What are keywords and why are they important?

Before I look at the range of Keyword Research Tools that are available it is useful to briefly review what Keywords are and why we are so interested in them.

The simplest and best description that I can come up with is that keywords are the terms people type into the search box into their favorite search engine (be that Google, Yahoo, Bing or anything else) when they are looking to find something on the internet. Keywords can be a single word (such as ‘Camera’) or can be a number of words or sentence (‘canon 35mm SLR camera’ for example).

Keywords are so important to us as internet marketers they are what the search engine use to determine if your site is relevant to the search that is being carried out. So if someone has searched for ‘Camera’ and your site is all about cameras, has lots of references to the word ‘Camera’ and related words and you have optimized your SEO for the keyword ‘Camera’ then Google will consider your site when it is deciding which  result to show first. Obviously there are many other factors that will determine if you get on page one of Google, but if you are trying to market cameras and related products then you need to start with optimizing your site for the correct keywords related to cameras.

Short tail Keywords and Long Tail Keywords

Understanding that we need to target keywords if we are to be successful at internet marketing only gets us so far. This is because some keywords are used so often (by those searching the internet) that they are targeted by millions of websites. Take our example of ‘Camera’ as an example. Every month approximately 83 million people globally search for that term. For that reason Google tells me that there are currently around 1.9 billion websites with the word camera included. That’s a lot of competition. Indeed to much competition unless you are a major company with a massive marketing budget. Smaller internet marketers need to look elsewhere.

A single word keyword, like ‘camera’ is what we call a ‘short tail’ keyword. The are nearly always very competitive and not worth targeting. Instead the best approach is to look for ‘long tail keywords’ like our example above ‘canon 35mm SLR camera’. This long tail keyword has 3,600 global monthly searches, and around 245,000 websites with that exact term on them. This is still reasonably competitive, but if you chose to target that keyword you would have a chance of ranking on the first page on Google, Bing or Yahoo.

The Balance between high search and low competition

As an internet marketer you are looking for the sweet spot where enough people are searching for a term that you will get a reasonable amount of visitors, and where the competition is low enough that you have a reasonable chance of ranking on the first page of the search engine results.

Finding this sweet spot is not an exact science, there is a fair bit of art to it as well. For this reason it can take a lot of work, however the process is made a lot easier if you use the right tools. There are a number of different tools on the market at the moment, but there are two approaches I would recommend to you. First a free method that is fine if you are only looking to set up a couple of websites. Secondly their is a paid option that I think offers excellent value, and will save you hours and hours of research if you plan to set up a number of niche sites.

The Free Option for one or two sites

If you only plan to set up set up a small number of sites, and you already know the topics you want to cover, then the free tools that google makes available to us all will do the job for you. Sure you can go into more depth if you want, and you will probably find plenty of people who will scoff at my simplistic approach. But the truth is you can over analyze this stuff. Some people just go into ‘super-geek’ mode when it comes to keywords. However those people will still be analyzing their keywords and sifting the numbers weeks later, when you already have you sites up and ranking on the search engines.

Keep the keyword research simple, get your web-site up and open for business and see what happens. You won’t get it right every time, but more often that not you will.

The two tools you need for this are;

The simple two step process you should undertake to identify a keryword that is worth targeting is as follows;

1. Identify a Keyword that is being searched, but not too much.

  • Open up the keyword tool and enter the broad tern you are thinking of targeting. In the example below I am starting with ‘Contact Lenses’.
  • The Keyword tool will tell you how many global searches are made for your keyword every month. In this instance you will see that the keyword is searched 2.24 million times a month.
  • As a rule of thumb you if you want to rank for your term fairly quickly you need to be picking a keyword that has 1-3,ooo searches a month. If you are prepared to put in a bit more more and have a lot of unique content on the subject that you plan to put on your site then you can aim higher. However, initially I would recommend you start with under 3,000.
  • If your initial keyword is too competitive, start looking through the keyword ideas that Google suggests. For example, in the second image below I find ‘Naruto contact lenses’ that has 2,900 monthly searches.
  • When you find a suitable keyword move onto step two.

Initial Search

 

 

Some of Google’s related Keyword Suggestions

 

2. Check the level of competition using the Google Search Engine

  • Search for your keyword in speech marks. In this example I will search for – “naruto contact lenses”
  • If Google returns less than 100,000 results then it is worth investigating further. Ideally you want something with less than 65,000, but as I said above, this is not an exact science.
  • As you can see below our example keyword has a low level of competition and hence is worth working on some more.

 

The above two step process will in most cases give you enough to get started. There are some further free checks you can undertake before you progress, but they are beyond the scope of this page. I will be preparing a free report very soon where I will go through those additional steps.

 

 

Advanced tools to speed up or expand your research

Whilst you can get by with the free tools, if you are planning of building a number of smaller sites (niche marketing) and want to speed things up, as well as get some suggestions for suitable keywords, then I recommend you get hold of a copy of Micro Niche Finder.

Micro Niche Finder links directly into Google’s Keyword Tool information, and finds all the related keywords to your main search term. It then allows you to quickly investigate and sort the keywords based on search volumes, ad costs, strength of competition, Domain name availability and the number of backlinks you would need to achieve to rank on page one. Being able to get all this information in one place and so quickly is really valuable and will save you so much time, not only in your initial research, but also because you are less likely to tackle niches that you have little change ranking for.

I will prepare a more detailed review of Micro Niche Finder soon and place it on this page.