my visitor volume drops.
SEO provides a constant stream of visitors even if I do nothing that day.
Thanks again,
Neil
Neil,
I really enjoy your tips, all full of value.
I have to pay more attention to tips like these. Even though I can get 10,000+ hits on my blog but not it is not as “profitable” as I would like it to be.
Tips like these and Ana’s tips is what can really help turn things around.
Thanks for the value.
Tommy D.
Tommy DiPietro | MLM Prospecting Hero recently posted..Five Ways To SEO My MLM Sales Strategies for the Home Business Owner WordPress Blog – Part 2
Hey Tommy,
I’m glad your finding my posts useful.
If you need anything, give me a shout.
Thanks,
Neil
Getting useful keywords that can improve your site performance can be very tedious. The process itself from the very start can also be very tricky if you don’t really know what you’re doing. But once you’ve get into it and master it, everything will be easy and you can rip off benefits from it.
Cole Stan recently posted..Present Culinary Delights With Food Gift Baskets
Hi Cole and welcome
You are right about tedious. I think that’s why some people don’t do a very good job of it.
We all tend to want to get up a site and post asap, so neglect the things that will benefit us in the long run.
Thanks for the comment
Maybe a big factor of it is that many people think that working online is very easy. Meaning, just like what you’ve said, they build a site and post something on it then booooooommmmmm! They will earn money afterwards. Sadly, it isn’t simple as that.
Cole Stan recently posted..Anniversary Gifts for Men – Rock His World with These Romantic Gifts
Neil, Is the Google ad-words tool giving accurate data’s because when i compared word tracker with google adwords tool a lot of difference is there in the global search.Please advice
James
James Fulton recently posted..Adequan Canine Review
Hi James,
Unfortunately I don’t know what’s up with Google adwords. Since they changed to the new tool the global search is giving out different data than the old one.
I think this has also affected the other keyword tools, since they get data from Google among other search engines.
Keywords that were once good to go after, are now a lot harder.
With my sites I’m sticking to the data I already have from the old tool and using it, seeing what I rank for, and then focusing on the winners to get them higher in the rankings.
Looks like you already mastered keyword researching! I’m thankful that you actually provided a detailed keyword tutorial here. It seems like Google Adwords Keyword tool is still the number 1 choice of people working online for keyword research.
Cole Stan recently posted..Great Gifts For 50th Wedding Anniversary