Keyword Research Simplified!
September 24th, 2008 | 57 comments
One of the most important aspects of article marketing and niche marketing is keyword research. If you do it incorrectly, or even worse, you don’t do it at all, it’s like shooting in the dark… you might hit something here or there, but most of the time you’re going to miss in a big way.
With that being said, you’d think there would be plenty of good information out there on the subject, right? Well there’s not! The reason being, many people just don’t understand it and there’s good reason for that.
There are 2 steps one must take to researching any given keyword and/or phrase:
1. Determine an accurate search volume
2. Conduct competition analysis
Both are equally important! Do #1 correctly, and #2 incorrectly and you may find that your article or post will never hold a top 10 spot. Do #2 correctly and #1 incorrectly and you may get a top 10 ranking, but no traffic!
The goal is to find keyword phrases, which have as much search volume as possible, with the least amount of competition.
The basic principles are pretty simple and straight forward, but understanding the overall principles and actually conducting keyword research are two completely different things!
In the past I’ve shared a more advanced keyword research method at Coaching with Josh, in the $5 Mini-Site Formula and elsewhere, but most people just end up wasting time and resources because they don’t seem to get it and I don’t really blame them. To really dig deep and do 100% accurate keyword research, you really need to know what to look for… you basically need a few years of experience.
However, you can still do good keyword research, very quickly and easily without being an experienced SEO.
How to Conduct Quick and Easy Niche Keyword Research
Keep in mind, this is “hit or miss” and isn’t 100% accurate, but it’s very quick, easy, fairly accurate and doesn’t require much SEO or marketing knowledge.
1. First find a good keyword tool like the one at SEO Book. Most tools get their data from the same place (Wordtracker) so the data is typically the same. You can also use Google’s tool if you’re more familiar with that, but for this example we’ll use the one at SEO Book because that’s what I use and I know it’s fairly accurate.
Now do a search for a fairly broad term, which is extremely related to the niche you’re researching. Copy and paste every single relevant phrase that has approximately 100 daily searches and paste them into a notepad file. If you can’t find enough in that range, do some more searches on related phrases. Keep in mind, the 100 daily searches figure is for niches sites and articles. If you’re not looking for longtail phrases, obviously you’ll raise that number.
One thing to note, no keyword tool is 100% accurate. Nope, not even Googles! Why? Because what was searched last year, may not be searched this year, what was searched last month may not be searched this month, what was searched yesterday may not be searched today etc. etc… trends etc. They also count searches done by us marketers and other worthless searches that weren’t done by targeted prospects… just FYI.
2. Now go to Google and do a search for each and every phrase you pasted into your notepad file. Don’t worry about exact phrase matches etc. etc. just look at the Google PR of each of the top 10 listings in the SERPS. If the average of the top 10 is a PR of 3 or less, keep that phrase, it’s a winner. If the average is 4 or higher, dump it.
That’s it!
Now, for those of you who are thinking “Google PageRank is useless, why would I even consider that?”
Google Toolbar PageRank is known to be inaccurate in some niches, but when averaging a big group of pages (10 in this situation) the average PR is actually a fairly accurate measure of the overall authority in that long=tail niche.
Like I said, there will be hits and there will be misses, but overall it works and it’s easy!
photo credit: chrisjohnbeckett
Related Posts
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- What is Toolbar PageRank Really Worth?
- Niche Marketing Tools – What I use to Dominate Niche Markets
- 5 Ways to Find Good Topics to Write about Online
- When the Long Tail is Too Long for Keyword Research
- There’s no Secret to Niche Marketing
- How to Make more Money with Adsense
- The 3 “Key” Characteristics of an Effective Article Signature
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24th September, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Hey Josh,
I use your approach and it really works. It took a while for it to sink in, as you say in your post, but once I got it I could/can make sure that all my blog posts or sales pages are targetted correctly.
cheers
Tony
24th September, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Great post. You are right, keyword research is very important and must be done correctly or you can be wasting a lot of time. I’ve used methods similar to what you explained for years and they do work.
24th September, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Josh,
It was my understanding that once we do the keyword research, we should then take those phrases back to Google and put them in parentheses??
Not sure I am following with your PR advice.
Don’t we want to see how many overall sites are optimized for our keywords and if under 10,000 or so, we have a good shot of getting on the first page if we submit our optimized articles to places like EzineArticles (where PR is high)??
When you get a chance and as always, thanks a ton.
Matt
24th September, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Hi Josh, Makes perfect sense although I have generally been skipping the whole competition analysis and just going for the keywords 100 hits.
So, the PR 4 guide should be really useful for me – thanks!
I use google keyword tool – should I be searching using “exact” or “phrase” – never been sure about that.
24th September, 2008 at 8:03 pm
@ Tony – Great to hear you’ve had success with it. P.S. I like how your blog has come along… see you in the forums!
@ Matt – I want top 10 rankings so I could care less how many pages are optimized for that phrase. You can go right ahead though if you like
Look at the top 10 because that’s where we want to me, who cares about #100, or #1,000. That’s the most frequent horrible advice in regards to keyword research out there!
@ Andy – Yep, you definitely need to analyze your competition as well!
You want to use “exact”
24th September, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Hi Josh, what do you think about the links to the top ten sites?
24th September, 2008 at 8:08 pm
@ Diego – I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about. Can you please expand on that question?
24th September, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I think Diego’s question might be “do I need to consider the strenght of backlinks to my competitor’s sites.”
I think your answer will be that Google toolbar PR is a very gross and rough estimate of the authority of a site, which depends greatly on the number and quality of backlinks.
So, while you could take the time to look up backlink data as recommended in Article Marketing Domination, this “quick and dirty” method described here means you do not have to.
Right?
Mark
24th September, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I wasted many years before I got to this level of “effective knowledge”. Luckily I have since acquired more SEO type knowledge. Good info!
24th September, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Josh,
I know a lot about SEO and I never thought about checking out the top 10 and the PR of the sites found there.
Nice job!
24th September, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Couple questions. I tend to read between the lines too much, so maybe I’m interpreting something wrong.
On the SEOBook page, they have counts for Wordtracker, Google, Yahoo, MSN, and overall. Are we looking at the Google column only, or overall?
What does “approximately” 100 mean? A range of 50-150? 75-125? 90-110? (Sorry, I tend to be anal about this kind of thing
SEOBook has some other neat features. Do any of those help in the analysis (like trends,etc)
Your articles are great!
24th September, 2008 at 8:39 pm
@ Mark – Now that you mention that I think you’re absolutely right about his question and your answer is fact, thanks.
@ Walt – Good questions. We’re looking at the overall. Approximately, just about, almost or a little over
Seriously though, 75-125 would be a good range, but you could go even higher. Just understand the higher you go the less likely you are to find phrases with weaker competitive. On the other hand, the higher you go the more traffic you’ll get from those which you determine to be achievable!
For this technique I don’t use any of SEO Books other features.
24th September, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Nice Post. Thanks for simplifying things again Josh!
Ajith
24th September, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Hi Josh enjoy your article I wondering regarding the research tools you mention SEO is one of them and WordTracker is another which one would you suggest is better.
24th September, 2008 at 9:18 pm
you can also spy on competing sites at http://www.seodigger.com it will show what terms they rank for as well as the wordtracker count. this is another great method to finding good keywords
24th September, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Josh,
I think what Diego was talking about and what I like to find out is do you consider the number of backlinks that each site in the top 10 has? I thought that was a huge factor in where you are in the SERPs compared to PR. What are your thoughs?
24th September, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Another great, informative article as always..
I always try my best to implement these ideas and others in all I do online.
thanks man,
24th September, 2008 at 9:42 pm
@Garage-Maybe not so much just backlinks but good, strong backlinks from relevant sources.
24th September, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Josh,
I have one question. Is this the exact keyword research strategy that you use in attacking a niche? I would really like to know how to properly do it and get a good solid system down of doing keyword research as most accurate as possible.
24th September, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Thanks for the reply.
So, I picked a (fairly broad) two word keyword and typed it into the SEOBook keyword search. The first result was over 1000 searches, which I guess would be excellent if I could compete. The top 10 were 4,4,4,4,4,0?,4,4,5,4. In “theory” that averages less than 4, but I’ll assume the PR0 was a fluke.
I continue down the list and the next is 258 searches. Considerably less. I note that most of the top keyword sites are there, but this time a PR3 shows up. This might be promising?
The next 9 all fall somewhere between 78 and 173 searches, and all have PR4 or lower sites (PR2′ start cropping up). So, I assume targeting those keyword phrases is where I want to start, with the potential benefit that I *could* wind up with a not too bad spot for the top keyword (maybe 11-50 or similar).
Am I missing anything?
24th September, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Hi Josh,
thanks for the useful information on keyword research.
I have a couple of questions
1- The way I look at a page’s Page Rank is through the extension SEO for Firefox. However, some pages don’t display their PR after I click on the question mark. Is here another way to find out PR?
2- By reading your article it appears that you don’t put speech marks on your keyword, when searching for competition in Google. Is that right?
Thanks again!
24th September, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Walt, How have you figured out what pagerank of those websites? Is there a tool that tells you exactly what the PR is?
24th September, 2008 at 10:54 pm
@Rick, I use the Live Page Rank Firefox plugin. It seems to be pretty accurate.
24th September, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Walt,
Are you talking about the seo toolbar? How did you get that plugin?
25th September, 2008 at 12:59 am
Josh,
That is a great simple method for determining competition. Absolutely impressive in its simplicity
Thank you
Doug
25th September, 2008 at 1:07 am
You should instal Google toolbar to figure out PR of any page. Once you open a page you get pagerank.
25th September, 2008 at 1:27 am
That’s a simple yet solid method finding quality keyword phrases. I wouldn’t necessarily limit myself to keywords with over 100 searches though. Some keywords with lesser searches are actually more targeted. They’re like low hanging fruit just waiting to be picked.
25th September, 2008 at 1:38 am
OK, so I find a Keyword phrase
EG – “aloe vera juice benefits” that gets good search volume (over 1600) a month and the domain name is available.
So I register aloeverajuicebenefits.com
Given I have that as a domain am I going to be able to compete with strong sites fairly quickly?
Should I also be buying aloe-vera-juice-benefits.com?
Will I get a good amount of organic traffic?
How will this domain stack up against a page of an authority site with the same name? ie Healthproducts.com/aloe-vera-juice-benefits.
Hope all that makes sense – only been doing this a month or so!
25th September, 2008 at 1:48 am
Hey Josh…. Your post has given me a short and sharp way to research my keywords so I stop mucking around with over-analysis and ‘just do it.’ Excellent, thanks:)
25th September, 2008 at 3:45 am
Does the purpose for which the research is being done make a difference. For example, would people doing adsense or affiliate marketing or buying adwords use the same strategy?
25th September, 2008 at 6:07 am
@Rick, I use the built in Firefox plugin search function. Tools->Add Ons->Browse Add ons. It takes you to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox. Once there, search for “page rank”. There’s a slew of possibilities. Or, you can just get the Google toolbar as others have suggested
25th September, 2008 at 6:28 am
This technique has worked a treat for me and gives me over 10 number 1 positions in google.
Jason
25th September, 2008 at 6:42 am
Does anyone have really good suggestions for estimating UK traffic ?
I have a website that gets good UK traffic, but the search terms just don’t show up on things like seobook. In no way could most keyword research have pointed me towards the right answers.
I have experienced, in the past, difficulties with simple words like “vacation”, “football”, and “holiday” which are used in substantially different ways in the US.
At the moment I am researching “direct mail” and similar phrases, but I cannot positively tell what is most relevant to UK surfers.
Finally – an observation which is not relevant to my question: the comments in this vein/thread are so good that I’ll have to read them again, and may be again.
25th September, 2008 at 8:05 am
hi josh,
Thanks for the great post. But i am little confused now with the way you interpreted. Recently i saw a famous marketer using Google Keyword tool to dominate the search engines where he sees the estimate is about 200-300 searches per month and he is talking about product promotion. It looked a bit fine. Now that u said about SEO BOOK tool i checked for my niche keyword phrase “employment guide” which shows 47 on word tracker and 57 on Google Dialy Est. But for the same phrase GOOGLE Keyword tool shows 14,800 searches per month. So considering the fact that i am promoting niche sites what’s the avg search volume i should follow if i am sticking to Google Keyword tool. or should i go for SEO BOOK tool.
25th September, 2008 at 8:15 am
Yes, Thanks Josh. This is a much shorter approach then your $5 mini site system. Will try it on my next mini niche site and update all in the forum.
25th September, 2008 at 9:33 am
If you’ve got the time, this method certainly works Josh, but I’ve always found it so much easier just to write really good, comprehensive articles and get a quick rush of relevant incoming links. Most high PR sites have virtually no ranking on their individual article pages and it takes so very little to beat them in the SERPs just by deep linking.
25th September, 2008 at 9:35 am
That’s a great tip, however, I would stick to Google’s keyword tool as we’re based in Ireland and very few tools like this offer statistics for this country only. And still, it’s more about the common sense – you should never rely 100% on these tools!
25th September, 2008 at 11:22 am
Thanks Josh, that is a very simple method to do basic keyword research.
However, I am still quite a newbie, how do you get the actual PR as opposed the Google toolbar PR? I noticed you mention this in your top picks!
Thanks
Vince
25th September, 2008 at 11:24 am
Little gem of an idea this.
I have a page that I’m trying to rank for the average over the top ten is 3.2. Would you class this as a keeper of one for the bin.
Oh Charles Marriage, if you use the google adword checker, you can select Google uk. It’s interesting to note the differences in the UK market to google.com
25th September, 2008 at 11:30 am
It also explains why another of my site went no where.
25th September, 2008 at 11:30 am
Great post Josh, very helpful.
Do you put the keyword phrases in quotes when checking the results in Google?
25th September, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I’m one of those that just hasn’t gotten it all yet, thanks again Josh
25th September, 2008 at 11:23 pm
A new search term I tried gave me 976 hits for the very top keyword. The sites listed (I am just clicking on the Google link in SEO Book to get to the search – is that OK? Or, as someone else asked, should the term be quoted? I tend to believe very few searchers quote their terms) resulted in an average PR of 4 (all 4′s except for one 5 and one 3).
The odd thing here is when I start down the page and look at related terms there are some sites with traffic in the 200-300 range that bring up sites that are PR2 and less. That tells me – 1) I have a really good shot at competing for those terms, or 2) I am doing this all wrong and have once again missed some wrinkle that really messed me up.
Thoughts? (And no, I’m not going to reveal the keywords
)
29th September, 2008 at 11:12 am
Hi there and thanks for the great Q and A’s, it’s great.
I’m getting better at keyword research with each passing day, and sessions like these help very much.
I have a Q about the minisite itself though.
I read in a forum, that one should submit their site|sitemap to Google first without the adsense,
and then when it gets indexed, to then insert the adsense.
Is this something we have to do, or does it not apply in these instances.
Also, should I link my pages to each other such as 1-2, 2-3,3-4 etc.,
with a copyright, sitemap, privacy and contact etc?.
I’m new and also anal about this type of issue, so excuse my ignorance at this point please.
I want to learn from people who know what there
talking about and that’s why I’m here.
Thanks to all for the knowledge.
Trevor
30th September, 2008 at 8:34 am
I have to agree that keyword research is vitally important. I also like to check out how many sites I will be competing with by using quotes around the keyword in a Google search. If under 5000 competing websites then its a good keyword for me.
2nd October, 2008 at 1:15 pm
This is a lot like your $5 minisite recommends but much quicker to implement.
I like to search Google with the Quotes on also because sometimes you find gems with hardly any exact matches.
Always looking for super gem keywords.
Rick
I only put the quote in front of the keyword before pasting in the keyword to save on my typing time.
Thanks
2nd October, 2008 at 8:00 pm
@ Tony – I use the tool over at SEOBook.com but it gets it’s data from WordTracker, so…
@ Garage Floor – Taking the average PR into consideration kinda eliminates the need, but I would certainly look at the competitors backlinks when doing more in-depth research. Like I said, this is simply a “down and dirty” type technique for quick, fairly accurate keyword research. It isn’t and shouldn’t be perceived as an “ultimate” keyword research strategy!
@ Rick – When doing my keyword research for my mini-sites, yes.
@ Walt – Sounds like it
Sounds to me like you’re trying to shoot something down based on one-time research. I do it and it works, but it’s always hit or miss. No keyword tool is 100% accurate, not even Google’s! None of them tell you which keywords are seasonal, which keywords has more or less competition analysis searches etc.
@ Sophie – 1. Sounds like that means they don’t have any TB PR. 2. No I don’t… the only SERPS I’m interested in are the top 10, so who cares about the rest? not me!
@ Andy – 1600 searches a month is very low. To answer all of your questions I would need to sit down and look at your site, analyze your competition etc. I can do that at http://www.CoachingWithJosh.com/ but unfortunately not here at the moment… too much going on.
@ David – I wouldn’t say the “purpose” matters, but the technique does. If I’m targeting more competitive phrases for a more authoritative site I would certainly do more in-depth research. This is my technique primarily for small, niche mini-sites.
@ Charles – Unfortunately I can’t help you with that… wish I could, but I’ve never personally done any keyword research for the UK.
@ Shiva – It all depends on what you’re doing. Stick with the one you undestand the most. btw, you were probably looking at the daily numbers on seo book and the monthly numbers on Google. Also, keep in mind, SEO book shows results for google, yahoo and msn, while google only shows google.
@ Review FAQ – Sure, go for it… I just don’t like to gamble. Best of luck with your excellent strategy
@ Vince – You can only see the toolbar PR… Google doesn’t show the actual PR anywhere.
@ Dave – Not sure I understand the questions, sorry.
@ Cat – No because I could care less how many pages have the phrase in their title. I care about the strength of the top 10.
@ Walt – I use SEO Book, so yeah it’s ok. I’d say you have a good shot at obtaining a top 10 rankings… thats what it’s all about.
@ Trevor – Whoever told you that is thinking too much. Most small sites don’t even need a sitemap and whether or not you’re using adsense in irrelevant!
As far as your internal linking structure, it all depends on your site(s.) I’d have to see them. If you want my personal help, you may want to check out http://www.CoachingWithJosh.com/
@ Paula & Rick K – Who cares how many you’re competing with? I care about how strong the top 10 are, because that’s what I’m shooting for.
6th October, 2008 at 5:31 am
Hi Josh,
I used this exact technique on my website just a few months ago and after checking the competing websites decided to optimise for the term ‘stock market for beginners’. I am not sure how my site got indexed but it was page 27 the following day! Two days latter it was in forth position on the first page and it has been delivering a steady stream of productive traffic to my website: shortcuttoprofits.com ever since.
6th October, 2008 at 3:07 pm
hi josh in your 5 dollar report you did not cover deep enough about writing articles in a easy way. i commit too much grammar mistakes right from school. moreover english in not my primary language.
any tips or ideas from you ?
6th October, 2008 at 6:06 pm
I’m not Josh, and I’m not trying to hijack the thread. Just a contributor.:)
@Kevin. That’s pretty cool. Can you reveal how you implemented your strategy? Was it just article marketing (how many articles?), or did you also use social techniques, directories, linking services, whatever?
@kumaran. There are a few tools available to help with writing. One that I know of is called Whitesmoke. Do some searches with “writing tools” and “help with writing” and I’m sure some others will pop up. Or, you could try one of these: [links removed - please read comment policy]
8th October, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Josh,
I like simple things. This really does simplify it. I took a class for 4-5 weeks on finding a site to beat and looking at all their competition, etc. I got exhausted. If I spent all that time doing that before I even started building a site, I would never build a site!
Thanks for the great resources you offer and the $5 a day ebook is just awesome for building quick and fast.
As always, I am in awe of the guru,
Rhonda Morin
12th May, 2009 at 11:10 pm
The websites in the area that I’m competing have a decent PR, but they are very low quality. I am sure I can write better content, and I’m in this for the long run. But will it be enough to surpass their Pagerank?
8th April, 2010 at 3:34 pm
[...] a fairly accurate reading of the authority of that group of sites. For more on this, read my easy niche marketing keyword research [...]
26th October, 2010 at 1:24 am
Hi Josh,
Please what do you mean by:
If the average of the top 10 is a PR of 3 or less, keep that phrase, it’s a winner. If the average is 4 or higher, dump it.
Does it mean that you have to sum up the whole 10 PR and divide it by 10?
4th August, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Love Google Adwords for keyword research. I mean, you are very word when keyword research is simplified. It’s very easy to use. Besides, all Google tools are free.
8th August, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Is there any way that I can automate the process of totting up the PR’s of top ten sites by keyword ? There used to be a google api for this sort of operation – does it still go / Any ideas anyone ?
8th August, 2011 at 7:55 pm
The only tool I know of that does it is http://www.hotnichespy.com/