Chances are pretty good that you would not talk to a toddler the way you would talk to a teenager. Those toddlers would probably pay attention to you saying things like “Here’s a cookie”, while those teenagers would be in tune to listen if you said something like ” Here are the car keys.” And in that same thought you would not say something to your boss that you know your wife would like to hear. Well, I know I wouldn’t!
You could have the same thoughts about being online. It helps to use the right words, keywords, that you know will attract your buyers. And you want to be at the top of the pile so they can hear those words form you first.
Take a look at this 2 part process for finding keywords to use in your marketing, that is on your site and in your article marketing.
1. Get on over to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. This is the Google tool you’re going to use to explore different keyword phrases to find one that fits your parameters.
Where it says “Enter one keyword or phrase per line”, enter all the phrases you can think of surrounding a keyword:
stop dog barking
stop barking
stopping a barking dog
how to stop dog barking
barking dog
dog obedience barking
training my dog not to bark
how to train my dog not to bark
train a dog not to bark
Now the tool will give you the results of those phrases plus any other related phrases it thinks you might be interested in.
Let’s look at the Global Monthly Search Volume column results for those keyword phrases. We are not looking for keywords with the most number of searches, we’re going for the lower searches because you will have a much better chance of landing on Google’s first page with those phrases. We will be looking for global monthly search volumes in the 1500-2500 range. You can call those phrases “longtail keywords.”
Then you can click the “add” button for each phrase that fits the bill. you can continue searching if you come up with some more phrases and add them to your list. Take that list and save it to your computer as a text file.
2. Assess your competition for the keyword phrases.
I must stress to you there is more to assessing your competition, such as investigating each of the websites on page 1 of Google using your targeted phrase and determining their page rank, number of backlinks, exact text anchors used, etc. But what we really want to focus on in this article is the number of searches for your longtail keyword phrase. After we locate some good matches for #1 and #2, we can always explore further.
Now let’s return to Google and type each one of your phrases in quotes into the search engine. Then look at the number of search results in the upper right hand of the page. Of course you can try this with any parameters you want, but I generally look for a competition lower than 10,000.
Now you will want to check each one of your phrases that looked good in Step #1 and cross them off of the list if they don’t look good here in #2, And with the more searches there are and the fewer competition sites the better. And if ou keep at it sometimes you’ll find a real winner- a huge number of searches and very low competition!
This is not to say that this is the only way to search for good keywords. There are a multitude of different ways and everyone has their favorite method. This article was meant to give you an overall look at what keyword research is all about in a simple format. But you must remember it is not the only way of doing keyword research.
There are a number of paid versions of keyword research tools out there right now. They all have good points about them. I have found Micro Niche Finder to be a real favorite of mine at the current moment.
It offers the chance to really go in depth with research about a given niche and might show you some real gems of keywords out there. And the really good part I like about it is the continued research and updates they provide. It is a little hard to get use to at first. But with practice you will like as much as I do.
But, Micro Niche Finder even has videos to show you how it can be used.And oh yeah I also need to inform you that I am an affiliate of this product and if you purchase it and discover just how good it can be for you I will get a hard earned commission.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:00 pm
[...] Keyword Research Explained In Simple Terms | New Breed Marketer5 hours ago by admin Chances are pretty good that you would not talk to a toddler the way you would talk to a teenager. Those toddlers would probably pay attention to you saying. [...]
October 31st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Yes lots of different ways to generate the keywords but nice tutorial to help people get started.
October 31st, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Good post to explaining the keyword research in more simple terms. Keyword research is important but for many difficult and time consuming.
Thanks for making it more simple.
Fred
October 31st, 2009 at 10:41 pm
This is a great explanation about finding good keywords. It’s not hard to do, but it can take time and with a little luck you might find a golden keyword.
Your right, we need to find the right keywords that people are using, and not just what we think they are using, as those two things can be really different at times.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:08 pm
A great post as always, Andre – and you bring up a great point. Worry more about how many searches are done rather than how much competition their is for the keyword phrase.
While we all want terms that are heavily searched but underserviced, the reality is very few still exist, and as the internet grows they’ll be fewer and further between.
Importantly, very few people throwing the pages up online know how to market those pages effectively for SEO purposes, so as long as you’re targeting more of the long-tail keywords you shouldn’t need that much effort to rank your sites ahead of most of those already targeting those keyword phrases.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:24 pm
I find it hard to adopt keywords on my blog. I felt like I’m not making any sense. Perhaps I don’t truly understand how it works. Anyway, thanks for the enlightenment you have given here. Back to the drawing board once again.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:12 am
Thinks for helping to make Keyword Research simpler. Very straight forward way of explaining 2 aspects of SEO.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Great post. Keyword research is necessary to rank well but many people don’t do it or don’t do it well. You’ve outlined it clear easy to follow steps.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Nice post, very informative. I wrote about an awesome keyword tool called Micro Niche Finder Please visit my Micro Niche Finder Review It is a must have tool for anyone wanting to rank highly in search engines. Thanks
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